On forcing Cherries. 41 



It may not be useless to observe, that in every stage of the 

 progress of the cherry in a forcing-house, the plants may be wa- 

 tered with liquid manure; which is found to strengthen their 

 leaves and buds without injuring the flavour of the fruit. 



Treatment of the Plants in Pots after they are taken out of the 

 House. — Immediately after the crop is gathered, the trees should 

 be taken to a cool rather shady situation, set on the ground, 

 and the pots surrounded up to the rim with rotten tan, sawdust, 

 or any similar materials, to keep them cool, and in an equable 

 degree of moisture. If, on the other hand, a second crop of 

 cherries should be wanted late in autumn, the soil in the pots 

 should be allowed to be quite dry for a month ; and, by after- 

 wards watering it freely, and placing the trees in the house 

 about the end of August, and treating them in the same manner 

 as was done in early spring, they will ripen their fruit in October 

 or November. Such trees, however, will not be again fit to 

 force for two or three years to come ; and they should, therefore, 

 be turned out of the pots into the free soil, and allowed at 

 least two years to recover themselves, when they may be again 

 repotted and forced. While in the open ground, all the blos- 

 soms produced should be picked off as soon as they appear, to 

 prevent them from weakening the trees. In the cherry, as in 

 most trees that produce their blossom on the wood of the pre- 

 ceding year, or on spurs, the blossom buds expland first, and 

 next the barren, or wood, buds. The latter continue growing 

 till the petals of the flowers drop off, when they receive a check, 

 and scarcely grow at all, till the fruit is set and begins to swell ; 

 after which they grow rapidly, and complete the shoots of the 

 year, by the time the fruit is stoned. 



To have a constant succession of cherries, from the middle of 

 March till July, as soon as the trees of one house have come 

 into blossom, those of the next should have artificial heat 

 applied, and the temperature and management will be in every 

 case the same as that which has been above described. It may 

 be observed here, that cherry-houses, with the trees planted in 

 the ground, are much less suitable, not only for early forcing, 

 but for main and late crops, than cherry trees planted in pots. 

 The cherry cannot, like the peach and the nectarine, be forced 

 for a number of years together; and, hence, as a house in 

 which the trees are planted in the ground must every three or 

 four years have a season of rest, the house, during that season, 

 having the sashes taken off, is in a great measure of no use. 



HendoUi Middlesex, Oct. 1836. 



