THE CULTIVATOR. 
319 
THE MAYDUKE CHERRY. 
It is a little singular, that nearly all pomological 
writers refer to the Mayduke as a standard for the time 
of maturity in cherries. 
The ripening of an 
early cherry is indica¬ 
ted by comparing it 
with the Mayduke, or 
it is a given number of 
days earlier or later 
than this well known 
variety. 
Now i happens that 
the Mayduke is (he 
most variable in its sea¬ 
son of maturity of all 
known cherries. Fruit 
of a dark red color 
is often seen on one 
branch, and that which 
is nearly green on an¬ 
other. It is thus not 
uncommon that there is 
a difference of six 
Fig. 93. weeks on the same 
tree. The same difference may occur on different trees, 
one tree being some weeks ahead of another. Hence 
serious disappointment sometimes results where trees of 
this variety are purchased and come into bearing, from 
the frequent lateness in ripening; and cultivators, sup¬ 
posing they have received a very early variety, often 
consider themselves as having been grievously imposed 
upon. 
The two outline figures at the head of this article, ex¬ 
hibit this difference in the growth and maturity of the 
fruit, and represent two cherries which grew the pre¬ 
sent season on the same branch, and within two inches 
of each other; the larger being a dark red, while the 
smaller was light green. They were drawn accui’ately 
from the specimen, exactly of the natural size, and at 
the same time, (the 19th of 6 mo., June.) There was 
nearly as great a disparity in several other specimens. 
The inappropriateness of taking this variety as a 
standard for time, is further increased by the fact that it 
is scarcely ever picked from the tree in a fully ripened 
state, but most commonly while it is yet only of a dark 
red color', instead of black as it should be; and before 
it has attained more than two-thirds of its full size. 
Some cultivators of fine fruit have been astonished on 
tasting fully ripened specimens, at the difference between 
such specimens and those picked at the usual season. 
tender fruit trees, as peaches, nectarines, and apricots, 
that exposed hills, if not greatly elevated, are much bet¬ 
ter than warm valleys, where the frost is not only more 
intense, but the increased temperature in summer tends 
to promote a more rapid and succulent growth, which is 
less capable of withstanding the severity of winter. 
THEORIES TO SUIT CIRCUMSTANCES. 
FROST IN VALLEYS. 
It is familiar to many that night frosts under a clear 
sky, are most severe in sheltered valleys, and lightest on 
exposed hills, where the difference in altitude is not so 
great as much to affect the temperature from the natural 
decrease which always takes place as we ascend from the 
surface of the earth. The tendency of the cold air to 
sink into hollows, or to become cooled more rapidly by 
radiation, without the counteracting influence which air 
in motion always exerts, was finely exhibited by the se¬ 
vere frost which occurred at the commencement of the 
present summer. A number of thrifty young hickories, 
about fifty feet high, stood in a depression which was 
about twenty feet deep. The young shoots had grown a 
few inches, and being fresh and succulent, were very 
ea^ly touched by frost. Accordingly, after that cold 
night, about one-half the young leaves on the tree, occu¬ 
pying the lower half, were completely killed and had 
turned black; while the upper part of the trees, which 
reached above the valleys, remained as fresh and green 
as ever. 
Dr. Kirtland, of Cleveland, mentions an experiment in 
Elliott’s Magazine, where the thermometer situated in a 
valley, sunk during a frosty night, down to 27°, while on 
a neighboring hill only sixty feet higher there was no 
frost whatever, the thermometer scarcely sinking to 32 
Such facts may remind those who are about setting out 
It has not been very uncommon in the history of far¬ 
ming for theories to be manufactured as a sort of apology 
I for bad management or neglect. We see this in various 
ways. A very common one is to account for the disse¬ 
mination of weeds by the supposition that the cultivated 
crop has actually undergone transmutation, and has been 
converted to the weeds. Where such vegetable intruders 
grow and multiply with great rapidity, and by means 
which may be perhaps often concealed from observation, 
it becomes exceedingly convenient thus to explain this 
increase, as well as to apologize for a want of more vigi¬ 
lant care in their eradication. 
Another illustration of this disposition is given by A. 
J. Downing, in the excellent article appended to his 
“ Forest and Fruit Trees of America,” on the Duration 
of Varieties. 
It was for a long time, he observes, a popular opinion, 
that when a good variety of fruit was once originated 
from seed, “ it might be continued by grafting and bud¬ 
ding, for ever,—or at least, as some old parchment deeds 
pithily gave tenure to land — e as long as grass grows and 
water runs.’” In opposition to this opinion, the theory 
advanced by President Knight, was, that all trees of any 
particular variety, being only parts from the original 
tree, of limited duration itself, must all die about the 
time, or soon after the time, that the parent tree dies. 
“ Certain French writers,” observes A- J. Downing, 
“about this time gladly seized Knight’s theory, as an 
explanation of the miserable state into which several fine 
old varieties of pears had fallen, about Paris, owing to 
bad culture and propagation. They sealed the death 
warrant, in like manner, of the Brown Beurre, Doyen¬ 
ne, Chaumontel, and many others. * * * Notwith¬ 
standing this, and that ten or fifteen years have since 
elapsed, it is worthy of notice that the repudiated apples 
and pears still hold their place among the best cultivators 
both in England and France. The “extinct varieties” 
seem yet to bid defiance to theorists and bad cultivators.” 
******* 
“ The apparent decay of a variety is often caused by 
grafting upon unhealthy stocks. For although grafts of 
very vigorous habits have frequently the power of reno¬ 
vating in some measure, or for a time, the health of the 
stock, yet the tree, when it arrives at a bearing state, 
will, sooner or later, suffer from the diseased or feeble 
nature of the stock. 
“ Carelessness in selecting scions for engrafting, is ano¬ 
ther fertile source of degeneracy in varieties. Every 
good cultivator is aware that if grafts are cut from the 
ends of old bearing branches, exhausted by overbearing , 
the same feebleness of habit will, in a great degree, be 
shared by the young graft. 
“ Unfavorable soil and climate are powerful agents in 
deteriorating varieties of fruit trees. Certain sorts that 
have originated in a cold climate, are often short lived 
and unproductive when taken to warmer ones, and the 
reverse. For this reason the Spifzenburgh apple soon 
degenerates, if planted in the colder parts of New-Eng- 
land, and almost all northern sorts, if transplanted to 
Georgia. But this only proves that it is impossible to 
pass certain natural lire ts oi fitness for climate, and not 
that the existence of the variety itself is in any way af¬ 
fected by these local failures.” 
The continued propagation of pears upon the quince 
stock, for the producti m of dwarfs, and the continued re¬ 
production from thet-e dwarfs or stunted trees, is given 
as a reason why the pear, thougn naturally a much longer 
lived tree than the apple, so often suffers by a decline of 
the varieties. 
There are many interesting facts, bearing on this sub¬ 
ject, stated in the valuable article before mentioned, a 
few of which we here repeat, and which we doubt not. 
