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CHAPTER V. 



OF CHERRIES. 



Different Sorts; and the Propagation^ Plantings Pruning^ and 

 Training of them>^*»How to preserve them from Insects » 



Cherries are said to have come originally from Cerasus, 

 a city of Pontus, from which LucuUus brought them after the 

 Mithridatic war, into Italy. They so generally pleased there, 

 and were so easily propagated in all climates into which the 

 Romans extended their arms, that, within the space of a hun- 

 dred years, they grew common as far as the Rhine, and were 

 introduced into Britain about Ann. Dom. 55*. 



Cherries belong to the twelfth class of Linnseus's System 5 

 Icosandria Monogynia, 



A short Description of the principal Cherries cultivated 

 in England. 



1. The Small May Cherry is the first ripe, and requires a 

 good wall. One or two trees of this kind may be sufficient 

 for a large garden. It is ripe in June. 



2. The May Duke comes in about the same time as the 

 former, but is larger. It is an excellent cherry, and bears 

 well against a wall. 



3. The Archduke, if permitted to ripen properly, is an 

 excellent Cherry. It is ripe in June and July. 



4. The Hertfordshire Cherry is a sort of Heart, but fir- 

 mer and of a finer flavour than Hearts in general. It does 



*It is supposed by many, that Cherries were first introduced into this 

 country in the reign of Henry the Eighth ; but Lydgate, who wrote his poem 

 called " Lickpenny", before the middle of the fifteenth century, or probably 

 before the year 1415, mentions them in the following lines, as being commonly- 

 sold at that time by the hawkers in London streets : 



" Hot pescode own began to cry, 



*' Straberys rype, and Cherryes in the ryse." 



Ryce, rice, or ris, properly means a long branch ; and the word is still used 

 in that sense in the West of England^ 



