The cherries of New York

by U. P. Hedrick

AMELIORATION OF THE CHERRY

The amelioration of the cherry has been in progress almost since the dawn of civilization, yet few men have directed their efforts toward the improvement of this fruit. The histories of the varieties described in The Cherries of New York show that nearly all of them have come from chance seedlings. Possibly there has been little interest in improving cherries because this fruit is comparatively immutable in its characters.

In spite of the fact that there are a great number of varieties, 1,145 being described in The Cherries of New York, this of all stone-fruits is most fixed in its characters. The differences between tree and fruit in the many varieties are less marked than in the other fruits of Prunus and the varieties come more nearly true to seed. Though probably domesticated as long ago as any other of the tree-fruits, the cherry is now most of all like its wild progenitors. The plum is very closely related to the cherry but it has varied in nature and under cultivation much more than the cherry and in accordance with different environments has developed more marked differences in its species to endure the conditions brought about by the topographical and climatic changes through which the earth has passed. Under domestication more than twice as many orchard varieties of the plum have come into being as of the cherry. In spite of this stability, there are ample rewards in breeding cherries to those who will put in practice rightly directed efforts to improve this fruit—a statement substantiated by the histories of some of the best varieties, described later in this text, which were originated through what was passing as current coin in plant-breeding before the far better methods of the present time, brought about by Mendel's discovery, came into being.

The cherry, as the histories of its many diverse kinds show, has been improved only through new varieties. There is no evidence, whatever, to show that any one of the several hundred cherries described in this text has been improved by selection as a cumulative process, or, on the other hand, that any one of them has cumulatively degenerated. Of varieties cultivated for their fruits there are no records of mutations either from the seed or from bud, though of the ornamental cherries not a few have arisen as bud-mutations, as, for example, the several double-flowered cherries and those of weeping or fastigiate habit of growth and the many sorts with abnormally colored foliage. Since improvement depends upon the bringing into being of new cherries it becomes highly important to know how the varieties we are dealing with in The Cherries of New York have come into existence. The following is a summary of their manner of origin:—

No case is recorded in The Cherries of New York of a variety known to have come from self-fertilized seed.

The seed parent is given for 61 varieties. The statements as to seed parents are probably accurate, for a man planting cherry seeds would record the name of the seed parent correctly if he knew it.

The seed and pollen parents of twenty of the cherries described in this work are given. Sixteen of these are hybrids originating with Professor N. E. Hansen of South Dakota, leaving but four sorts the parents of which were known before the recent work of Professor Hansen.

No cherry cultivated for its fruit is reported to have come from a sport or a bud-mutation.

Cherries arising from seed sown without knowledge of either parent or from natural seedlings are put down as chance seedlings; of these there are 147.

The origin of 917 of the varieties here described is unknown.

The total number of cherries under discussion is 1,145.

To improve the cherry the breeder must know the material with which he is working. The following is a brief discussion of the characters of this fruit to be found in the technical descriptions of species and varieties.