WILD CHERRY-TREE, OR GEAN. 65 



Black Cap (Curruca atricapilla), and Greater Petty 

 Chaps (Cur. hortensis), two of our migratory warblers. 



The foliage is seldom disfigured by insects or larva?, 

 though the caterpillars of some species of the G-eometridse 

 occasionally feed upon it ; the ends of the young shoots 

 are often attacked by a large black aphis (Aphis CerasiJ, 

 but the cultivated varieties seem more subject to it than 

 the wild trees. 



Though plants may readily be obtained from the suckers 

 which the roots throw up, or by layers from stools appro- 

 priated to the purpose, the best mode of raising them when 

 intended to be planted upon an extensive scale is from seed. 

 For this purpose the cherries should be gathered when fully 

 ripe, and either sown immediately, which we think the 

 better way, or else mixed with earth or sand and kept 

 under cover or in a cellar till January or February ; 

 during this time they should be frequently turned over, 

 and care taken to prevent their sprouting until they are 

 sown, which ought not to be later than the end of Fe- 

 bruary or beginning of March. At the end of the season, 

 if sown in good soil, many of the plants will have grown to 

 the height of sixteen or eighteen inches ; these may be 

 drawn out from among the smaller plants and transplanted 

 into nursery rows, from whence they will, in another sea- 

 son, if required, be fit to be transferred to the plantations. 



The Cherry requires very little pruning, and the knife 

 is only to be used for the removal of a second leading- 

 shoot, or an over-rampant branch. When this is required 

 it ought not to be done till the leaves are fully expanded, 

 a rule which holds good, and ought to be observed in 

 regard to all other deciduous trees : it is then much less 

 liable to bleed or exude gum, and as the tree commences 

 to elaborate its sap and form alburnum, or new wood, 



