VI.] 



LIST OF FRUITS. 



1S5 



spurs ; and great care should be taken in the forming and the pre- 

 serving of these spurs, all the rules for doing which have been 

 mentioned under the head of espalier apple. Cherry-trees do ex- 

 ceedingly well as espaliers ; and, as standards, though they bear 

 prodigiously, the crop is for the birds and not for the gardener. 

 As espaliers, they may, as I have before observed, be most conve- 

 niently covered with a net. In the gathering, too, the espalier 

 form is of great advantage : the fruit may be clipped off with a 

 sharp-pointed scissors, without exposing the spurs to injury. As 

 to the sorts of cherries, those mentioned in the Hortus KewensiSy 

 are as follows : — All Saints, Bigarreau, Elton, Carnation, Croicn, 

 Kentish, May-Duke, Late-Duke, Morello, Ronald's Superhe, Har- 

 rison's Heart, Black Heart, White Heart. The Kentish cherry, 

 good for very little, is the earliest ,• the May Duke the next ; and 

 then come the others. The May-Duke is one of the finest of all 

 the cherries, and is the only one made use of in forcing. If suf- 

 fered to hang until it be quite ripe, it becomes nearly black, and 

 then it is better, perhaps, than any other cherry. Besides these 

 garden cherries, there is the little black cherry, which are vulgarly 

 called merries, by a corruption of the French word merise. This 

 is the cherry of the common people, and is too well known to need 

 any particular description. The Bigarreaus are very large and 

 very fine ; but they require a good wall, or a very warm situation 

 as espaliers. 



266. CHESTNUT.— This is an inhabitant of the woods. It is 

 generally called the Spanish-chestnut : those from America grow 

 to a greater height, but have smaller, though sweeter, fruit. 

 Chestnuts are raised from the seed ; though, to have the very fine 

 ones that grow in Brittany, the cuttings are generally got from 

 that country, and put upon chestnut stocks in England. To pre- 

 serve chestQuts, so as to have them to sow in the spring, or to eat 

 through the winter, you must make them perfectly dry after they 

 come out of their green husk ; then put them into a box or a bar- 

 rel mixed with, and covered over by, fine and dry sand, three gal- 

 lons of sand to one gallon of chestnuts. If there be maggots in any 

 of the chestnuts, they will come out of the chestnuts and work up 

 through the sand to get to the air ; and thus you have your chest- 

 nuts sweet and sound and fresh. To know whether chestnuts will 

 grow, toss them into water : those that swim will not grow. To 

 raise a chestnut-tree with a straight stem or trunk, follow precisely 



