GARDENING FOR ALL. 113 
fruit-bearing wood; these remarks apply especially to peach 
trees. But disbudding is equally important for vines, plums, 
pears and trained apples; and an acquaintance with, and 
mastery of, this work is one of the most important rungs iti 
the ladder that reaches to success in fruit culture. 
CHERRY.—(Prunus Cerasus). 
Besides being prized for its fruit the cherry is also a very 
ornamental tree, and is much cultivated for this object in 
gardens. 
It is a native of most temperate countries of the northern 
hemisphere. It is generally said that the first of the present 
cultivated sorts was introduced about the time of Henry VIII., 
and was originally planted at Sittingbourne, in Kent. Pliny 
says that the cherry was introduced into Britain about 
A.D. 46, and at some of the ruined abbeys and baronial 
castles there are found cherry trees, chiefly black ones, which 
have attained the height of 60 or 80 feet, and produce great 
quantities of fruit. 
The cherry is said to have been sent to Rome from 
Armenia by Lucullus, when engaged in the war against 
Mithridates (B.C. 74); and the word cherry is believed to be 
a corruption of Cerasus, the name of an ancient town on the 
Euxine or Black Sea. The gum that exudes from the bark 
is in many respects equal to gum-arabic, and is considered 
very nutritive. Hasselquist informs us that during a siege 
more than 100 men were kept alive for nearly two months 
without any other sustenance than a little of this gum, which 
they occasionally took into their mouths and suffered gradually 
to dissolve. 
The bird-cherry (prunus padus) is a very ornamental tree 
in shrubberries, and its fruit is greedily eaten by birds. 
The culture of cherries is not a profitable undertaking, 
unless they are grown so extensively as to be worth while 
protecting them from the birds, or to such an extent as to not 
miss those that are destroyed by them. Where only a few 
are required for home consumption, it will be best to plant 
one or two trees against a wall, where they can easily be 
protected by nets. Isolated standard trees are sometimes 
protected with netting if the trees are not large, but the 
protection is rather imperfect. 
