136 THE CHERRIES OF NEW YORK 



Elton has been freely recommended and widely cultivated in Europe 

 and America for the past centiuy and probably no cherry has given more 

 general satisfaction. The variety is distinguished by the form, color, flesh 

 and flavor of its fruit. The cherries are oblong-heart-shaped — possibly 

 too much drawn out for best appearance and often too oblique; the color, 

 very well shown in the color-plate, is most attractive and makes up for 

 any defect in shape — a dark red mottled with amber, very bright, clear 

 and glossy; the flesh, a little too soft to ship well, is delicate and most 

 pleasing to the palate; the flavor is peculiarly rich and luscious being hardly 

 surpassed by that of any other cherry. The trees may be as readily told 

 as the fruit, by the unusually dark red color of the petioles of the leaves. 

 The branches are stout and bear the crop thickly placed close to the wood and 

 in prodigious quantities. Unfortunately it has a fatilt which in America, at 

 least, makes it almost unfit for a commercial plantation. Brown-rot, the 

 scotirge of the Sweet Cherry, attacks this variety more aggressively than 

 almost any other sort and for this reason, while its merits can hardly be 

 too highly spoken of, Elton must remain for most part a variety for the 

 home orchard. The tree, perfect in most respects, is a little tender to 

 cold. Leroy, the French pomologist, thinks it does better on Mahaleb than 

 on the Mazzard stock. 



This is another cherry from Thomas Andrew Knight, the great English 

 pomologist. Knight fruited it first about 1806, the tree coming from a pit 

 of Yellow Spanish, the paternal parent being White Heart. From the 

 first it took a high place in English and continental pomology as it did 

 also in America upon being brought here in 1823. The variety is every- 

 where known and grown in America and is for sale by many nurserymen. 

 Elton was one of the fruits to receive attention at the first meeting of the 

 American Pomological Society in 1848, and in 1852 was put on the list of 

 recommended fruits where it still remains. 



Tree large, vigorous, upright-spreading, open-topped, very productive; trunk thick, 

 smooth; branches smooth, reddish-brown covered with ash-gray, with small lenticels; 

 branchlets long, brown partly covered with ash-gray, smooth, with inconspicuous, raised 

 lenticels, intermediate in number and size. 



Leaves numerous, five and one-half inches long, two and one-half inches wide, folded 

 upward, long-obovate to elliptical, thin; upper surface dark green, rugose; lower surface 

 light green, thinly pubescent; apex acute, base abrupt; margin doubly serrate, with small, 

 dark glands; petiole two inches long, heavily tinged with red, with a few scattering hairs 

 along the upper surface, with from two to four reniform or globose, reddish-brown glands 

 on the stalk. 



