in the Pomological Magazine not to be surpassed in richness of flavour, beauty, and other good qualities, by any, is curious in its origin. The parent tree was purchased in the market of New York, some time in the end of last century. It remained barren several years, till, during a violent thunder-storm, the whole trunk was struck to the earth and destroyed. The root afterwards threw out a number of vigorous shoots, all of which were allowed to remain, and finally produced fruit. It is, therefore, to be presumed that the stock of the barren kind was the parent of this. Trees were sent to Mr. Robert Barclay, of Bury Hill, in 1819; and in 1821 several others were sent to the Horticultural Society by Dr. Hosack.

THE CHERRY-Prunus Cerasus.

The Cherry is a native of most temperate countries of the northern hemisphere. The small black is found not only in some parts of England, but even in places among the Scottish mountains, where it would be difficult to imagine them to have been carried. It is generally said that the first of the present cultivated sorts was introduced about the time of Henry VIII., and were originally planted at Sittingbourn, in Kent. The cherry-orchards of Kent are still celebrated. It seems, however, that they were known much earlier, or, at any rate, that cherries were hawked about London before the middle of the sixteenth century, in the very same manner as at present. The commencement of the season announced by one carrying a bough or twig loaded with the fruit. Our present popular song of "Cherry ripe, ripe I cry," is very slightly altered from Herrick, a poet of the time of Charles I. One of our old English games, cherry-pit, consisted of pitching

was

Shak

cherry-stones into a little hole:-"I have loved a witch ever since I played at cherry-pit *.' speare also alludes to the same custom.

The wild cherry, of which there are a good many varieties, is a much more hardy tree than any of those that produce the finer sorts of fruit; and it is therefore much cultivated for stocks upon which to graft the others, as trees so grafted attain a larger size, are more durable, and less subject to disease. At some of the ruined abbeys and baronial castles there are found cherry-trees, chiefly black ones, which have attained the height of sixty or eighty feet, and continue to produce great quantities of fruit. These ancient sorts are not confined to the warmer parts of the country, but are met with in some of the northern counties of Scotland. Evelyn ranks the black cherry amongst "the forest berry-bearing trees, frequent in the hedges, and growing wild in Herefordshire, and many places."

The cherry is generally understood to have been brought to Rome, from Armenia, by Lucullus, the conqueror of Mithridates. This was about sixtyeight years before the Christian era; and such was the fondness for the fruit, that, Pliny says, "in less than one hundred and twenty years after, other lands had cherries, even as far as Britain beyond the ocean." The cherry is spread over Africa. In Barbary it is called "The Berry of the King."

Des

fontaines (Histoire des Arbres) contends, in opposition to the received opinion, that the wild cherry is indigenous to France, and of equal antiquity with the oak; nor can we help thinking, from the situation in which we have seen wild cherries, that the same may be the case with parts of the United kingdom.

*Witch of Edmonton.

66

The transplantation of fruit-trees from one distant locality to another has been employed by Hume as an argument to prove the youth, or rather infancy of the world," in opposition to the opinions of those who maintain that this earth has existed, in its present condition, from countless ages :

"Lucullus was the first that brought cherry-trees from Asia to Europe; though that tree thrives so well in many European climates, that it grows in the woods without any culture. Is it possible, that, throughout a whole eternity, no European had ever passed into Asia, and thought of transplanting so delicious a fruit into his own country? Or if the tree was once transplanted and propagated, how could it ever afterwards perish? Empires may rise and fall; liberty and slavery succeed alternately; ignorance and knowledge give place to each other; but the cherry-tree will still remain in the woods of Greece, Spain, and Italy, and will never be affected by the revolutions of human society.

"It is not two thousand years since vines were transplanted into France; though there is no climate in the world more favourable to them. It is not three centuries since horses, cows, sheep, swine, dogs, corn, were known in America. Is it possible, that, during the revolutions of a whole eternity, there never arose a Columbus, who might open the communication between Europe and that continent? We may as well imagine that all men would wear stockings for ten thousand years, and never have the sense to think of garters to tie them. All these seem convincing proofs of the youth, or rather infancy, of the world; as being founded on the operation of principles more constant and steady than those by which human society is governed and directed. Nothing less than a total convulsion of the elements will ever

destroy all the European animals and vegetables which are now to be found in the western world."

Several liqueurs are manufactured from cherries. A large black cherry (Merise noire) is used in the composition of the Ratafia of Grenoble; and the Maraschino of Zara is prepared from a particular species of cherry cultivated in Dalmatia. Kirschwasser, which is a cheap spirit, forming a considerable article of commerce, is the fermented liquor of a small black cherry.

The whole of the genus Prunus yield what is commonly called gum; that of the cherry-tree being the best. But this substance, which is called cerassin, resembles tragacanth, (the gum of the Astragalus,) and is therefore improperly called gum, as the term is usually understood and applied to gum Arabic.

There are about two hundred and fifty varieties of cherries cultivated in England.

The Chinese cherry (Prunus pseudo-cerasus) is a valuable new species of that fruit, introduced intothis country so recently as 1819. The following is an extract from the account of this variety, presented to the Horticultural Society by Mr. Knight, their President:

"I received a plant of the Chinese cherry from the garden of the Horticultural Society in the summer of 1824, after it had produced its crop of fruit; and it was preserved under glass, and subjected to a slight degree of artificial heat till the autumn of that year. It appeared very little disposed to grow; but produced one young shoot, which afforded me a couple, of buds for insertion in stocks of the common cherry. Soon after Christmas, the tree was placed in a pinestove, where it presently blossomed abundantly, and its fruit set perfectly well, as it had previously done

in the gardens of the Society, and it ripened in March. The cherries were middle-sized, or rather small compared with the larger varieties of the common cherry; were of a reddish amber colour, very sweet and juicy, and excellent for the season in which they ripened. The roots of the tree were confined to rather a small pot, and the plant was not even in a moderately vigorous state of growth. I, therefore, infer that the fruit did not acquire either the size or state of perfection which it would have attained if the tree had been larger, and in a vigorous state of growth, and the season of the year favourable."

B

THE OLIVE-Olea.

The Olive is a stone fruit, or rather a double-celled nut, covered by a fleshy pericarpium.

There is something peculiarly mild and graceful in the appearance of the olive-tree, even apart from its associations. The leaves bear some resemblance to those of the willow, only they are