FRUIT CULTURE IN FRANCE. 
151 
A good sub- variety of the short- stemmed Montmorency is 
cultivated at Mareuil (Marne), under the name of Belle de Sau- 
vigny, in sufficiently large quantities to enable five or six waggon- 
loads to be sent daily during the season by rail from Port-a- 
Binson to Paris. A similar variety is cultivated in the Ardennes 
between Tourteron and La Chesne, several villages selling each 
at least 100,000 francs' worth. When the fruit is ripe it is packed 
in little baskets and forwarded by train from Vouziers to London. 
Le Chesnois, a small place in this district, produces Cherries 
and Plums to the value of 120,000 francs a year, which are sent 
from June to August to the station at Saulces-Monclin. The 
hamlet of Prin, in the commune of Serzy-Maupas (Marne), pro- 
duces a good Cherry which is earher than the Anglaise variety, 
and is consigned to the Reims market. 
The Picardy Cherries. — The culture of the Guigne " 
(Heart-Cherry) owes its origin to the village of Gland in the 
Aisne department, after which place the de Gland variety is 
named. It is now cultivated in twenty-five communes in the 
Marne valley, particularly between Chezy and Dormans, near 
Chateau-Thierry. Its early, sweet red fruit is amongst the first 
to arrive in the Paris market. The farmers use the unsold 
fruit for making Cherry brandy ;* 12 litres of fruit will make 
1 litre of brandy. Each tree occupies about 50 centiares — or 
rather used to, for the severe winter 1879-1880 killed nearly 
100,000 trees in the valley, all twenty to fifty years old. 
The beautiful valleys of Fourdrain, St.-Erme, Outre, and 
Ramecourt are celebrated in the London market for the pro- 
duction of good Cherries. Here also the 32 degrees of frost 
experienced did much harm. The Montmorency variety, however, 
seems to have resisted it well. The same may be said of the 
White-heart and Bigarreau varieties, so abundant in Royaucourt 
and Mons-en-Laonnois, since the black kinds proved so unreliable. 
Cherries are much cultivated in the neighbourhood of Noyon 
(Oise). The fruit is collected from small growers and ultimately 
consigned to the English market. The roads committee under- 
take the planting of the trees and the gathering of the fruit, 
from the proceeds of which they are enabled to keep the roads 
^ Not the Cherry brandy made by placing the raw fruit in brandy — but 
brandy made from the distillation of the fruit of the Cherry, known as 
Kirsch-wasser. — Ed. 
