1S70. ] 
THE MOEELLO CHEREY. 
79 
THE MORELLO CHERRY. 
only in its fruit, but also in its wood and in its habit of growth, this 
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Cherry differs from all others, so that in its cultivation, especially in respect 
f to pruning, a totally different course must be pursued from that which is 
adopted with other species. In the Common Cherry the flower-buds are 
mostly produced on short spurs, on wood of two years’ age or upwards, and at 
the base of the young shoots, and are what might be termed persistent, as in the 
pear, &;c. In the Morello Cherry, on the other hand, the flower-buds are all 
produced on the young shoots of one year’s growth, as in the Peach. In pruning, 
therefore, care must be taken to secure an abundant supply of this young wood, 
in order to obtam fruit. 
Whilst the trees are young and making strong, robust shoots, wood-buds are 
tolerably plentiful, so that they may be cut where required. As they grow older, 
however, the wood becomes more feeble, and wood-buds more scarce, being 
generally only found as the terminal buds, all the other buds on the shoots being 
flower-buds. If this young wood is shortened, the terminal and only wood-bud 
being thus cut off, the shoot as a consequence dies ; for, unlike many other 
trees, this Cherry seems to have no latent buds wherewith to produce new shoots. 
This is so well known to all gardeners, that Morello Cherry trees are seldom or 
never pruned. With trees on walls the little pieces of young wood are annually 
nailed in, and a few dead pieces cut out; and in course of time the whole becomes 
a crowded mass of shoots and nails, with nearly all the bearing wood at the very 
extremity of the trees. Such an extreme crowding of shoots is not practised with 
any other fruit-tree, neither can it be justified in the case of the Morello Cherry. 
I have satisfactorily proved that if the shoots are kept moderately thin, allowing 
space, for the free development of the leaves, a far greater and finer return will 
be obtained than under the crowded system; and as the shoots grow more freely 
and more vigorously, wood-buds are more frequently produced, and the yearly 
supply of shoots may be more evenly regulated. 
Morello Cherries are mostly to be found planted against north walls, where 
they succeed exceedingly well, or at least, better than, perhaps, any other fruit- 
tree. In many gardens round London, and in the market gardens, they are also 
grown as open standards, and succeed tolerably well, only that the trees soon 
become unsightly, one-sided, misshapen sticks, through the difficulty experienced 
in regard to pruning. 
The prettiest method of cultivation, however, a method slowly, yet surely, 
growing into favour, and which I hope to make still better known, is that being 
Mopted in some of our first-class market gardens, to wit, Mr. Francis, Dancer’s, 
at Chiswick. The*trees are worked on the, Mahaleb stock, which is far better 
suited for it than the wild cherry, and are planted out in the open quarter 6 ft. 
apart, plant from plant, and pruned and trained like so many gooseberry bushes. 
