DYEHOUSE

Prunus cerasus

Dyehouse is conspicuous among cherries for its earliness and for the beauty of its fruit. Early Richmond is the standard early cherry yet Dyehouse is a week earlier, just as attractive in appearance and equally well flavored. It is near of kin to Early Richmond but the two may be distinguished by the difference in time of ripening and by its brighter, clearer color, greater opaqueness, more highly colored juice and slightly smaller size. Possibly this cherry would supersede the better-known Early Richmond were it not for the defect in size and for the further faults of being less productive and more capricious to environment, as it fails to thrive in localities where the older sort is quite at home. It is a worthy rival of Early Richmond, however, and ought to be grown both for home and commercial purposes far more than it is.

To H. T. Harris of Stamford, Kentucky, belongs the honor of introducing this well-known cherry. Although its parentage is unknown, it is almost certain that a Mr. Dyehouse, Lincoln County, Kentucky, raised the tree from a pit sixty or more years ago. At the time of its introduction its characteristics were not clearly drawn and many believed it to be the Early Richmond. In time, however, differences were shown, as we have set forth in the preceding paragraph. It was added to the fruit list of the American Pomological Society in 1897.

DYEHOUSE

Tree small, vigorous, spreading, with drooping branchlets, dense, round-topped, productive; trunk and branches slightly roughened; branches reddish-brown covered with dark ash-gray, with large, elongated, raised lenticels; branchlets slender, willowy, variable in length, brown overspread with ash-gray, smooth, with a few small, inconspicuous lenticels.

Leaves numerous, three inches long, one and one-half inches wide, slightly folded upward, obovate to long-oval; upper surface very dark green, smooth; lower surface light green, with a few hairs along the midrib; apex acute, base variable in shape; margin finely serrate, with small, dark glands; petiole one-half inch long, tinged with dull red, with a few hairs along the grooved upper surface, with from one to three small, globose, greenish-yellow glands at the base of the blade.

Buds small, short, obtuse, plump, free, arranged singly and in clusters on short spurs; leaf-scars prominent; season of bloom intermediate; flowers one inch across, white; borne in dense but well-distributed clusters, usually at the ends of spur-like branches, in twos, threes or fours; pedicels one and one-half inches long, glabrous, greenish; calyx-tube green, obconic, glabrous; calyx-lobes tinged with red, serrate, glabrous within and without, reflexed; petals roundish-obovate, entire, almost sessile, with entire apex; filaments one-fourth inch long; pistil glabrous, nearly equal to the stamens in length.

Fruit matures early; more than one-half inch in diameter, oblate, slightly compressed; cavity of medium depth, narrow, abrupt, regular; suture indistinct; apex flattened, with a small depression at the center; color dark red; dots numerous, small, obscure; stem one inch long, adhering to the pulp; skin thin, tough; flesh light yellowish-white, with pinkish juice, tender, sprightly, tart; of very good quality; stone nearly free, ovate, slightly flattened, with smooth surfaces; somewhat ridged along the ventral suture.