first case are downy beneath, and are completely
smooth in the second. The merises and the
varieties obtained from them by horticulturists
are solid-fleshed, as the white-heart; the cerises
have soft and juicy flesh.

Cherries comprise, then, first, wild cherries or
merises; bigarreans, heart-shaped, sweet, and
with hard crunching flesh; guignes, heart-
shaped, with soft sweet juicy flesh. The black
guigne has long been established in Scotland,
both fruit and name. Cherries proper (the cerises
of Paris and the griottes of the departments)
are round, sourish, and juicy. The morello is
regarded as a griotte du Nord, although its
habit of growth and its season differ so much
from other griottes. The cherry season may be
considerably prolonged by a selection of sorts
with that end in view. There are a dozen kinds
of cherries, according to the probable succession
of their ripening. Many an epicure would
say to them, "Stand not upon the order of
your coming, but come at once." Early
May, Empress Eugenie, May Duke, Knight's
Early Black, Royal Duke, Elton, Bigarrean
(White Heart), Black Tartarian, Gross Guigne
Noire, Guigne Cœur de Poule (Hen's Heart),
Morello, Cerise de Toussaint (All Saints'
Cherry.)

Cherry-trees are not very particular about
soil; the best is good enough for them. They
will do nothing in marshy swamps, and will bear
little, except moss, in cold stiff undrained clays.
The celebrity of the Kentish cherry orchards,
the famous specimens grown at Montreuil-aux-
Pêches, and the lip-inviting baskets-full beheld in
the markets of Normandy, prove that certain
combinations of lime, in the forms of marl, chalk,
and gypsum, are grateful to the roots of the
cherry plant, as to those of most other stone-
fruit. But the good drainage on chalky bottoms
may be also conducive to prosperity. On deep
alluvial loamy strata, that have been brought
down by the secular action of water, and which
contain a little of almost everything, the best
kinds of cherries will show what they are capable
of producing.

As no dependence can be placed on the goodness
of cherries raised from stones, and as it is
almost certain they will differ from their parent,
choice varieties must be propagated either by
budding or grafting. Stocks, on which buds
have failed in summer, may be grafted the
following spring. But grafted trees are so apt to
exude gum at the point of union that it is better
to lose a year than not have budded trees. The
budding is performed in the same way as for
roses, and success is quite as easily obtained.
In these days, when everybody collects everything,
from valuable gems to used postage-
stamps, a collection of cherry-trees affords
considerable interest and amusement. Nor is the
garden-space required, enormous, especially if
the orchard-house system be adopted. By
budding the plants yourself, you regard them as
your own handiwork—your children almost;
and it requires no more than three or four years'
patience to taste fruit from buds you have yourself
inserted. As stocks for dwarf pyramidal
trees you may use the Malaheb (a species every
part of which is odoriferous, the leaves being
employed to flavour maraschino); or, in default
of this, you may take wild seedlings, or plants
raised from the stones of any common cherry.
Stones to be sown must not be long kept dry,
but should either be packed in moist sand, or
put at once into the ground where they are to
germinate.

Cherry-tree gum differs from gum arabic in
not dissolving (only swelling) in water; to
dissolve it spirit must be used: otherwise, it is
applicable to the same purposes, and is also in
repute as a nutritive substance in cases of hard
necessity. If flowing superabundantly it is a
symptom of the sickness or approaching death of
the tree. Wounds in the bark have the effect
of causing the exudation of gum and its evil
consequences. In some countries heavy fines
are inflicted on those who injure the bark of
their neighbours' cherry-trees.

Although we neither pick up money in the
streets nor gather pine-apples on quickset
hedges, we may meet with cherries when we
little expect it. The Portugal laurel, Cerasus
Lusitanica, and the common laurel of our
gardens, Cerasus lauro-cerasus (whose leaves ought
not to be used to flavour custards), are neither
of them laurels but cherry-bushes.

Cherries have their curiosities. The loves of
Prince Cherry and Fair Star afford a literary
illustration. There are people who, after eating
their cherry, engrave the stone with microscopic
carvings, and convert it to some lilliputian use.
We possess an elaborate basket with a handle to
it, sculptured out of a single cherry-stone;
another, emptied of its kernel and fitted with a
tiny stopper, forms an elegant spirit-flask capable
of holding perhaps a drop and a half of noyau
liqueur in place of its own original almond.
Cherries, dried in the sun or in a slow oven, deprived
of their stalks and stones, are an elegant ingredient
in sundry dulcet preparations. They are
the indispensable outside ornament of cabinet
pudding.

There is the peach-leaved cherry, with long
narrow leaves, bitter fruit, but handsome wood;
the variegated-leaved cherry; the double
blossomed cherry, beautiful but barren, in varieties;
the semi-double blossomed common cherry,
occasionally productive; the All Saints' cherry, with
weeping boughs, flowering for three successive
months, and ripening its fruit in autumn, even
later than the morell. There are short-stalked
cherries and long-stalked cherries; yellow, waxy,
red, amber, rosy-cheeked, pale-faced, crimson,
purple, and black cherries. As to size, the hen's
heart (guignier cœur de poule), grown principally
in the south of France, is one of the largest,
being a full inch in diameter, almost black
outside, dark red within, and ripening in September.
But when we see what has been done, and is
doing, with strawberries, we may believe that
cherries are still in their infancy, and that finer
fruit is within the range of possibility than any
which we yet possess. Years ago, that great