56 THE CHERRIES OF NEW YORK 



often representing several quite distinct classes, were forced alike to turn 

 at once to the cultivation of the soil as a means of subsistence. And while 

 in all of the colonies the early settlers must have been busily engaged in 

 the cultivation of cereals for the staff of life, in the South in growing 

 cotton and tobacco for money and for purposes of barter, in the North 

 in harvesting forest and fish products for bartering; yet the historians 

 of the colonies notice so often and describe so fully and with such warmth 

 of feeling the vegetables, flowers and fruits in the orchards and gardens 

 of the New World that it is certain that the ground was tilled not only 

 as a means of subsistence but because the tillers loved the luxuries of the 

 land. 



What fruit better adapted to the uses of colonists than the cherry? 

 It possesses in a high degree, especially the Sour Cherry, the power of 

 adaptation to new environment and thrives under a greater variety of 

 conditions than any other of our fruits unless it be the apple, which it 

 at least equals in this respect. The cherry is easily propagated; it comes 

 in bearing early and bears regularly; of aU fruits it requires least care — 

 gives the greatest returns tmder neglect; and the product is delectable 

 and adapted to many purposes. We shall expect, then, in. examining the 

 early records of fruit-growing in America to find the cherry one of the 

 first planted and one of the most widely disseminated of fruits. 



CHERRIES PLANTED BY THE FRENCH IN AMERICA 



While written records are lacking, the plantations of old trees and 

 the development of cherry culture indicate that the French early planted 

 cherries in Nova Scotia, Cape Breton, Prince Edward Island and in the 

 early settlements on the St. Lawrence River. The cherry is a favorite 

 fruit of the French and the venerable trees that survived on the sites of 

 their settlements when the English came into possession of Canada are 

 proof sufficient that the emigres from Provence or Normandy, fruit dis- 

 tricts of France from which many French settlers came, brought with 

 them seeds of the cherry with those of other fruits. Peter Kalm in his 

 Travels into North America in 1771,^ records the very general culture of 

 all the hardy fruits in Canada and leaves the impression that such had 

 been the case from the first settlements. 



•Kalm, Peter Travels into North America 1771. 



