6 THE CHERRIES OF NEW YORK 



and epilepsy. The astringent leaves and bark, or extracts from them, 

 were much used by the ancients in medicine and are stiU more or less 

 employed both as home remedies and in the practice of medicine as mild 

 tonics and sedatives. One of the active chemicals of the leaf, seed 

 and bark is hydrocyanic acid to which is largely due the peculiar odor of 

 these structures. A gum is secreted from the trvmks of cherry trees, 

 known in commerce as cerasin, which has some use in medicine and in 

 various trades as well, especially as a substitute and as an adulterant of 

 gum arabic. 



At least three cultivated cherry trees produce wood of considerable 

 value. The wood of the cherry is hard, close-grained, solid, durable, a 

 handsome pale red, or brown tinged with red. Prunus avium, the Sweet 

 Cherry, furnishes a wood which, if stifficient care be taken to season it, is 

 of much value in cabinet-making and for the manttfacture of musical 

 instruments. Prunus mahaleb is a much smaller tree than the former but 

 its wood, as much as there is of it, is even more valuable, being very hard 

 and fragrant and dark enough in color to take on a beautiful mahogany- 

 like polish. In France the wood of the Mahaleb cherry is held in high 

 esteem, under the name Bois de St. Lucie, in cabinet-making and for toys, 

 canes, handles and especially for the making of tobacco pipes. In Japan 

 the wood of Prunus pseudocerasus is said to be in great demand for 

 engraving and in making the blocks used in printing cloth and waU-paper. 

 In America the wood of the orchard species of cherries is seldom used for 

 domestic purposes, that of the wild species being so much more cheaply 

 obtainable and serving aU purposes quite as well. 



To people who know it only for its fruit, the cherry does not appear 

 particularly desirable as an ornamental. But wild and cultivated cherries 

 furnish many beautiftil trees in a genus peculiar for the beauty of its species. 

 The color and abundance of the flowers, fruits and leaves of the cultivated 

 cherries and the fact that they are prolific of forms with double flowers, 

 weeping, fastigiate or other ornamental habits, make the several species 

 of this plant valuable as ornamentals. Besides, they are vigorous and rapid 

 in growth, hardy, easy of culture, comparatively free from pests and 

 adapted to a great diversity of soils and climates. Both the ornamental 

 and the edible cherries are very beautiful in spring when abundantly 

 covered with flowers, which usually open with the unfolding leaves, as 

 well as throughout the summer when overspread with lustrous green foliage 

 and most of them are quite as conspicuously beautiful in the autumn 



