C 45- ) 



CHAPTER V. 



OF CHERRIES. 



Different Sorts ; and the Propagation, Planting, Pruning, and 

 Training, of them — How to preferve them from Insects. 



Cherries are faid to have come originally from Cerafus, 

 a city of Pontus, from which Luculius brought them, after 

 the Mithridatic war, into Italy. They fo generally pleafed 

 there, and were fo eafily propagated in all climates into 

 which the Romans extended their arms, that, within the 

 fpace of a hundred years, they grew common as far as the 

 Rhine, and were introduced into Britain about Ann. Dom. 55*. 



* It is fuppofed by many, that Cherries were firft introduced into this country in the 

 reign of Henry the Eighth ; but Lydgate, who wrote his poem called ** Lickpenny" be- 

 fore the middle of the fifteenth century, or probably before the year 1415, mentions 

 them in the following lines, as being commonly fold at that time by the hawkers in 

 London ftreets : 



Hot pefcode own began to cry, 

 Stralerys rype, and Cherry es in the ryfe. 



Ryce, rice, or ris, properly means a long branch ; and the word is ftill ufed in that 

 fenfe in the Weft of England, 



Cherries 



