482 



CHERRY FORCING IN BRITISH GARDENS. 



the caterpillar will be found crawling on the leaves and eating them. Fumi- 

 gation with tobacco, and hand-picking, are the only remedies for these insects. 

 Ants sometimes make their appearance when the trees are in blossom ; and 

 though they are not so injurious to the cherry as they are to the peach, yet 

 still they ought to be destroyed, by pouring tobacco water into their nests. 

 Till the ants' nests are destroyed, the insects may be prevented from getting 

 at the blossoms, by tying pieces of paper round the stems of the trees, and 

 coating them over with a mixture of tar and grease : the paper should be of 

 a coarse spongy kind, so as to absorb the tar, and prevent it from running 

 down the bark of the stem when the temperature of the house is high — or 

 yarn may be used instead of paper. In either case, as soon as the tar becomes 

 hard, the ants will walk over it, and, in that case, it must be renewed. When 

 the trees are in blossom, it will facilitate the setting of the fruit if bees can 

 be introduced, which may easily be done, by setting in a hive, or, what is 

 preferable, by fixing a hive immediately in front of the lower part of one of 

 the front sashes, and so as to touch it, and having an entrance for the bees 

 at the back of the hive, as well as the usual one in front of it. Corresponding 

 with this back entrance, a small hole may be cut in the bottom rail of the 

 sash, and a stopper or slide fitted to it, through which the bees may be ad- 

 mitted to the cherry-house at pleasure. 



1024. Thinning and stoning^ &;c. — When the fruit is fairly set, it should 

 be thinned out wuth the grape scissors, removing from one-fourth to one- 

 third of the cherries, according to the vigour of the tree, and the number of 

 fruit it has set. When once the fruit is set it is not liable to be injured by 

 cold, as in the case of peaches and grapes. On the contrary, cherry trees, in 

 pots, have been turned out into the open garden, by way of experiment, after 

 the fruit was set ; and the frosts, which damaged the leaves, had no effect at 

 all upon the fruit, except to retard its growth. After the fruit has begun 

 to stone, (which is generally about a fortnight after it is set,) the trees should 

 be watered freely at the roots, but in eight or ten days, when the kernel 

 begins to harden, the quantity of water ma}^ be diminished. The tempera- 

 ture of the house, except in sunshine, should never exceed 60°, either by 

 night or by day, from blossoming up to the time of stoning ; but in three 

 weeks after setting, when the stoning will generally be found completed, and 

 the pulp of the fruit beginning to assume a pale red, the temperature may be 

 raised to 70° at night, and even to 70" or 80° in the day, during sunshine, 

 and when abundance of air is given. After the fruit is ripe, water should 

 be withheld till it is gathered. In every stage of the progress of the cherry 

 in a forcing-house, the plants may be watered with liquid manure, which is 

 found to strengthen their leaves and buds without injuring the flavour of the 

 fruit. 



1025. Treatment of the plants in pots after they are taken out of the house. — 

 Immediately after the crop is gathered the trees should be taken to a cool, 

 rather shady situation, set on the ground, and the pots surrounded up to the 

 rim with rotten tan, saw-dust, or any similar materials, to keep them cool, 

 and in an equable degree of moisture. If, on the other hand, a second crop 

 of cherries should be wanted late in autumn, the soil in the pots should be 

 allowed to be quite dry for a month ; and, by afterwards watering it freely, 

 and placing the trees in the house about the end of August, and treating 

 them in the same manner as was done in early spring, they will ripen their 

 fruit in October or November. Such trees, however, will not !)e again fit to 



