Although Prunus besseyi has received attention from horticulturists less than a quarter-century it has aroused much interest, best indicated by the fact that now a considerable number of varieties of the species are under cultivation and there are more than a score of hybrids disseminated in which it is one of the parents. Indians, trappers and early settlers have long used the wild fruit under the name of Western Sand Cherry, Bessey's Cherry and Rocky Mountain Cherry. Among pioneers this cherry was held in high esteem for sauces, pies and preserves and, where there was a dearth of cultivated cherries, was eaten with relish out of hand. The flesh is tender, juicy and, while astringent as commonly found, plants bearing aromatic and very palatable cherries are often found growing wild while some of the domesticated plants bear very well-flavored fruits. All speak of the Sand Cherry as wonderful in productiveness and as having remarkable capacity to withstand the vicissitudes of the exacting climate in which it grows. A valuable asset of Prunus besseyi is its great variability. Fruit from different plants varies in size, color and flavor suggesting that, under cultivation, amelioration will proceed rapidly. The plants of this species root freely from layers or root-cuttings and are therefore easily propagated and multiplied.
But it is in its hybrids that this western cherry has proved most valuable in horticulture. There are now hybrids under cultivation between this species and the Sand plum (Prunus augustifolia watsoni), the Hortulana plum (Prunus hortulana), the Simonii plum (Prunus simonii), the Japanese plum (Prunus triflora), the American plum (Prunus americana), the Cherry plum (Prunus cerasifera), the Sweet Cherry (Prunus avium), the peach (Prunus persica), the apricots (Prunus armeniaca and Prunus mume), and the common plum (Prunus domestica). It would almost seem that this species is the "go-between" of the many and varied types of the genus Prunus. It is true that few of these hybrids yet shine as orchard plants but, given time, it seems certain that some will prove valuable in general horticulture and that many will be grown in the special horticulture of the northern Mississippi Valley and the adjoining plains to the west. Credit must be given to Professor N. E. Hansen of the South Dakota Experiment Station for most of our present knowledge of hybridism between this and other species.[10]
In his work with this species Hansen has also found that Prunus besseyi makes a very good stock for peaches, apricots, Japanese and native plums and that, while it does not so readily consort with the true cherries, yet it can be used as a stock for them. On the other hand larger fruits of the Sand Cherry can be grown when it is budded on stocks of the Americana.
MINOR SPECIES
Besides these well-recognized species of cultivated cherries there are several others that play a much less conspicuous part in horticulture. Prunus fruticosa Pallas, the Dwarf Cherry of Europe, is much cultivated, more especially its botanical variety pendula, as an ornamental and somewhat for its fruit. According to Wilson,[11] Prunus involucrata Koehne is grown for its fruit in the gardens of China; the fruits, he says, are "small and lacking in flavour." The fruits of Prunus emarginata Walpers are eaten by the Indians on the Pacific Coast and the early settlers used the species as a stock for orchard cherries. Prunus jacquemontii Hooker, the Dwarf Cherry of Afghanistan and Tibet, is occasionally in culture for its fruit and as a park plant; so also is another dwarf cherry from southwestern Asia, Prunus incana Steven. Prunus pseudocerasus Lindley, the Flowering Cherry of Japan, is a well-known ornamental the world over and in Japan is used as a stock for orchard cherries for which purpose, as we have suggested in the discussion of stocks, it ought to be tried in America.
CHAPTER II
THE HISTORY OF CULTIVATED CHERRIES
THE ANCIENT USE OF CHERRIES
History casts no direct light upon the period when the cherry first came under cultivation. Undoubtedly primitive men in all parts of the North Temperate Zone enlivened their scanty fruit fare with wild cherries. Cultivated cherries, we know, had their origin in the Old World. But history tells us nothing of the period when Europe and Asia were unbroken forests inhabitated by savages who eked out a precarious subsistence by the pursuit of the chase and from meagre harvests of wild grains, fruits and vegetables. On these continents agriculture and rude civilization began in ages immemorial and cultivated plants diversified, enriched and adorned the landscapes long before the first written records. Our knowledge of how wild cherries have been remodeled into the orchard and garden varieties of today—of what the methods and processes of domestication have been—is, therefore, doubtful and limited, for the mind and hand of man had been deeply impressed upon the cherry long before the faint traditions which have been transmitted to our day could possibly have arisen.
The history of the cherry, then, goes back to primitive man. Direct proof of the ancient use of cherries is furnished by the finding of cherry-pits of several species in the deposits of Swiss lake-dwellings, in the mounds and cliff-caves of prehistoric inhabitants of America and in the ancient rubbish-heaps of Scandinavian countries. There are but few regions in which cultivated cherries are grown in which the inhabitants in times of stress, or by choice in times of plenty, do not now use as food wild cherries, some species of which grow in abundance and under the most varied conditions, almost from the Arctic Circle to within a few degrees of the Tropic of Cancer in a belt encircling the globe. It is probable that all of the wild species which have furnished fruit to the aborigines or to the modern inhabitants of a region have been sparingly cultivated—at the very least if they possessed any considerable food value they have been more or less widely distributed by the hand of man. But, curiously enough, out of the score or more of species of which the fruit is used as food as the plants grow wild, but two may be said to be truly domesticated. These are the Sour, or Pie Cherry, Prunus cerasus, and the Sweet Cherry, Prunus avium, with the histories of which we are now to be concerned.