THE SWEET CHERRY POSSIBLY THE PARENT OF THE SOUR CHERRY
A digression may be permitted here to state a hypothesis suggested by De Candolle[15] which should interest both fruit-growers and plant-breeders. De Candolle, while considering the two species of cultivated cherries to be now quite distinct, suggests that, since they differ essentially but little in their characters and since their original habitats were in the same region, it is probable that one species came from the other. He surmises, since Prunus avium is the commoner in the original home, is generally the more vigorous of the two, has spread much farther and probably at a much earlier date from the primal habitation in Asia Minor than Prunus cerasus, that the latter, the Sour Cherry, is derived from the Sweet Cherry. In the future breeding of cherries confirmatory evidence of such a relationship may be obtained though, should none be found, the negation should go for naught and the supposition can only remain an interesting and plausible hypothesis.