THE CHERRIES OF NEW YORK 



CHAPTER I 

 CULTIVATED CHERRIES 



CHERRIES AND THEIR KINDRED 



The genus Prunus plays a very important part in hortictilture. It 

 ftimishes, in temperate climates, the stone-fruits, plants of ancient and mod- 

 em agricultvire of which there are a score or more commonly cultivated and 

 at least as many more sparingly grown for their edible fruits. Of these 

 stone-fruits the species of cherries rank with those of the plum and the 

 peach in commercial importance while the several botanical groups of the 

 apricot and almond are less important, but hardly less well-known, members 

 of this notable genus. Prunus is of interest, too, because the history of 

 its edible species follows step by step the history of agriculture. The 

 domestication of its fruits from wild progenitors, most of which are still 

 subjects of common observation, illustrates well the influences and conditions 

 tinder which plants have generally been brought into domestication. 

 The genus is also of more than ordinary note because the number of its 

 economic species is being increased almost yearly by new-found treasures 

 from North America and Asia, not varieties but species, which promise 

 under future domestication still further to enrich horticulture. 



The plum and the peach surpass the cherry in diversity of flavor, 

 aroma, texture, color, form and size, characters which make fruits pleasant 

 to the palate and beautiful to the eye; but the cherry, perhaps, plays a 

 more important part than the plum or the peach in domestic economy. It 

 has fewer prejudices as to soil and climate, hence is much more widely 

 distributed and is more easily grown, being better represented in the or- 

 chards and gardens in the regions where the three fruits grow. The cherry, 

 too, fruits more quickly after planting, ripens earlier in the season and its 

 varieties are more regular in bearing and usually more fruitful — charac- 

 ters that greatly commend it to fruit-growing people. Probably it is the 

 most popular of all fruits for the garden, dooryard, roadside and small 

 orchard. All in aU, while adorning a somewhat humbler place in pomology, 

 it is more generally useful than the showier and more delicate plum and 

 peach. 



