In the several states named, the cherry industry is further localized. Thus, in the 61 counties in New York, the cherry is grown largely in but 12, the number of trees in each of these being: Columbia 78,526, Niagara 61,786, Monroe 49,831, Ontario 36,394, Wayne 35,385, Erie 29,483, Onondaga 25,932, Seneca 27,063, Chautauqua 24,483, Steuben 15,412, Orleans 14,682 and Cayuga 14,319. If the figures just given, the total number being 413,296, are compared with the number of trees in the State, 674,000, it will be seen that the industry is quite localized, two-thirds of the cherries being grown in 12 of the 61 counties, though the fact is brought out in the census that cherries are grown on 59,408 farms in New York, showing that this fruit is much grown for home use. Further figures of interest as regards New York are that the cherry crop in 1909 amounted to 271,597 bushels which sold for $544,508. The plantings in the State cover in the neighborhood of 9,500 acres.
A canvass of the leading cherry-growers and nurserymen in the United States shows that, in all parts of the country excepting California, Oregon and Washington, Sour Cherries are much more commonly grown than Sweet Cherries. In New York at least 90 per cent of the cherry trees are of sour varieties and this proportion will hold for the region east of the Rockies. The leading commercial varieties of Sour Cherries, in order named, are Montmorency, Early Richmond and English Morello. No other variety is nearly as commonly grown as is even the least well known of these three. No one of the Duke cherries is mentioned as of commercial importance, but May Duke, Late Duke and Reine Hortense are frequently grown in home plantations.
Growers of Sweet Cherries are not nearly as closely in accord as to the best varieties as are those who grow sour sorts. The most popular Sweet Cherries in the East seem to be Windsor, Black Tartarian, Napoleon and Wood with a very insistent statement of the few who have tried it that Schmidt is better than any of these for the market. On the Pacific Coast honors go to Napoleon, which the Westerners continue to call Royal Ann despite the fact that it has been cultivated for three centuries and had been called Napoleon for nearly a half-century before Lewelling took it to Oregon in 1847. Other popular sorts on the Pacific seaboard are Bing, Lambert and Republican—all western productions.
Rather more important than the information obtained from growers of cherry trees as to varieties was that as to the stocks on which cherries are grown in America. This brings us to a discussion of the whole subject of stocks for cherries.
STOCKS FOR CHERRIES
Cherries have been grown in America for over 200 years and for 50 years the crop has been important commercially. Yet despite the extent and the importance of the industry and the years it has been in existence, curiously enough so fundamental a question as the best stock upon which to grow cherries has not yet been settled; indeed, though cherries behave markedly different on the several stocks, interest as to which is the best seems but recently to have been aroused. Now there is a rather warm controversy as to which is the better of the two leading stocks, the Mazzard or the Mahaleb.
Fruit-growers on one side hold that the Mazzard is the best stock for all orchard varieties of this fruit while nurserymen controvert this view and say that the Mahaleb is at least a fit stock for sweet sorts and is the best one for Sour Cherries, and, moreover, that it is now impossible to grow cherries on Mazzard roots at prices that fruit-growers are willing to pay. Since no systematic attempts seem to have been made to determine the peculiarities and values of these two and other cherry stocks both sides dispute without many facts. Meanwhile, a fine crop of misunderstandings has grown up about the whole matter of cherry stocks. It is worth while to attempt to clear up some of the misunderstandings. The first step toward this end is to describe and give the botanical and horticultural relationships of the Mazzard and Mahaleb cherries to orchard cherries.
The Mazzard, as we have seen, is a common name, of uncertain origin, of the wild Sweet Cherry, Prunus avium, from which has come all cultivated Sweet Cherries. It is important to recall that the trees of the Mazzard reach a height of thirty or forty feet and the trunk often attains a diameter of eighteen or twenty inches. Other characters to be kept in mind are that the Mazzard lacks hardiness to cold but grows vigorously and is usually healthy, though susceptible to several fungi, one of which, the shot-hole fungus, Cylindrosporium padi, makes it a most difficult plant to grow in the nursery. Trees and fruit coming from the Mazzard used as a stock are very uniform, a fact easy to ascertain in New York where this stock has been largely used for nearly a century. The Mazzard is almost always grown from seed for stocks though suckers are occasionally used—a poor practice.
PRUNUS AVIUM (MAZZARD)