148 MY FARM. 



as weU as a constant battle with the borers and bark 

 lice, intermittent campaigns against the caterpillar 

 and canker worm, and a great June raid upon the 

 whole guerilla band of curculios. 



The cherries, a venerable company of trees, have 

 borne the scrapings and dressings with great equa- 

 nimity, being too old to be pushed into any wanton 

 luxuriance, and too sedate to show any great exhil- 

 aration from the ammoniacal salts. Pruning is not 

 much recommended in the books ; yet I have suc- 

 ceeded in restoring a good rounded head of fruit- 

 bearing wood by severe amputation of begummed 

 and black-stained limbs ; this is specially true of the 

 Black-hearts and Tartarians, of many of which I 

 have made mere pollards. 



It is a delicate fruit to be counted among farm 

 crops, and hands used to the plough are apt to 

 grapple it too harshly. Pliny says it should be eaten 

 fresh from the tree ; and it is as true of our best 

 varieties, as it was of the Julian cherry in the first 

 century. It will not tolerate long jogging in a coun- 

 try wagon ; it will not " keep over " for a market; 

 and between these drawbacks, and the birds who 

 troop in flocks to the June feast, and the boy 

 pickers who take toll as they climb, and the out- 

 standing twigs, which shake defiance to all ladders 

 and climbers I think he is a fortunate man who 



