THE HISTORY OF CULTIVATED CHERRIES
THE ANCIENT USE OF CHERRIES
History casts no direct light upon the period when the cherry first came
under cultivation. Undoubtedly primitive men in all parts of the North
Temperate Zone enlivened their scanty fruit fare with wild cherries.
Cultivated cherries, we know, had their origin in the Old World. But
history tells us nothing of the period when Europe and Asia were
unbroken forests inhabitated by savages who eked out a precarious
subsistence by the pursuit of the chase and from meagre harvests of wild
grains, fruits and vegetables. On these continents agriculture and rude
civilization began in ages immemorial and cultivated plants diversified,
enriched and adorned the landscapes long before the first written
records. Our knowledge of how wild cherries have been remodeled into the
orchard and garden varieties of today--of what the methods and
processes of domestication have been--is, therefore, doubtful and
limited, for the mind and hand of man had been deeply impressed upon the
cherry long before the faint traditions which have been transmitted to
our day could possibly have arisen.
The history of the cherry, then, goes back to primitive man. Direct
proof of the ancient use of cherries is furnished by the finding of
cherry-pits of several species in the deposits of Swiss lake-dwellings,
in the mounds and cliff-caves of prehistoric inhabitants of America and
in the ancient rubbish-heaps of Scandinavian countries. There are but
few regions in which cultivated cherries are grown in which the
inhabitants in times of stress, or by choice in times of plenty, do not
now use as food wild cherries, some species of which grow in abundance
and under the most varied conditions, almost from the Arctic Circle to
within a few degrees of the Tropic of Cancer in a belt encircling the
globe. It is probable that all of the wild species which have furnished
fruit to the aborigines or to the modern inhabitants of a region have
been sparingly cultivated--at the very least if they possessed any
considerable food value they have been more or less widely distributed
by the hand of man. But, curiously enough, out of the score or more of
species of which the fruit is used as food as the plants grow wild, but
two may be said to be truly domesticated. These are the Sour, or Pie
Cherry, _Prunus cerasus_, and the Sweet Cherry, _Prunus avium_, with
the histories of which we are now to be concerned.
Pliny is generally accredited as the first historian of the cherry.
Nearly eighteen and a half centuries ago he gave an account of the
cherries of Rome with the statement that Lucullus, the Roman soldier and
gourmet, had brought them to Rome 65 years before Christ[12] from the
region of the Black Sea. This particular in the account proves to be a
good illustration of the adage that old errors strike root deeply.
Though disproved beyond all question of doubt time and time again by
botanists and historians, Pliny's inadvertence is still everywhere
current in text-books, pomologies and cyclopaedias--a mis-statement
started, repeated and perpetuated from medieval days when to be printed
in Pliny was sufficient proof. That Lucullus brought to Italy a cherry
and one which the Romans did not know there is no reason to doubt, but
other cherries there must have been, not only wild but cultivated, of
_Prunus cerasus_ at least and probably of _Prunus avium_, and in
comparative abundance long before Lucullus, returning from the war in
Pontus with Mithridates, brought to Rome a cherry. With this brief
mention of Pliny's inaccuracy, we pass to more substantial facts in the
history of the cherry.
The domestication of one or the other of the two generally cultivated
species of cherries followed step by step the changes from savagery to
civilization in the countries of Europe and of western Asia. For, as one
sorts the accumulated stores of botanical and historical evidence, it
becomes quickly apparent that both the Sweet and the Sour Cherry now
grow wild and long have done so in the region named and that, from the
time tillage of plants was first practiced in the Old World, this fruit
has been under cultivation, feeble, obscure, and interrupted by war and
chase though its cultivation may have been. Certainly the history of the
cherry is as old as that of agriculture in the southern European
countries and is interwritten with it.
In beginning the history of a cultivated plant the first step is to
ascertain where it grows spontaneously--where it may be found unplanted
and unattended by man. This is the task now before us for _Prunus
cerasus_ and _Prunus avium_, discussing them in the order named.
[12] See quotation on page 45.
THE ORIGIN OF CULTIVATED CHERRIES
_Prunus cerasus_, of which the Montmorency is the commonest
representative in America, is now to be found wild wherever Sour
Cherries are much grown, for it is a favorite food of many birds which
quickly scatter its seeds from centers of cultivation. Nearly all of the
botanies of temperate regions in which agriculture is carried on name
this cherry as an escape from cultivation into woods and hedgerows and
along roadsides. The Sour Cherry, then, is now to be found truly wild in
many parts of several continents. It is not so easy to say where the
habitat and what the condition before the species was cultivated. But
botany, archaeology, history and philology indicate that the original
habitat of the Sour Cherry is southeastern Europe and the nearby
countries in Asia.
After saying that this cherry has been found wild in the forests of Asia
Minor, the plains of Macedonia, on Mount Olympus and in neighboring
territories, De Candolle, however, limits its habitat to the region
"from the Caspian Sea to the environments of Constantinople."[13] But as
a wild plant this cherry must have spread over a far greater area. Even
the broadest boundaries of the habitat of _Prunus cerasus_ as set by De
Candolle show over-caution. Thus, the Marasca cherry, a botanical
variety of _Prunus cerasus_, is most certainly wild in the Province of
Dalmatia on the Adriatic Sea in Austria; so, too, it is certain that
this species is feral as far away from De Candolle's center of
distribution as northern Austria and southern Germany and has been so
for untold ages. It is safe to say that the original source of the Sour
Cherry was the territory lying between Switzerland and the Adriatic Sea
on the west and the Caspian Sea and probably somewhat farther north on
the east. That is, our savage forefathers must have found this cherry in
the region thus outlined, probably in a much more extended territory,
into which it was brought in more or less remote times by agencies other
than human from De Candolle's smaller area of origin.
It is easier to define the geographic range of the wild Sweet Cherry.
Botanists very generally agree that _Prunus avium_ as a wild plant
inhabits all of the mainland of Europe in which the cultivated varieties
of the species can be grown--that is, most of the continent south of
Sweden, and may be found wild well into southern Russia. The species is
reported sparingly wild in northern Africa and is a very common wild
plant in southern Asia as far east as northern India. It must not be
thought that the plant is everywhere abundant in the great area outlined
as its habitat. To the contrary, the Sweet Cherry is an uncommon wild
plant in Spain, Italy and other parts of southern Europe. All
authorities agree that the region of greatest communal intensity for
_Prunus avium_ is between the Caspian and Black Seas and south of these
bodies of water. It might suffice to say that from about these seas the
Sweet Cherry came--that here grew the trunk from which branches were
spread into other lands by birds and animals carrying the seeds from
place to place. The most important fact to be established, however, is
that this cherry has long grown spontaneously over a widely extended
territory and may, therefore, have been domesticated in several widely
separated regions.
[13] De Candolle, _Origin of Cultivated Plants_ 207. 1885.
THE CHERRY IN GREECE; THE FIRST RECORD OF CULTURE AND THE NAME
Having established the habitats of the two cultivated cherries we may
next ask when and where their cultivation began. The domestication of
plants probably began in China--certainly Chinese agriculture long
antedates that of any other nation now in existence of which we have
records. Agriculture in China, historians roughly approximate, goes back
4,000 years. But while the Chinese have many other species of cherry, as
we have seen, some of which may be said to be partially domesticated,
_Prunus cerasus_ and _Prunus avium_ are not found wild in China and were
only in recent years introduced there as cultivated plants. Neither does
the cherry of our civilization seem to have been known in the second
great agricultural region of the world--Egypt and the extreme southwest
of Asia. At least there are no words for the cherry in the languages of
the peoples of that region and cherry pits have not been found with the
remains of other plants in the tombs and ruins of Egypt, Assyria and
Babylon. Nor does the cherry seem to have been cultivated in India until
comparatively recent times.
These very brief and general statements show that cherries were not
cultivated in the first agricultural civilizations and serve to fix the
time and the place of the domestication of the cherry a little more
definitely. Records of cherries as cultivated plants begin, so far as
the researches of botanical historians now show, with Greek civilization
though it is probable, for several reasons, that some cultivated
cherries came to Greece from Asia Minor.
Theophrastus, to whom Linnaeus gave the title "Father of Botany,"
writing about 300 years before the Christian era in his _History of
Plants_, is, according to botanical historians, the first of the Greek
writers to mention the cherry. His statement is as follows:--
"The cherry is a peculiar tree, of large size, some attaining the height
of twenty-four cubits, rather thick, so that they may measure two cubits
in circumference at the base. The leaf is like that of the mespilus,
rather firm and broader, the color of the foliage such that the tree may
be distinguished from others at a good distance. The bark, by its color,
smoothness and thickness, is like that of tilia. The flower [meaning,
the cluster of flowers] is white, resembling that of the pear and
mespilus, consisting of small [separate] flowers. The fruit is red,
similar to that of diospyros [but what his diospyros was no one knows]
of the size of a faba [perhaps nelumbo seed], which is hard, but the
cherry is soft. The tree grows in the same situations as tilia; by
streams."[14]
From this passage we gather that the cherry Theophrastus knew was the
Sweet Cherry, _Prunus avium_; the description shows it to be the same
large, tall tree now naturalized in open woods and along roadsides in
many parts of the United States. From the fact that Theophrastus
describes the tree and the bark in more detail than the fruit we may
assume that the cherry was more esteemed in ancient Greece as a
timber-tree than as a fruit-tree. Curiously enough the name the Greeks
at this time used for the Sweet Cherry is now applied to _Prunus
cerasus_, the Sour Cherry.
"Kerasos" was the Sweet Cherry in ancient Greece and from kerasos came
_cerasus_, used by many botanists as the name of the genus. That the
Sweet Cherry should by the use of _avium_ be denominated the "bird
cherry" is clear since birds show much discrimination between cherries,
but why the Sour Cherry should be given the specific name _cerasus_,
first applied to the Sweet Cherry, is not apparent.
Pages are written in the old pomologies and botanical histories as to
the origin of the word _cerasus_. Pliny's statement that Lucullus called
the cherry _cerasus_ from the town from which he obtained it, Kerasun in
Pontus, on the Black Sea, is, in the light of all who have since looked
into the matter, a misconception. To the contrary, commentators now
agree that the town received its name from the cherry which grows most
abundantly in the forests in that part of Asia Minor. The name,
according to all authorities, is very ancient--a linguistic proof of the
antiquity of the cherry.
To sum up, the cherry comes into literature first from Greece in the
writings of Theophrastus. There can be but little doubt, however, but
that it had been cultivated for centuries before Theophrastus wrote.
Whether one or both of the two cherries were domesticated by the Greeks,
beginning with their civilization, or whether cultivated cherries came
to Greece from Asia Minor, is not now known. It is very probable that
some of the several varieties grown in Greece came under cultivation
through domestication of wild plants; others were introduced from
regions farther east.
[14] Theophrastus, Book III, Chap. 13.
THE SWEET CHERRY POSSIBLY THE PARENT OF THE SOUR CHERRY
A digression may be permitted here to state a hypothesis suggested by De
Candolle[15] which should interest both fruit-growers and
plant-breeders. De Candolle, while considering the two species of
cultivated cherries to be now quite distinct, suggests that, since they
differ essentially but little in their characters and since their
original habitats were in the same region, it is probable that one
species came from the other. He surmises, since _Prunus avium_ is the
commoner in the original home, is generally the more vigorous of the
two, has spread much farther and probably at a much earlier date from
the primal habitation in Asia Minor than _Prunus cerasus_, that the
latter, the Sour Cherry, is derived from the Sweet Cherry. In the future
breeding of cherries confirmatory evidence of such a relationship may be
obtained though, should none be found, the negation should go for naught
and the supposition can only remain an interesting and plausible
hypothesis.
[15] De Candolle, Alphonse _Origin of Cultivated Plants_ 210. 1885.
THE CHERRY IN ITALY
Pliny attempts to give the first full account of cultivated cherries
and, even though among his statements are several inaccuracies, yet he
may be said to have made a very good beginning of a flora of cultivated
cherries for he names and describes ten varieties. The fact that there
were as many as ten cherries in Italy at the time Pliny wrote, less than
a century after the return of Lucullus from Pontus, is strong evidence
that the cherry in Italy antedates Lucullus. Besides, it is hardly
probable that Pliny knew and described all of the cherries to be found
in the whole of his country. But even if these ten comprise the entire
number, those who know how extremely difficult it is to introduce new
plants in a country with the facilities we have in our day, will doubt
that all of the cherries in Pliny's account could have been introduced
in Italy 1900 years ago and have come under general cultivation, as
according to Pliny they had, within the short space of a century. The
following quotation, then, must be taken as an account of the cherries
grown in Italy in the first century after Christ with little weight
given to the historical evidence presented.[16]
"The cherry did not exist in Italy before the period of the victory
gained over Mithridates by L. Lucullus, in the year of the City 680. He
was the first to introduce this tree from Pontus, and now, in the course
of one hundred and twenty years, it has travelled beyond the Ocean, and
arrived in Britannia even. The cherry, as we have already stated, in
spite of every care, has been found impossible to rear in Egypt. Of this
fruit, that known as the "Apronian" is the reddest variety, the Lutatian
being the blackest, and the Caecilian perfectly round. The Junian cherry
has an agreeable flavour, but only, so to say, when eaten beneath the
tree, as they are so remarkably delicate that they will not bear
carrying. The highest rank, however, has been awarded to the Duracinus
variety, known in Campania as the "Plinian" cherry, and in Belgica to
the Lusitanian cherry, as also to one that grows on the banks of the
Rhenus. This last kind has a third colour, being a mixture of black,
red, and green, and has always the appearance of being just on the turn
to ripening. It is less than five years since the kind known as the
"laurel-cherry" was introduced, of a bitter but not unpleasant flavour,
the produce of a graft upon the laurel. The Macedonian cherry grows on a
tree that is very small, and rarely exceeds three cubits in height;
while the chamaecerasus is still smaller, being but a mere shrub. The
cherry is one of the first trees to recompense the cultivator with its
yearly growth; it loves cold localities and a site exposed to the north.
The fruits are sometimes dried in the sun, and preserved, like olives,
in casks."
How are the cherries described in the passage from Pliny related to
those of modern culture? A score or more of commentators have tried to
tell but when the comments are compared Pliny's disorder becomes
confusion worse confounded. Here, as in his historical statements, Pliny
seems to have prepared the ground for a fine crop of misunderstandings.
The speculations as to what particular cherry each of the descriptions
fits quickly show the futility of specification. A few generalizations
only are warranted.
Thus, if we assume, as most commentators do, that Apronian, the first
of Pliny's varieties, was named after Apronius, a Roman praetor of
Pliny's day, there is nothing to indicate the character of the cherry
except the word "reddest" which means but little for it is no more
possible to distinguish cherries by redness than by its blackness to
tell a pot from a kettle.
It is as impossible to distinguish the second variety as the first. The
name given is Lutatian, the variety having been dedicated, as all
commentators agree, to Lutatius Catulus, a contemporary of Lucullus,
revered by Romans for having rebuilt the capitol after it had been
destroyed by fire. It is described as "being the blackest" but whether
_Prunus avium_ or _Prunus cerasus_, sweet or sour, who can tell?
The third variety is called the Caecilian cherry, which we are told is
"perfectly round"--a character possessed in like degree by many
cherries. The name, on the authority of Latin scholars, commemorates the
Caecilius family, rich and powerful Romans, friends of Lucullus at the
time he was promoting cherry culture.
We may be a little more certain of the identity of the fourth cherry,
called the Junian, and said to have been possessed of "an agreeable
flavor but only, so to say, when eaten beneath the tree, as they are so
remarkably delicate that they will not bear carrying." Whether the name
was given in honor of the Roman Republican, Junius Brutus, who died 42
A. D. or from Junius, the month of their ripening, cannot be said. The
description, as practically all agree, fits very well the French Guigne
or English Gean group of cherries. It is probable that "Guigne" is a
perversion of "Junian."
There can be little question as to the cherry Pliny next describes, "the
Duracinus variety" which he says has been awarded "highest rank" and to
which he paid the compliment of giving it his own name, for he tells us
that it is "known in Campania as the Plinian cherry." This hard-fleshed
cherry of delectable quality can be no other than a Bigarreau--some
protean Napoleon, Yellow Spanish, Windsor or the older Oxheart and
Elkhorn.
The sixth cherry is the Lusitanian, which, if the translations read
aright, the Belgians rank highest. Ancient Lusitania is modern Portugal
and the Lusitanian cherry may be the Griotte of Portugal grown from time
immemorial in that country. The identity of the variety is not so
important in this passage as is the connection that Pliny establishes in
cherry culture at this early time between Portugal, Italy and Belgium.
By such tokens does our author cast doubt upon his statement that
Lucullus had but yesterday, as it were, brought the cherry from Pontus.
The seventh cherry is one "that grows on the banks of the Rhenus"
(Rhine), further described as "being a mixture of black, red and green,"
and of having "always the appearance of being just on the turn to
ripening." It is useless to add another guess to those of the many
commentators as to what this tri-colored cherry from the banks of the
Rhine may be.
The eighth description, that of the "laurel-cherry," applies to a graft
and not to a variety. Of it, Pliny says, "It is less than five years
since the kind known as the laurel-cherry was introduced, of a bitter,
but not unpleasant flavor, the produce of a graft upon the laurel." It
is barely possible that a cherry could be made to grow on a laurel five
years but it is extremely doubtful, as all modern horticulturists who
have tried it say, and it is impossible to have such a graft bear fruit.
Pliny was misinformed.
The ninth and tenth of Pliny's cherries, the Macedonian and the
Chamaecerasus, are probably one and the same, since but one cherry that
could possibly answer to the descriptions given could have been in Italy
at the time Pliny wrote. The cherry described, then, was almost beyond
doubt _Prunus fruticosa_ Pallas, a synonym of which is _Prunus
chamaecerasus_ Jacquin, perpetuating the name used by Pliny. This is the
European Dwarf Cherry, or Ground Cherry, which is now and was probably
then a wild plant in parts of Italy and which is very well described by
"a tree that is very small, and rarely exceeds three cubits in height."
We have accredited Pliny with having first described cherries in Italy
and discredited his account of their introduction in his own country,
but chiefly on inferential evidence. Just a few words of direct proof
that the cherry was long in cultivation by the Romans before Lucullus
and we have done with the introduction of the cherry into Italy and have
filled another gap between Theophrastus and our own times. Marcus
Terentius Varro (B. C. 117-27), one of the illustrious scholars of
ancient Rome, sometimes called the father of Roman learning, in his
eightieth year, as he tells us in his first chapter, wrote a book on
farming--one, which, by the way, may be read with profit by modern
farmers.[17] In book 1, chapter XXXIX, he tells when to graft cherries,
discussing the process not as if it or the cherry were new or little
known but as if the cherry were as commonplace as the other
agricultural crops of the times. Varro effectually disproves Pliny to
whose mis-statement we have given so much space only because for nearly
2000 years it has been generally accepted as the truth.
The gaps in the history of the cherry are long. Athenaeus,[18]
Tertullian,[19] Ammianus,[20] and St. Jerome,[21] Roman writers of the
Third and Fourth Centuries, mention cherries but chiefly to repeat and
perpetuate Pliny's errors. It was not until the Sixteenth Century--a
lapse of 1400 years--that an attempt was again made to describe in full
cultivated cherries. Sometime in this century, Matthiolus (1487-1577), a
Tuscan and one of the eminent naturalists not only of Italy but of the
world in the Middle Ages, in translating and annotating the medical
works of the Greek writer Dioscorides, made a list of the fruit-trees
then grown in Italy. As the second descriptive list of cherries this
contribution of Matthiolus might be worth reprinting were it not, as in
Pliny, that but few of his varieties can be certainly made out. He does,
however, make a number of additions to Pliny's list but space does not
permit a consideration of these; especially since Gerarde, writing less
than a century later in English, so well amplifies Matthiolus that we
shall print his account.
[16] Bostock and Riley _Nat. History of Pliny_ =3=:322. 1855.
[17] A very good translation of Varro on farming is one by Lloyd
Starr-Best, published by G. Bell & Sons, London. 1912.
[18] Athenaeus _Dipnosophistæ_ Book II, Chap. XXXIV-V.
[19] Tertullian _Apologeticum_ Chap. XI.
[20] Ammianus _History of the Roman Emperors_ Book 22, Chap. XVI.
[21] St. Jerome _Epistulae_ Book I, Letter XXXV.
CHERRIES IN THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY
Pliny mentions the cherry as growing in several countries and, by
reading between lines, we may assume that cultivated cherries were
distributed throughout all parts of Europe where agriculture was
practiced, by Christ's time or shortly thereafter. Pliny speaks of the
cherry in some connection with England, Germany, Belgium and Portugal.
Surely we may assume that the cherry was being grown at the same time in
at least the countries in Europe which are between or border on those
named. But from Pliny to the Sixteenth Century the current of progress
in cherry culture was immeasurably slow. In the intervening 1600 years
not a score of new cherries were brought under cultivation. Attention
was probably given during these dark ages to this and to all fruits as
species and as divisions of species which came nearly or quite true to
seed. It was only in the refinements of horticulture and botany brought
about by the herbalists that true horticultural varieties came into
common cultivation.
Thus, the first of the German herbals, the _Herbarius_, printed at Mainz
in 1491, does not describe or even name varieties of cherries but groups
them in the two species as Sweets and Sours, the statement running:[22]
"The cherries are some sweet, some sour, like the wild apple; the sours
bring to the stomach gas and make the mouth fresh (frisch), those too
sweet or too sour are of little use." A wood-cut in this old herbal
illustrates a Sour Cherry.
According to Müller,[23] not until 1569 did the Germans attempt to give
names to varieties, when, in a medical herbal, the _Gart der
Gesundheit_, cherries were roughly divided into four groups: (1) The
Amarellen, sour, dark red cherries with long stems. (2) The
Weichselkirschen, red cherries with white juice and short stems. (3) The
Süsskirschen, red or black Sweet Cherries with long stems. (4) "Beside
these yet more" distinguished by their shape and the province in which
they are grown. Not until well into the Eighteenth Century do the
Germans seem to have given names to more than a few of the most distinct
varieties of cherries. Yet the cherry was more largely cultivated in
Germany, one, two, or three centuries ago, as it is now, than in any
other European country. This, one readily gleans from what has been
written on cherries in different countries and from the acknowledgments
of foreign pomologists to those of Germany for most of what has been
printed regarding cherries. Not only has the cherry been a favorite
orchard plant in Germany but since the Sixteenth Century it has been
largely planted along the public roads.
Of cherries on the continent, for this brief history, nothing more need
be said. Most of the varieties that have been imported from Europe to
America have come from England and we must, therefore, devote rather
more attention to the history of the cherry in England than in other
European countries.
[22] Quoted from Müller, Hugo M. _Obstzüchter_ =8=:3. 1910.
[23] _Ibid._
CHERRIES IN ENGLAND
Cultivated cherries came to England with the Romans. _Prunus avium_ is
indigenous in Great Britain but probably no care worthy the name
cultivation was given these wild trees by the ancient Britons. Pliny
states that the cherry was carried from Rome to Britain before the
middle of the First Century--meaning probably some improved variety. In
no part of the world does the cherry take more kindly to the soil than
in England and no doubt this fruit became firmly established in Kent,
where the Romans settled, before the downfall of the southern invaders.
With the expulsion of the Romans and the subsequent influx of
barbarians, agriculture, especially gardening and fruit-growing, became
almost a lost art but still it is not probable that the cherry was
wholly lost to cultivation during the Teutonic invasions of Britain.
Fruit-growing could not have greatly prospered, however, in the
centuries of strife with the barbarians which succeeded Roman rule in
England; and a revival of cherry culture did not take place until the
reintroduction of Christianity and the establishment of monasteries
where, undisturbed by wars, the monks became notable horticulturists.
They not only had opportunity in the comparative peace in which their
lives were cast to grow fruit but many of them were men of superior
intelligence and skill and from intercourse with the continental
countries learned what plants were worth growing and how to grow
them--the monasteries were the experiment stations of the times.
Undoubtedly the monks in bringing to England treasures from the
continent did not forget fruits and among them cherries.
Passing by a considerable number of references which could be cited to
show that cherries of one kind and another were cultivated in Britain
from at least as early a date as the Ninth Century, we come to the
discussion of this fruit by the herbalists of the Sixteenth and
Seventeenth Centuries. Of the three great English herbalists, Turner
published his work in 1538; Gerarde's, printed in 1596, was revised and
greatly improved by Johnson in 1633; Parkinson's _Paradisi in Sole
Paradisus Terrestris_, or Park-in-Suns Earthly Paradise--the author
evidently a punster--was published in 1629. All of these contain as full
botanical and pomological discussions of cherries as knowledge then
permitted.
It must not be thought, by those unacquainted with the plant-lore of the
times, that the cherry received consideration only from the pens of
Turner, Gerarde, and Parkinson. During the time covered by the lives of
these three men a score or more of books were written in English on
botany and pomology in which accounts were given of the cherry, all
showing the esteem in which this fruit was held in England during and
before the reign of Queen Elizabeth. Space permits comments on the
account of the cherry given by but one of these Elizabethan herbalists,
and of the several Gerarde's seems best suited to our purpose.
We have chosen Gerarde because he treats the cherry more fully than do
the other writers of the period and because he was a compiler and a
translator, having, as he quaintly says, "perused divers Herbals set
fourth in other languages;" thus from Gerarde we obtain a conception of
cherries growing on the continent as well as those growing in England.
Students of the English herbals say that Gerarde translated, copied and
adapted from Matthiolus, whose book we have noted, but more particularly
from Dodoens who in 1554 published in Antwerp _A History of Plants_.
These two worthies, in turn, had borrowed very freely from still more
ancient writers--Theophrastus, Dioscorides, Columella and others. As
might be suspected, errors centuries old were passed down, yet each new
translation or compilation contains much added information and is far
freer from error. In particular, Gerarde seems to have been a wise
compiler and adapter and to have combined a large measure of first-hand
practical knowledge with his borrowings from others. This is especially
true of what he writes concerning cherries, a fruit with which he seems
to have been very familiar.
The following is Gerarde's account, with interpolations by the author:
"The ancient Herbalists have set down four kinds of Cherry trees;
the first is great and wild, the second tame or of the garden, the
third hath sour fruit, the fourth is that which is called in Latin
Chamaecerasus, or the dwarfe Cherry tree. The later writers have
found divers sorts more, some bringing forth great fruit, others
lesser; some with white fruit, some with blacke, others of the
colour of black bloud, varying infinitely according to the clymat
and country where they grow."
The four cherries which Gerarde says the "ancient herbalists have set
down" are, it is easy to see: first, the wild _Prunus avium_; second,
cultivated sweet varieties of _Prunus avium_; third, the sour _Prunus
cerasus_; fourth, the Dwarf Cherry, _Prunus fruticosa_.
"The English Cherry tree groweth to a high and great tree, the
body whereof is of a mean bignesse, which is parted above into
very many boughes, with a barke somewhat smooth, of a brown
crimson colour, tough and pliable; the substance or timber is
also brown in the middle, and the outer part is somewhat white:
the leaves be great, broad, long, set with veins or nerves, and
sleightly nicked about the edges: the floures are white, of a mean
bigness, consisting of five leaves, and having certain threds in
the middle of the like colour. The Cherries be round, hanging
upon long stems or footstalks, with a stone in the middest which
is covered with a pulp or soft meat; the kernell thereof is not
unpleasant to the taste, though somewhat bitter."
This is _Prunus avium_, which is very generally wild in Britain--the
Gean of the English.
"The Flanders Cherry tree differeth not from our English Cherry
tree in Stature or form of leaves or floures, the only difference
is, that this tree brings forth his fruit sooner and greater than
the other, wherefore it may be called in Latine, _Cerasus praecox,
sive Belgica_."
A cherry which "brings forth his fruit sooner and greater than the
other" can be no other than one of the early varieties of the Sweet
Cherry.
"The Spanish Cherry tree groweth up to the height of our common
Cherry tree, the wood or timber is soft and loose, covered with a
whitish scaly barke, the branches are knotty, greater and fuller
of substance than any other Cherry tree; the leaves are likewise
greater and longer than any of the rest, in shape like those of
the Chestnut tree: the floures are like the others in form, but
whiter of colour; the fruit is greater and longer than any, white
for the most part all over, except those that stand in the hottest
place where the sun hath some reflexion against a wall: they are
also white within, and of a pleasant taste."
We have in this description a very good pen picture of Yellow Spanish,
one of the Bigarreaus, of which there must have been several in common
cultivation in Gerarde's time.
"The Gascoin Cherry tree groweth very like to the Spanish Cherry
tree in stature, flours and leaves: it differeth in that it
bringeth forth very great Cherries, long, sharp pointed, with a
certain hollownesse upon one side, and spotted here and there with
certain prickles of purple color as smal as sand. The taste is
most pleasant, and excelleth in beauty."
Gascoin, sometimes "Gaskin" in England, is a corruption of Gascoigne, a
name applied by the French to cherries produced in Gascony and said to
have been brought to England by Joan of Kent when her husband, the Black
Prince, was commanding in Guienne and Gascony. The variety is a very
good Sweet Cherry, no doubt the one described in this text under the
name Bleeding Heart.
"The late ripe Cherry tree groweth up like unto our wild English
Cherry tree, with the like leaves, branches and floures, saving
that they are sometimes once doubled; the fruit is small,
round, and of a darke bloudy colour when they be ripe, which
the Frenchmen gather with their stalkes, and hang them up in
their houses in bunches or handfulls against Winter, which the
Physitions do give unto their patients in hot and burning fevers,
being first steeped in a little warme water, that causeth them to
swell and plumpe as full and fresh as when they did grow upon the
tree.
"The Cluster Cherry tree differeth not from the last described
either in leaves, branches, or stature: the floures are also like,
but never commeth any one of them to be double. The fruit is
round, red when they be ripe, and many growing upon one stem or
foot-stalke in clusters, like as the Grapes do. The taste is not
unpleasant although somewhat soure."
These two cherries, one sees at once, are varieties of _Prunus cerasus_.
The first, Gerarde identifies for us on a succeeding page as the
Morello. He says of it: "The late ripe cherries which the Frenchmen
keepe dried against the winter, and are by them called Morelle, and wee
after the same name call them Morell Cherries.
"This Cherrie-tree with double floures growes up unto a small
tree, not unlike to the common Cherrie-tree in each respect,
saving that the floures are somewhat double, that is to say, three
or foure times double; after which commeth fruit (though in small
quantitie) like the other common Cherry.
"The double floured Cherry-tree growes up like unto an hedge bush,
but not so great nor high as any of the others, the leaves and
branches differ not from the rest of the Cherry-tree. The floures
hereof are exceeding double, as are the flours of Marigolds,
but of a white colour, and smelling somewhat like the Hawthorne
floures; after which come seldome or never any fruit, although
some Authors have said that it beareth sometimes fruit, which my
selfe have not at any time seen; notwithstanding the tree hath
growne in my Garden many yeeres, and that in an excellent good
place by a bricke wall, where it hath the reflection of the South
Sunne, fit for a tree that is not willing to beare fruit in our
cold climat."
These two are double-flowered cherries, several of which seem to have
been grown as ornamentals. Both belong to _Prunus cerasus_ and as we
gather rather better elsewhere than here, both are of the Amarelle type
of tree.
"The Birds Cherry-tree, or the blacke Cherry-tree, that bringeth
forth very much fruit upon one branch (which better may be
understood by sight of the figure, than by words) springeth up
like an Hedge tree of small stature, it groweth in the wilde woods
of Kent, and are there used for stockes to graft other Cherries
upon, of better tast, and more profit, as especially those called
the Flanders Cherries: this wilde tree growes very plentifully
in the North of England, especially at a place called Heggdale,
neere unto Rosgill in Westmerland, and in divers other places
about Crosbie Ravenswaith, and there called Hegberrie-tree: it
groweth likewise in Martome Parke, foure miles from Blackeburne,
and in Harward neere thereunto; in Lancashire almost in every
hedge; the leaves and branches differ not from those of the
wilde Cherry-tree: the floures grow alongst the small branches,
consisting of five small white leaves, with some greenish and
yellow thrums in the middle: after which come the fruit, greene at
the first, blacke when they be ripe, and of the bignesse of Sloes;
of an harsh and unpleasant taste.
"The other birds Cherry-tree differeth not from the former in any
respect, but in the colour of the berries; for as they are blacke;
so on the contrary, these are red when they be ripe, wherein they
differ."
The cherries described in these two paragraphs, one black and one red,
"that bringeth forth very much fruit upon one branch" and "groweth in
the wilde woods" and "of an harsh and unpleasant taste" are of course
the _Prunus padus_ of Britain and most of Europe--not a true cherry but
the racemose Bird Cherry, or Choke Cherry.
"The common blacke Cherry-tree growes up in some places to
great stature: there is no difference between it and our common
Cherry-tree, saving that the fruit hereof is very little in
respect of other Cherries, and of a blacke colour."
This must be some wild Gean or Mazzard.
"The dwarfe Cherry-tree groweth very seldome to the height of
three cubits: the trunke or body small, covered with a darke
coloured blacke: whereupon do grow very limber and pliant twiggie
branches: the leaves are very small, not much unlike to those of
the Privite bush: the floures are small and white: after which
come Cherries of a deepe red colour when they be ripe, of taste
somewhat sharpe, but not greatly unpleasant: the branches laid
downe in the earth, quickely take root, whereby it is greatly
increased."
Here we have _Prunus fruticosa_ very well described.
"My selfe with divers others have sundry other sorts in our
gardens, one called the Hart Cherry, the greater and the lesser;
one of the great bignesse, and most pleasant in taste, which we
call _Luke Wardes_ Cherry, because he was the first that brought
the same out of Italy; another we have called the Naples Cherry,
because it was first brought into these parts from Naples: the
fruit is very great, sharpe pointed, somewhat like a man's heart
in shape, of a pleasant taste, and of a deepe blackish colour when
it is ripe, as it were of the colour of dried bloud."
Gerarde's Hart is probably one of the Heart cherries, while "Luke Wardes
Cherry" is one of the oldest named Sweet Cherries known in England,
having been mentioned by Parkinson and other of the herbalists as well
as in this list.
"We have another that bringeth forth Cherries also very great,
bigger than any Flanders Cherrie, of the colour of Jet, or
burnished horn, and of a most pleasant taste, as witnesseth
Mr. Bull, the Queenes Majesties Clockmaker, who did taste of the
fruit (the tree bearing onely one cherry, which he did eat; but my
selfe never tasted of it) at the impression hereof. We have also
another, called the Agriot Cherry, of a reasonable good taste.
Another we have with fruit of a dun colour, tending to a watchet.
We have one of the Dwarfe Cherries, that bringeth forth fruit as
great as most of our Flanders Cherries, whereas the common sort
hath very small Cherries, and those of an harsh taste. These and
many sorts more we have in our London gardens, whereof to write
particularly would greatly enlarge our volume, and to small
purpose: therefore, what hath beene said shall suffice. I must
here (as I have formerly done, in Peares, Apples, and other such
fruites) refer you to my two friends, Mr. _John Parkinson_, and
Mr. _John Millen_, the one to furnish you with the history, and
the other with the things themselves, if you desire them."
One can only roughly surmise as to what the cherries mentioned in this
paragraph are with the exception of the Agriot which is, if the synonymy
of several European pomologists be correct, the Griotte Commune, a sort
supposed to have been brought from Syria by the crusaders and to have
been recorded under the last name in France as early as 1485.
The end of the Seventeenth Century saw a great revival of agriculture in
all of its branches on the continent; in England the revival began with
the fall of the commonwealth. From this time the progress of cherry
culture has been so rapid and so great that it would be an endless task
to give even a cursory view of it--a task unnecessary, too, for
succeeding the herbalists a great number of botanies, pomologies and
works on agriculture were published to many of which reference is still
easy. Moreover, the histories of varieties in this text carry us back
quite to the beginning of the Eighteenth Century.
There now remains for the history of the cherry but to sketch its
introduction and culture in North America, an undertaking that can be
done briefly and to the point, for the data are abundant, recent and
reliable. Here, too, accounts of the origin of varieties and the
development of the cherry may be looked for in the chapters which
comprise the main part of the book.
CHERRIES IN AMERICA
The cherry was one of the first fruits planted in the fields cleared and
enriched by our hardy American ancestry. From Canada to Florida the
colonists, though of several nationalities and those from one nation
often representing several quite distinct classes, were forced alike to
turn at once to the cultivation of the soil as a means of subsistence.
And while in all of the colonies the early settlers must have been
busily engaged in the cultivation of cereals for the staff of life, in
the South in growing cotton and tobacco for money and for purposes of
barter, in the North in harvesting forest and fish products for
bartering; yet the historians of the colonies notice so often and
describe so fully and with such warmth of feeling the vegetables,
flowers and fruits in the orchards and gardens of the New World that it
is certain that the ground was tilled not only as a means of subsistence
but because the tillers loved the luxuries of the land.
What fruit better adapted to the uses of colonists than the cherry? It
possesses in a high degree, especially the Sour Cherry, the power of
adaptation to new environment and thrives under a greater variety of
conditions than any other of our fruits unless it be the apple, which it
at least equals in this respect. The cherry is easily propagated; it
comes in bearing early and bears regularly; of all fruits it requires
least care--gives the greatest returns under neglect; and the product is
delectable and adapted to many purposes. We shall expect, then, in
examining the early records of fruit-growing in America to find the
cherry one of the first planted and one of the most widely disseminated
of fruits.
CHERRIES PLANTED BY THE FRENCH IN AMERICA
While written records are lacking, the plantations of old trees and the
development of cherry culture indicate that the French early planted
cherries in Nova Scotia, Cape Breton, Prince Edward Island and in the
early settlements on the St. Lawrence River. The cherry is a favorite
fruit of the French and the venerable trees that survived on the sites
of their settlements when the English came into possession of Canada are
proof sufficient that the émigrés from Provence or Normandy, fruit
districts of France from which many French settlers came, brought with
them seeds of the cherry with those of other fruits. Peter Kalm in his
_Travels into North America_ in 1771,[24] records the very general
culture of all the hardy fruits in Canada and leaves the impression that
such had been the case from the first settlements.
[24] Kalm, Peter _Travels into North America_ 1771.
CHERRIES IN NEW ENGLAND
The cherry came to New England with the first settlers. This we are told
in all the records of early New England in which the conditions of the
country are described and of it we have confirmatory proof in many
enormous cherry trees, Sweet and Sour, both about ancient habitations
and as escapes from cultivation in woods, fields and fence rows, all
pointing to the early cultivation of this fruit. The early records are
very specific. Thus, to quote a few out of an embarrassment of
references: Francis Higginson writing in 1629, after naming the several
other fruits then under cultivation in Massachusetts, notes that the Red
Kentish is the only cherry cultivated.[25] In the same year, the 16th of
March, 1629, a memorandum of the Massachusetts Company shows that
"Stones of all sorts of fruites, as peaches, plums, filberts, cherries,
pear, aple, quince kernells" were to be sent to New England.[26]
These seeds, provided by the home company with forethought of the need
of orchards in the colony, evidently produced fruit trees sufficient to
supply both hunger and thirst; for John Josselyn, who made voyages to
New England in 1638, 1639 and 1663, writing of "New England's Rarities
Discovered," says:[27] "Our fruit Trees prosper abundantly, Apple-trees,
Pear-trees, Quince-trees, Cherry-trees, Plum-trees, Barberry-trees. I
have observed with admiration, that the Kernels sown or the Succors
planted produce as fair and good fruit, without grafting, as the tree
from whence they were taken: the Countrey is replenished with fair and
large Orchards. It was affirmed by one Mr. Woolcut (a magistrate in
Connecticut Colony) at the Captains Messe (of which I was) aboard the
Ship I came home in, that he made Five hundred Hogsheads of Syder out of
his own Orchard in one year. Syder is very plentiful in the Countrey,
ordinarily sold for ten shillings a Hogshead.
"The Quinces, Cherries, Damsons, set the Dames a work, Marmalad and
preserved Damsons are to be met with in every house. It was not long
before I left the Countrey that I made Cherry wine, and so may others,
for there are good store of them both red and black. Their fruit trees
are subject to two diseases, the Meazels, which is when they are burned
and scorched with the Sun, and lowsiness, when the woodpeckers jab holes
in their bark: the way to cure them when they are lowsie is to bore a
hole in the main root with an Augur, and pour in a quantity of Brandie
or Rhum, and then stop it up with a pin made of the same Tree."
As early as 1641, a nursery had been started in Massachusetts and was
selling among other trees those of the cherry. Troublesome pests had
made their appearance, too, as may be seen from the following letter,
probably from the first American nurseryman. The letter is written by
George Fenwith of Saybrook, Connecticut, under date of May 6, 1641,[28]
to Governor John Winthrop, Jr.
"I haue receaued the trees yow sent me, for which I hartily thanke
yow. If I had any thing heare that could pleasure yow, yow should
frely command it. I am prettie well storred with chirrie & peach
trees, & did hope I had had a good nurserie of aples, of the aples
yow sent me last yeare, but the wormes have in a manner distroyed
them all as they came vp. I pray informe me if yow know any way to
preuent the like mischiefe for the future."
These early plantations of cherries in New England were undoubtedly
grown from seed; for buds, cions and trees could not have been imported
unless the latter were brought over potted out as was not commonly done
until a century and a half later--at least, the records make mention of
seeds and not of trees as was the case just before and after the
Revolutionary War. A statement left by one of the Chief Justices of
Massachusetts, Paul Dudley, living at Roxbury, at as late a date as
1726, indicates that varieties were few. In a paper in the
_Philosophical Transactions_[29] on agricultural conditions in
Massachusetts, among many other interesting things, Justice Dudley says:
"Our apples are without doubt as good as those of England, and
much fairer to look to, and so are the pears, but we have not got
all the sorts. Our peaches do rather excel those of England, and
then we have not the trouble or expence of walls for them; for our
peach trees are all standards, and I have had in my own garden
seven or eight hundred fine peaches of the Rare-ripes, growing at
a time on one tree. Our people, of late years, have run so much
upon orchards, that in a village near Boston, consisting of about
forty families, they made near three thousand barrels of cyder.
This was in the year 1721. And in another town of two hundred
families, in the same year I am credibly informed they made near
ten thousand barrels. Our peach trees are large and fruitful, and
bear commonly in three years from the stone. Our common cherries
are not so good as the Kentish cherries of England, and we have no
Dukes or Heart cherries, unless in two or three gardens."
[25] _Mass. Hist. Soc. Collections_ 1st Ser. =I=:118.
[26] _Mass. Records_ =I=:24.
[27] _Mass. Hist. Collections_ 3d Ser. =23=:337.
[28] _Mass. Hist. Collections_ 4th Ser. =VI=:499.
[29] Abridgment =6=:pt. =II=:341, in _Hist. Mass. Hort. Soc._
14-15. 1829-1878.
CHERRIES IN NEW YORK
Though settled at about the same time and having a more congenial
climate, New York made progress in fruit-growing more slowly than
Massachusetts. The early Dutch settlers in New York were transient
traders and not home makers. Actual settlement with homes in view did
not begin until after the historical bargain in which thrifty Peter
Minuit had acquired Manhattan Island for $24.00 and the country became
New Amsterdam. But troublesome times followed under the rule of Minuit,
Wouter Van Twiller and Kieft, quarrels and actual war, or the fear of
it, with colonists to the north and south as well as with the savages,
preventing the planting of orchards and farms until in 1647 when the
reins of government were taken in hand by Peter Stuyvesant.
Governor Stuyvesant was a farmer as well as a soldier and there is
something in history and much in tradition of the Bowery Farm, which
flourished on the site of the present Bowery in New York. This farm was
planted and tended by "Peter, the Headstrong" when he was not disputing
with his burgomasters, watching the Yankees and fighting Swedes and
Indians. The orchards and gardens, according to all accounts, were
remarkably fine and were kept in a high state of cultivation. Stuyvesant
founded the farm during the stormy times of his governorship but did not
live on it until the English took possession of New Amsterdam in 1664
when he retired to the land and devoted the eighteen remaining years of
his life to agriculture. From the neighboring colonies and from abroad
he brought many fruits, flowers, farm and truck crops. Fruits came to
him also from Holland and were disseminated from his orchard up the
Hudson.
The cherry was one of the fruits much grown by the Dutch. It would be
wearisome and would serve little purpose even to attempt a cursory
review of the literature of colonial days in New York showing the spread
and the extent of fruit culture by the Dutch. Travel up the Hudson and
its branches was easy and within a century after the settlement of New
York by the Dutch, cherries were not only cultivated by the whites,
according to the records of travelers, naturalists and missionaries, but
were rudely tilled by the Indians.
For a long time after its introduction in New York, the cherry, in
common with other fruits, was grown as a species--varieties and budded
or grafted trees were probably not known. Fruit-growing as an industry
began in New York and in America, with the establishment of a nursery
at Flushing, Long Island, in 1730, by Robert Prince, founder of the
nursery which afterwards became the famous Linnæan Botanic Garden. At
what date this nursery began to offer named cherries for sale cannot be
said but advertisements appearing in 1767, 1774 and 1794 show that
budded or grafted named cherries were being offered for sale by the
Princes. In 1804, William Prince, third proprietor of the famous
Flushing nursery, prepared a list of the named cherries then under
cultivation in America for Willich's _Domestic Encyclopaedia_, an
English work which was being edited and made "applicable to the present
situation of the United States" by Dr. James Mease. The following is
Prince's list:[30]
"May Duke, ripe in May and June: long stem, round and red, an excellent
cherry, and bears well.
Black Heart, ripe in June: a fine cherry.
White Heart (or Sugar Cherry) ripe in June: white and red.
Bleeding Heart, ripe in June; a very large cherry of a long form and
dark colour; it has a pleasant taste.
Ox Heart, ripe in June: a large, firm, fine cherry.
Spanish Heart, ripe in June.
Carnation, ripe in July, it takes its name from its colour, being red
and white, a large round cherry, but not very sweet.
Amber, ripe in July.
Red Heart, do.
Late Duke, do.
Cluster, planted more for ornament, or curiosity than any other purpose.
Double Blossoms, ripe in July.
Honey Cherry, do. small sweet cherry.
Kentish cherry, ripe in July.
Mazarine, do.
Morello, do. and August; a red, acid cherry, the best for preserving,
and for making cherry-brandy.
Early Richmond Cherry. This fruit originated near Richmond in Virginia,
and is the earliest cherry in America, and valuable on that account; it
is the size of a May Duke, and resembles it in form.
Red Bigereau, a very fine cherry, ripe in July, of a heart shape.
White Bigereau, ripe in July and August: remarkably firm, heart shaped.
Large Double Flowering Cherry. This tree produces no fruit but makes a
handsome appearance in the spring, when it is covered with clusters of
double flowers as large as the cinnamon rose; it differs from the
common double flowering cherry which never forms a large tree, and has
small pointed leaves.
The three last were imported from Bordeaux in 1798.
Small Morello Cherry, called also Salem Cherry, because it came
originally from Salem County, N. J., is cultivated by Mr. Cooper of that
state, who values it highly. The fruit has a lively acid taste. The tree
produces abundantly, and is the least subject to worms of any cherry
trees.
Mr. C. says that the Bleeding Heart suits a sandy soil, but that the
May-duke will not flourish in it."
[30] Willich _Domestic Encyclopaedia_ 105. 1804.
CHERRIES IN THE SOUTH
It would be interesting but hardly of sufficient profit to trace further
the history of cultivated cherries in the states of the Atlantic
seaboard. References to the cherry abound in the colonial records of
Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Delaware but they bring out no facts
differing materially from those abstracted from the records of the
northern colonies. The Quakers and the Swedes in the states watered by
the Delaware and the English in Maryland, Virginia and North Carolina,
all early grew cherries as one of the easiest fruits to propagate and
cultivate.
Space can be spared for but two brief quotations to show the condition
of cherry culture in the South in Colonial days. The first is from
Bruce's Economic History of Virginia.[31]
"In the closing years of the seventeenth century, there were few
plantations in Virginia which did not possess orchards of apple
and peach trees, pear, plum, apricot and quince.[32] The number
of trees was often very large. The orchard of Robert Hide of
York[33] contained three hundred peach and three hundred apple
trees. There were twenty-five hundred apple trees in the orchard
of Colonel Fitzhugh.[34] Each species of fruit was represented by
many varieties; thus, of the apple, there were mains, pippins,
russentens, costards, marigolds, kings, magitens and bachelors;
of the pear, bergamy and warden. The quince was greater in size,
but less acidulated than the English quince; on the other hand,
the apricot and plum were inferior in quality to the English, not
ripening in the same perfection.[35] Cherries grew in notable
abundance. So great was the productive capacity of the peach
that some of the landowners planted orchards of the tree for
the mere purpose of using the fruit to fatten their hogs;[36] on
some plantations, as many as forty bushels are said to have been
knocked down to the swine in the course of a single season."[37]
The second quotation is from Lawson's History of Carolina.[38]
"We have the common, red and black cherry, which bear well. I
never saw any grafted in this country, the common excepted, which
was grafted on an indian plum stock, and bore well. This is a good
way, because our common cherry trees are very apt to put scions
all around the tree for a great distance, which must needs be
prejudicial to the tree and fruit. Not only our cherries are apt
to do so, but our apples and most other fruit trees, which may
chiefly be imputed to the negligence and unskillfulness of the
gardner. Our cherries are ripe a month sooner than in Virginia."
[31] Bruce _Economic History of Virginia_ =1=:468. 1895.
[32] Glover _Philo. Trans. Royal Soc._ 1676-1678, vols. XI-XII, p.
628.
[33] _Records of York County_ vol. 1694-1697, p. 71, Va. State
Library.
[34] _Letters of William Fitzhugh_ April 22, 1686.
[35] Glover _Philo. Trans. Royal Soc._ 1676-1678, vols. XI-XII, p.
628.
[36] Beverley _History of Virginia_ p. 260.
[37] Glover _Philo. Trans. Royal Soc._ 1676-1678, vols. XI-XII, p.
628.
[38] Lawson _History of Carolina_ 183. 1714. (Reprint of 1860.)
CHERRIES IN THE MIDDLE WEST
At a surprisingly early date the cherry, with the apple, peach, pear and
plum, was being grown far inland in the New World. Southeastern Michigan
was settled in 1701 at Detroit and within a half-century settlements had
been made at Vincennes, Indiana; Kaskaskia and Cahokia, Illinois; and at
Saint Louis and several other points in Missouri. The orchards and
gardens of the early French settlers in these states live in the
traditions of all the settlements; but much more substantial evidence
was to be found a century ago, and in the case of the apple and pear may
still be found, in the venerable trees of all the tree-fruit in and
about these old French posts. "The homes of these pioneers," so good an
authority as Parkman tells us, "were generally placed in gardens
surrounded by fruit trees of apples, pears, cherries and peaches." Were
proof lacking of these early plantations, it might be assumed that
people so fond of horticulture as the French would not long be unmindful
of the value to themselves and their posterity of plantations of fruit
trees.
CHERRIES ON THE PACIFIC COAST
The history of the cherry in America is not complete without some
mention of its introduction, culture and the development of new
varieties on the Pacific coast. Indeed, it is not too much to say that
at no time nor at any place in its whole history has the cherry made
greater advancement than during the last half-century in Oregon,
California and Washington--naming the states in order of their
contribution to cherry culture.
At about the time the colonies were beginning their struggle with the
mother country for independence, Franciscan monks were establishing
missions in California. To these they brought seeds of fruits, grains,
flowers and vegetables, as several historians of the missions tell us,
and as the trees found by Americans a few decades later make certain as
regards fruits. It is probable that by the close of the Revolutionary
war all subtropical and temperate fruits of Europe were to be found
cultivated in the missions of California. Among these, in an enumeration
of the products of the missions, the cherry is listed by E. S.
Capson.[39] From its introduction at approximately the close of the
Eighteenth Century, the cherry continued to be cultivated, at times more
or less sparsely to be sure, until, by conquest in the war with Mexico,
California passed into the possession of the United States. A new era in
horticulture began in California soon after the influx of gold-seekers
in 1849, some of whom, noting the opportunities of fruit-growing, at
once began the importation of seeds and plants.
Modern fruit-growing on the Pacific Coast, however, began in Oregon. The
California Argonauts of '49 were much too busily engaged in digging gold
to think of getting it indirectly by tilling the soil, whereas the men
who were then crossing the plains from Missouri or sailing around the
Horn from New England to Oregon were home-makers and true tillers of the
soil. These early Oregonians were the forerunners in the zeal and
enterprise which have made horticulture on this coast the marvel of
modern agriculture. But one of the several early horticulturists of
Oregon can be mentioned here, he deserving special mention by virtue of
his work with cherries.
Until 1847 the few cultivated fruits to be found in Oregon were
seedlings mostly grown by employees of the Hudson Bay Fur Company. In
that year there was a notable importation of cultivated fruits across
the plains--a venture which quickly proved pregnant with results in
fruit harvests which have not ceased and give promise long to continue.
Henderson Lewelling crossed the plains from Henry County, Iowa, and
brought with him a choice selection of grafted fruits. These he
transported in boxes of soil which he hauled in a wagon drawn by oxen.
Arriving in Oregon late in the fall of 1847 he found that he had 300
trees alive which he planted at what is now Milwaukee, a few miles south
of Portland on the east side of the Willamette River. Later, seeds were
brought for stocks, though for the cherry the wild species, _Prunus
emarginata_ and _Prunus virginiana_, were used and very successfully,
until Mazzard and Mahaleb seeds could be obtained. In this travelling
nursery, Lewelling brought to Oregon cherries of the Bigarreau, the
English Morello and probably of several other types. The label of one of
the cherries was lost and this unknown was renamed Royal Ann.
Unfortunately, it was one of the best known of all cherries that for the
time being lost its identity--the Napoleon, which probably has been
cultivated for three centuries and since 1820 has borne the name of the
great General. With dogged perseverance the West Coast fruit-growers
continue the name "Royal Ann" to the great confusion of systematic
pomology.
But of chief import to cherry culture were the subsequent operations in
the Lewelling nursery at Milwaukee. Lacking proper stocks, Seth
Lewelling, who had succeeded Henderson in the nursery business, grew a
great many cherries from seeds. From these he afterward selected and
disseminated varieties that have made Oregon famous not only for what
are probably the finest sweet cherries in the world but for a long list
of new and desirable varieties--as Republican, Lincoln, Willamette
Seedling and Bing. We call to mind no greater success in bringing into
being new fruits from a few lots of seedlings than in the case of
Lewelling and his cherries. Lewelling's work stimulated others to breed
cherries and among many seedlings that have since been named in the
Northwest the Lambert and Oregon are well worthy of mention.
The facts of time and place in the beginning of cherry culture which we
have tried to set forth in this chapter have, we think, some historical
and narrative interest. Yet, the main value of the facts are not in
history and story. Rather, at least so we hope they will be interpreted,
these brief records show what the crude material was out of which our
present cultivated cherry flora has been developed; what the steps were
in the domestication and development of the cherry; what economic
purposes they have served; and who the peoples are and what the methods
were in bringing the cherry to its present state of development. In a
word, the chapter will not have served the purpose for which it is
mainly intended if it does not furnish facts and inspirations toward the
further evolution of the cherry.
[39] _History of California_ 111. 1854.