THE CHERRIES OF NEW YORK 67 



are grown in America. This brings us to a discussion of the whole subject 

 of stocks for cherries. 



STOCKS FOR CHERRIES 



Cherries have been grown in America for over 200 years and for 50 

 years the crop has been important commercially. Yet despite the extent 

 and the importance of the industry and the years it has been in existence, 

 curiously enough so fundamental a question as the best stock upon which 

 to grow cherries has not yet been settled; indeed, though cherries behave 

 markedly different on the several stocks, interest as to which is the best 

 seems but recently to have been aroused. Now there is a rather warm 

 controversy as to which is the better of the two leading stocks, the Maz- 

 zard or the Mahaleb. 



Fniit-growers on one side hold that the Mazzard is the best stock 

 for all orchard varieties of this fruit while nurserymen controvert this 

 view and say that the Mahaleb is at least a fit stock for sweet sorts and 

 is the best one for Sour Cherries, and, moreover, that it is now impossible 

 to grow cherries on Mazzard roots at prices that fruit-growers are willing 

 to pay. Since no systematic attempts seem to have been made to deter- 

 mine the peculiarities and values of these two and other cherry stocks 

 both sides dispute without many facts. Meanwhile, a fine crop of mis- 

 understandings has grown up about the whole riiatter of cherry stocks. 

 It is worth while to attempt to clear up some of the misunderstandings. 

 The first step toward this end is to describe and give the botanical and 

 horticultural relationships of the Mazzard and Mahaleb cherries to orchard 

 cherries. 



The Mazzard, as we have seen, is a common name, of uncertain origin,, 

 of the wild Sweet Cherry, Prunus avium, from which has come all culti- 

 vated Sweet Cherries. It is important to recall that the trees of the 

 Mazzard reach a height of thirty or forty feet and the trunk often attains 

 a diameter of eighteen or twenty inches. Other characters to be kept 

 in mind are that the Mazzard lacks hardiness to cold but grows vigorously 

 and is usually healthy, though susceptible to several fungi, one of which, 

 the shot-hole fungus, Cylindrosporium padi, makes it a most difficiolt plant 

 to grow in the nursery. Trees and fruit coming from the Mazzard used as 

 a stock are very uniform, a fact easy to ascertain in New York where this 

 stock has been largely used for nearly a century. The Mazzard is almost 

 always grown from seed for stocks though suckers are occasionally used — 

 a poor practice. 



