C ERAS US, CHERRY TREE. 189 



The morello cherry that is the most common one around Paris is medium-sized, 

 oblong, & very flattened. It's a good cherry, but quite inferior to the true morello cherry. 

 Some claim that it's not a variety, but rather it's the same cherry tree whose fruit declines 

 this way when it grows in areas that don't suit it. However, the fact that it sometimes 

 doesn't ripen until around the tenth of August leads me to believe that it's a variety. 



XVI. Common CHERRY TREE with small round fruit, very dark red, mildly sharp & mildly 

 hitter, late-ripening. 



CHERRY TREE with small black fruit. Large ratafia cherry. 



ALTHOUGH this cherry tree apparently came from a morello cherry pit, I'm not 

 sure that it should be considered as one of its varieties. It has none of its properties other 

 than the orientation of the branches that grow quite straight & uncluttered. It's quite 

 fruitful. Grafts of it take & adhere to a stock with difficulty. Its shoots are long & of very 

 average thickness. The flowers are eleven lignes in diameter. The sections of the calyx 

 are long & denticulated as they are in most of the common cherry trees. The leaves are 

 much less large than those of the morello cherry tree & are held securely on their stalks. 



The fruit is small. Its diameter is seven to eight lignes & its height is six to seven 

 lignes. It's attached to a pedicel about eighteen lignes long. Its skin is thick and dark red, 

 very close to black. The flesh also is a very dark red and not very tender. The juice is 

 very red & retains a little bitterness & acidity, even when the fruit is extremely ripe. The 

 pit has quite a strong tinge of red. 



This cherry that ripens in August doesn't make very good eating. But its color, its 

 slight bitterness & even its tartness make it very good for ratafias & for cherry wine. 



