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.