262 



THE CHERRY. 



According to the foregoing statement, the 

 Cherry-tree was introduced into Britain before 

 A. D. 53. The earhest mention of the fruit being 

 exposed to sale by hawkers in London is in 

 Henry the Fifth's reign, 1415. New sorts were 

 introduced from Flanders, by Richard Haines, 

 Henry the Eighth's fruiterer, and being planted 

 in Kent, w^ere called Flanders" or Kentish 

 Cherries," of w^hich Gerard (1597) says, " They 

 have a better juice, but watery, cold, and moist." 

 Philips says, There is an account of a Cherry- 

 orchard of thirty-two acres in Kent, which, in 

 the year 1540, produced fruit that sold, in those 

 early days, for lOOOZ. ; which seems an enormous 

 sum, as at that period good land is stated to 

 have let at one shilling per acre." Evelyn tells 

 us, that in his time (1662) an acre planted with 

 Cherries, one hundred miles from London, had 

 been let at 10/. During the Commonwealth 

 (1649), the manor and mansion of Henrietta 

 Maria, Queen of Charles I., at Wimbledon, in 

 Surrey, were surveyed previously to being sold, 

 and it appears that there were upwards of two 

 hundred Cherry-trees in the gardens. Since 

 that time the Cherry-tree has found universal 

 admission into shrubberies, gardens, and orchards. 

 Kent still continues the principal county for 

 cherries ; yet now^here do they grow in greater 

 luxuriance and beauty than on the banks of the 

 Tamar, in Devonshire, where they freely thrive 

 into stately trees, beautiful with blossoms of a 

 surprising whiteness, greatly relieving the sedu- 

 lous bee, and attracting birds."* 



^ Evelyn's Sylva. 



