42 



THE ILLINOIS FARMER. 



Feb. 



[From the OWcago Tribune.] 



The May Cherry, its History so far as 

 we know— Is it the Early Richmond ? 

 The Rural New Yorker set right. 



Champaign, Ills., Dec. 10, 1861. 

 We have, from time to time since the year '55, 

 brought to the attention of cultivators the great 

 worth of this cherry, its hardiness, profuse bear- 

 ing and easy culture. We had supposed that we 

 had made its history and qualities pretty well 

 understood, from the fact of its wide dissemina- 

 tion since that time. We claim no particular 

 credit in the premises, having only done our dnty 



as an agricultural writer, and our sole object 

 now is to place the subject in its true light. In 

 a late number of the Rural New Yorker we find 

 an article under the head of " Westeru Editorial 

 Notes," entitled the •' Early May Cherry," from 

 the pen of C. D. Bragdon, the Western editor of 

 that valuable paper, and which we give entire : 



THE EARLY MAT CHERRY. 



" I have just received from my friend, Hon. 

 M. L. Dunlap, his Illinois Farmer for October, 

 in which he announces to his readers that he has 

 visited James W. Wakeman, " the owner of the 

 large orchard of the May Cherry," etc. etc. It 

 is ihe same James W. Wakeman of whom the 

 writer wrote in his notes published in the Rural 

 July 13th. It will be remembered that I wrote 

 of the Early Richmond cherry — it being the one 

 cultivated by Mr. Wakeman. 



Now the cherry referred to is either the Early 

 Richmood or it is not. Mr. Wakeman calls it the 

 Early Richmond; Mr. Dunlap the Early May, or 

 rather the May Cherry," which is, according to 

 Elliott, a synonym for the Early May, which is 

 the right name for a cherry described on page 

 217 of Elliott's Fruit Book. The question is, 

 which cherry is Mr. W. Cultivating in his or" 

 chard and sending all over the count'^y ? If it is 

 the Early Richmond, as he believes, and which 

 the writer believes ic is, according to Elliott, it 

 ought not to be called the Early May or the May 

 Cherry by any one; especially should it be cor- 

 rectly called by our veneroble friend, so long 

 identified with pomological matters in the West. 

 If, on the other hand, Wakeman is wrong and 

 Dunlap is right in calling it the Early May, the 

 question ought to be established beyond a doubt, 

 and the public taught to call it by its proper 

 name. 



*♦ The writer believes the cherry cultivated so 

 successfully by Mr. Wakeman, and his neig ibor, 

 Mr. Case, to be the Early Richmond, without the 

 shadow of a doul^t ; and he does not believe the 

 Early Richmond and the Early May identical, by 

 any manner of means ; therefore he believes his 

 friend Dunlap unmistakably wrong in calling Mr. 

 Wakeman's cherry auytbing else than the Early 

 Richmond — and this conviction is expressed with 

 the most profound respect for Mr. Dunlap's age, 

 experience and wisdom. 



" The writer has carefuUy compared the fruit 

 grown in Wakeman's orchard with the descrip- 



tion given by Elliott, several times, and believes 

 it to be identical. Elliott calls it productive, as 

 it is ; he calls it worthy general cultivation, "in- 

 dispensable to every garden," which is true ; but 

 he places the Early May in the list " unworthy 

 of cultivation," which is the right place for it, as 

 it has been found throughout this State by the 

 writer. 



A case in point. A few weeks since I visited 

 Mr. Dunlap's and our mutual friend H. L. Brush, 

 Esq., of Ottawa. We had been walking through 

 the vineyard and orchard, when we came upon a 

 group of cherry trees. ' There,' said he, ' are 

 some of our friend Dunlap's Early May cherry 

 trees ! 



' Well, what do you think of them ? Are they 

 productive ? and are they identical with the 

 Early Richmond ? ' 



' Why, you know Mr. Dunlap claims they are 

 identical ; but the Early May I got from him are 

 worthless. They are unproductive and kill down 

 here winters; while the Early Richmond which 

 we get from Wakeman and Kennicott bear early, 

 are hardy and extremely productive.' 



"I repeat this conversation to show that the 

 cherry which my friend Dunlap sold to Mr. Brush 

 as Early May is radically unlike that obtained 

 from Mr. Wakeman as Early Richmond. The dis- 

 similarity, according to the testimony of Mr. B., 

 is a very important one indeed — precisely the 

 same, substantially, as that made by Elliott. 



"The trees referred to were sold Mr. Brush 

 some years since ; doubtless Mr. Dunlap has the 

 Eirly Richmond now ; indeed the writer is confi- 

 dent he has si en it on his grounds ; but if he has, 

 and is selling it the Evrly May, or May cher- 

 ry, he is, in my opinion, committing a serious po- 

 mological sin — and I have a great respect for his 

 venerable self. 



" It is a matter of not a little importance, this 

 question in nomenclature, and ought to be set- 

 tled. Will my friend D. aid in doing it ? " 



Remarks. — We have never positively asserted 

 that it was not the identical Early Richmond, 

 though we believe that it is not that, but a sub- 

 variety closely resembling it in both fruit and 

 tree ; this your readers will recall to mind. 



We have before said that the May cherry has 

 for many years, been known in Kentucky, Ohio, 

 and Indiana, that the first trees introduced into 

 Northern Illinois were brought from Ohio or In- 

 diana, by Mr. Brunson, to the vicinity of Look- 

 port, Will county, about the jear 1850. Mr. Jas. 

 W. Wakeman, of Cottage Hill, procured trees or 

 cions of Mr. Brunson. These trees, coming into 

 bearing, with their abundant crops of fine fruit, 

 attracted the attention of the writer, and in the 

 spring of 1855 we procured several hundred trees 

 of Mr, Wakeman, most of which were sent out to 

 to our customers from the nursery at Leyden, 

 and which we believe to be the first general dis- 

 semination of this valuable fruit in the Northwest. 

 The trees alluded to by Mr. H. L. Brush, as hav- 



