HKB
his elaborate and useful work) I acknowledge to have benefited my self, and this edition; though I have also given no obscure tast of this pretty tree in Chap. XX.
It is rais’d of the stones of black-cherries very ripe (as they are in July) endeavouring to procure such as are full, and large; whereof some he tells us, are little inferior to the black Orleance, without graffing, and from the very genius of the ground. These gather’d, the fleshy part is to be taken off, by rolling them under a plank in dry sand, and when the humidity is off (as it will be in 3 or 4 days) reserve them in sand again a little moist and hous’d, ’till the beginning of February, when you may sow them in a light gravelly mould, keeping them clean for two years, and thence planting them into your nurseries, to raise other kinds upon, or for woods, copses and hedge-rows, and for walks and avenues, which if of a dryish soil, mixt with loam, though the bottom be gravel, will thrive into stately trees, beautified with blossoms of a surprizing whiteness, greatly relieving the sedulous bees, and attracting birds.
If you sow them in beds immediately after they are excarnated, they will appear the following Spring, and then at two years shoot, be fit to plant out where you please; otherwise, being kept too long e’er you sow them, they will sleep two Winters: And this is a rule, which he prescribes for all sorts of stone-fruit.
You may almost at any time remove young cherry-trees, abating the heads to a single shoot.
He recommends it for the copse, as producing a strong shoot, and as apt to put forth from the roots, as the elm; especially, if you fell lusty trees: In light ground it will increase to a goodly tall tree, of which he mentions one, that held above 85 foot in height: I have my self planted of them, and imparted to my friends, which have thriv’d exceedingly; but till now did not insert it among the foresters: The vertues of the fruit of this cherry-tree against the epilepsy, palsy, and convulsions, &c. are in the spirits and distill’d waters. Concerning its other uses, see the chapter and section above-mentioned, to which add pomona, Chap. 8. annexed with this treatise. This tree affords excellent stocks for the budding and graffing of other cherries on.
And here I might mention the bitter cherry of Canada, (tho’ exceedingly unlike to ours) which would yet be propagated for the incomparable liquor it is said to yield, preferable to the best limonade, by an incision of two inches deep in the stem, and sloping to the length of a foot, without prejudice to the tree. What is said of it, and of the maple, in the late discovery of the North-America, may be seen in the late description of those countries. For other exotic species, v. Ray Dendrolog. Tom. III. p. 45, 46.