142 CHERRY. 
was considered to possess medical properties of a very 
remarkable and even marvellous description ; and the 
country then chiefly celebrated for the production of 
it was that adjacent to the city of Carthage. The 
pomegranate is now, however, in little esteem, except 
on account of its fruit; the pulp or juice of which is 
pleasant to the palate, and, in common with other 
summer fruits, allays heat and mitigates thirst, but has 
a slightly astringent flavour. This pulp is red, is con- 
tained in transparent membranes, and included in nine 
distinct cells. The tough rind of the fruit, which is 
of a bitter and astringent nature, was employed by the 
ancients in the dressing of leather ; and it is still used 
in some parts of Germany, together with the bark of 
the tree, in the preparation and dyeing of red leather 
in imitation of what is called Morocco leather. 
Pomegranates were first cultivated in England about 
the year 1596; but the fruit grown in this country 
seldom attains a delicacy of flavour equal to that which 
is imported from Spain, Italy, and other warm cli- 
mates. 
155. The CHERRY is a fruit of the prune or plum tribe, 
the original stock of ivhich is the wild cherry (Prunus cerasus) 
of our ivoods. 
The gradual effects of cultivation, as they regard the 
cherry, have been the production of several kinds, 
which, both in size and flavour, infinitely exceed the 
fruit of the parent stock, or wild cherry of the woods. 
The kinds that are best known are the May Duke, 
Early Kentish Cherry, White Heart, and Black Heart 
Cherries. The trees are propagated by grafting (see 
p. 147) them usually upon the stocks of wild black and 
red cherry trees, which are reared for that purpose. 
This agreeable fruit is eaten either fresh or dried. 
It is sometimes preserved with sugar as a sweetmeat ; 
is made into jam ; used in preparations of the liqueur 
called cherry-brandy : and made into wine. From wild 
black cherries the Swiss distil an ardent spirit, by the 
