The Cherry Tree. 189 



general use, except in the country. It is obtained by boiling the 

 bark entire in water, till the hquid is reduced by evaporation, to a 

 thick, viscid substance, which is almost black. This is a faulty 

 process ; the exterior bark, or the dead part which covers the 

 cellular integument, should first be taken off, for by continued 

 boiling, it becomes charged with four-fifths of the hquid, already 

 enriched with extractive matter. This bark is also successfully 

 employed as a revulsive, in inflamatory ophthalmias and in the tooth 

 ache: a piece of it soaked in warm water, is applied in these 

 eases to the back of the neck. In the country it is sometimes 

 employed for dying wool of a dark brown color; but the bark of 

 the black walnut is preferable. On a live tree, the celcular integ- 

 ument, when first exposed, is of a pure white, in a moment it 

 changes to a beautiful lemon color, and soon after to a deep brown. 

 If the trunk of this tree is pierced in the month which precedes 

 the unfolding of the leaves, a pretty copious discharge ensues of 

 sugary sap, from which, by evaporation, sugar is slightly obtain- 

 ed inferior to that of the sugar maple. Sylva Americana. 



THE CHERRY TREE. 



This tree was procured and brought into Europe by the over- 

 throw of Mithridates, king of Pontus, when he was driven from 

 his dominions by Lucullus, the Roman general, who found the 

 cherry tree growing in Carasus, a city of Pontus, now called Ke- 

 resoun, a maratime toAvn belonging to the Turks in Asia, which 

 his army destroyed, and from whence it derived the present name 

 of cherry. Lucullus, who was as great an admirer of nature as he 

 was of the arts, thought his tree of so much importance, that when 

 he was granted a triumph, it was placed in the most conspicuous 

 situation among the royal treasures which he obtained from the 

 sacking of the Capitol of Armenia; and we doubt much if there 

 was a more valuable acquisition made to Rome by that war, which 

 is stated by Plutarch to have cost the Armenians one hundred 

 and fifty-five thousand men: we may justly style it' the fruit of the 

 Mithridatic war. 



Botany seems to have been as much studied in early times by 

 distinguished persons as at present. In this instance we find the 

 conquered and the conqueror both botanists. Mithridates, whom 

 Cicero considered the greatest monarch that ever set on a throne, 

 and who had vanquished twenty-four nations whose different Ian- 



