THE CHERRIES Do you know the peculiar taste and odour of the pit of a cherry or peach? Then you will recognise it without difficulty when you meet it in a bruised leaf or twig of any tree that bears stone fruits, wild or cultivated. It belongs to the family which includes plums, cherries, peaches, apricots, and almonds. But one species of native cherry is a large tree.. It is chiefly as fruit trees that the cultivated varieties are important. A few are grown for their beauty as flowering trees and shrubs; some for their rich bronze foliage.
The wild cherry is the one lumber tree in the family. Its wood ranks with mahogany, though not so expensive as the tree which grows no nearer to us than lower Florida and Central America. It is made into furniture or used in the interior finishing of houses, parlour cars, and ocean liners. It takes a beautiful polish, and has a rich brown colour that improves with time. It is largely used as veneer on cheaper woods. " Solid cherry " is likely to be birch, if the article is of modern make.
This cherry has dark, shiny bark when young, which breaks into shallow furrows, and curls back like birch bark. The unquestionable sign by which to know a wild cherry is the bitter, peach-pit taste of the sap. Nibble a leaf or twig or bit of bark, and you get that unforget able taste, that stays on the tongue longer than we like.
Birds feast in September on the long clusters of dark purple berries. They are bitter sweet, barely edible, I say. But birds take them thank fully, and children usually eat them freely. Old fashioned people make them into wines or cor dials for home remedies.
The choke cherry is a shrubby tree, with a rank, disagreeable odour added to the bitter and pungent odour that belongs to the black cherry.
The leaves are twice as wide as the black cherry's. The fruit shares the rank quality of the leaves and bark. Until dead ripe, the cherries are so bitter, harsh, and puckery that children, who eat the black cherries eagerly, cannot be persuaded to taste choke cherries a second time. This is well-named the " choke " cherry. Only the birds can eat the berries without choking. They seem not to mind its rankness, for the fruit is all taken by the time it has turned black-ripe.
Early in summer the red bird cherry is in fruit, after its crown of white blossoms has passed. The pit is large, and the flesh thin and sour, and the whole fruit is discouragingly small. But birds are happy among the shining leaves until the last cherry is gone. This is quite sufficient appreciation. The seeds are dropped, and the little trees come up all through the woods and in the most unexpected places, due to the birds' scattering of the seeds.
Garden cherries of the sweet and sour groups have sprung from wild species that grow in Europe. The red, black, and yellow cherries of California are the largest, most improved varieties. The garden cherries of the Eastern states are not nearly so large.
The native cherry of Japan has been culti vated as a flowering tree, until it is wonderfully beautiful. In its season of bloom, Japan is a perfect fairyland. The country is one great garden of pink cherry blossoms. At this time the people turn out to see the marvellous sight.
A national holiday is dedicated to this tree, which is the symbol of happiness in the Flower King dom.