CULTURE OF THE CHERRY. 



555 



or the cultivated cherry, are used when free growing plants are required ; 

 the Morello, when the object is plants of moderate size ; and the perfumed 

 cherry (^Cerasus Mahdleb), when very dwarf trees are wanted. Standard 

 cherry trees are generally budded standard high, on free stocks of three 

 years' growth from the seed, which have been one year transplanted. Cherry 

 stones for stocks are sown in sandy soil in autumn, immediately after they 

 have been taken from the fruit ; or they are preserved in sand through the 

 winter, the heap being two or three times turned over, and sown in spring. 

 The plants come up the same season, and may be transplanted in autumn, 

 in rows three feet apart, one foot distant in the row if for dwarfs, and 

 eighteen inches if for standards. If for dwarfs, they may be budded the 

 following summer; but if for standards, a third season's growth will be 

 required. The dwarfs require no pruning the first year ; but the second 

 spring, if not sold, or transplanted to where they are finally to remain, they 

 require to be cut down, and, if intended for a wall, the shoots should be flat 

 trained by means of a row of three or four stakes to each tree. Whatever 

 pruning is required for the cherry should be done a little before midsummer, 

 which, while it is found to prevent gumming, is also favourable for the 

 healing over of the wounds the same season. The best plants for removal 

 are those which have been one or two years worked ; but as the cherry 

 produces abundance of fibrous roots, it may be transplanted after it has been 

 three or four years trained, more especially if growing in a loamy soil. 



1191. Soil, situation, and final planting. — The cherry grows naturally in 

 dry sandy soils, and in situations rather elevated than low ; but the culti- 

 vated tree requires a soil rather more loamy, which, however, must be on a 

 dry bottom. Almost all the varieties may be grown as standards, and there 

 is no great diff'erence between them in regard to hardiness ; but the earliest 

 and largest fruit is produced against walls, by which the fruit is also 

 improved in flavour, while the apple and pear grown against walls are apt 

 to become mealy. The distances at which cherry-trees may be planted 

 against walls, espaliers, as dwarfs, and in the orchard, are given 890, 902, 

 and 908. 



1192. Mode of bearing, pruning^ and training. — The fruit is generally 

 produced on small spurs or studs, from half an inch to two inches in length, 

 which proceed from the sides and ends of the two-3^ear, three-year, and 

 occasionally from the older branches ; and as the new spurs continue being 

 produced from recently formed wood, bearing branches are never shortened 

 back where there is room for their extension. The cherry is not very pro- 

 lific in wood, and the shoots do not often cross one another, therefore very 

 little pruning is required for standards. Against walls, or espaliers, the 

 horizontal mode of training is generally adopted, excepting for the Morello, 

 the Kentish, and other slender- wooded kinds, for which some of the modi- 

 fications of the fan method (801 to 805) may be chosen. The Morello, as 

 it bears on the wood of the last year, may be trained in Mr. Seymour's 

 manner, figs. 291 to 295, or in the half-fan manner, figs. 813 and 318. In 

 summer-pruning strong growing cherries, most of the laterals should be 

 stopped when a few inches in length ; but in the case of the Morello, a 

 regular supply of young wood should be left all along the branches, as exhi- 

 bited in Mr. Seymour's figures, p. 367, to succeed the shoots which are 

 charged with fruit. The Morello produces a few fruit on spurs formed on 

 two-year old wood, but scarcely ever on wood of the third year ; therefore 



