CHERRIES. 99 
number of wild cherries, however, whose fruit we do 
not esteem, but the birds are fond of it, and they are 
the means of planting a good many wild cherry trees 
over the country. 
Plums, peaches, and apricots are delicious fruits with 
hard-shelled seeds. The fruit is gathered, the pulp 
eaten, and the stone thrown away. We do not eat the 
seed of the plum, peach, and cherry, as we do that of 
the hickory and butternut. We throw it away, and 
thus disperse the seed children of these fruit trees. 
The birds spread the seeds of the wild plums as they 
do those of the cherries. The kernels of all these seeds 
are bitter and contain a very poisonous substance. 
Cherry trees have beautiful white blossoms that 
come early in the spring, and the peach trees have 
lovely pink blossoms. The peaches bloom the earliest 
of all, and u^ as their flowers come out before the 
leaves, they ^\Ta turn the world into a maze of pink 
beauty in <qll^ the parts where the peach orchards 
are. 
Wild plum. 
