This good, old cherry has never been considered a commercial fruit in the United States; yet it is, and has been, surprisingly popular with nurserymen, most of whom for nearly a century have offered it for sale. A generation ago, when American fruit-growing was in the hands of connoisseurs, Magnifique was more popular than now. It has failed as a commercial cherry because the crop ripens very unevenly, there being sometimes green and fully ripe cherries on the tree at the same time, though the season is usually given as very late. This is one of the lightest in color of the hybrid Dukes, the Sour Cherry parent very evidently having been an Amarelle—a conclusion to which both fruit and tree point. The quality is usually counted as very good though it is too acid to be a first-rate dessert cherry for some. The trees are very vigorous and usually are fruitful. Magnifique has been grown so long that its place in the orchard would seem to have been fixed by experience; yet it might be made more than a cherry for the home orchard if some commercial grower would plant it in a shaded place and a cool soil and thereby retard ripening time until other cherries were gone.

This valuable cherry was brought to notice in 1795 by Chatenay, surnamed Magnifique, a nurseryman near Paris. It seems, at first, to have been quite commonly called Belle de Chatenay but Belle de Magnifique became the commoner appellation ending in America at least with the universal name "Belle Magnifique." The variety was introduced into America from France sometime before 1830, by General H. A. S. Dearborn, Boston, Massachusetts, President of the Massachusetts Horticultural Society. The cherry is typically a Duke sort and is so listed by most writers, though Downing in 1845 placed it with the Morello cherries. Magnifique was placed upon the fruit list of the American Pomological Society in 1852 where it has since remained.

Tree large, vigorous, upright-spreading, dense, productive; trunk and branches stocky, brown overlaid with dark gray; branchlets with many, small conspicuous lenticels.

Leaves numerous, three and one-half inches long, two inches wide, obovate to oval, thickish; upper surface dark green, slightly rugose; lower surface finely pubescent; apex abruptly pointed, base variable in shape; margin finely serrate, with small, dark glands; petiole one inch long, tinged with dull red, grooved on the upper surface and with a few hairs, glandless or with one or two small, reniform, greenish glands usually at the base of the leaf.

Buds obtuse or conical, plump, free, arranged as lateral buds or in rather dense clusters on short spurs; leaf-scars obscure; season of bloom late; flowers white, one inch across, wide open; borne in dense clusters on short spurs, usually in threes or fours; pedicels one inch long, slender, glabrous, light green; calyx-tube greenish, campanulate, glabrous; calyx-lobes broadly and shallowly dentate, glabrous within and without, reflexed; petals obovate, entire, with very short claws, indented at the apex; filaments one-fourth inch long; pistil glabrous, equal to the stamens in length.

Fruit matures late; nearly one inch in diameter, cordate; cavity rather deep; suture very shallow; color pale red changing to bright red; dots numerous, small, russet, conspicuous; stem one and one-fourth inches long; skin thick, tough, adherent to the pulp; flesh whitish, with abundant colorless juice, fine-grained, meaty but tender, pleasantly tart, sprightly; very good in quality; stone free, small, oval, plump, slightly pointed, with smooth surfaces; slightly notched near the base of the ventral suture.

MAY DUKE

Prunus avium × Prunus cerasus

May Duke is one of the oldest and, the world over, one of the most popular cherries. There are several reasons why it has attained and holds its popularity. It is finely flavored, especially when prepared for the table, and even before ripe; it is also delicious to eat out of hand if the cherries are dead ripe, when it is one of the best of the subacid cherries; while one of the earliest of its class, it may be left to hang for a month or six weeks, becoming daily sweeter and more aromatic; few or no cherries thrive in greater variations of soil and climates, this fact accounting in greatest measure for its world-wide distribution in temperate regions; despite its tender flesh, it ships well though it is grown only for local markets since its long period of ripening makes necessary several pickings—a fatal defect for a canning cherry or one for the general trade; lastly, the trees are as fruitful as any, and are hardy, vigorous and healthy. The fruit is remarkably well distributed in dense clusters on trees characteristically upright and vasiform and bearing a heavy canopy of dark green, luxuriant foliage. May Duke fills a particular place in the cherry orchard as a fruit for the local market and hundreds of new-comers have not been able to supplant it. The fact that it has lost none of its pristine vigor, health and productiveness in the two hundred and more years it has been known contradicts the idea that varieties of fruit degenerate or wear out with age. When we pass in review all of the varieties of cherries, all characters and purposes considered, May Duke remains one of the best.

This variety seems to have been first mentioned by Ray in 1688. May Duke is supposed by some English writers to have originated in a district in France known as Médoc and the name to have been derived from the place. When this cherry first received attention, the old style of reckoning time was in vogue and the 11th of June was the last day of May. It may, therefore, be presumed that the variety derived its name from its season of ripening rather than from a corruption of Médoc. A few years ago Professor J. L. Budd of Iowa imported from Russia several cherries among which was one called Esel Kirsche. Later this cherry was distributed by the United States Department of Agriculture. As grown on the grounds of this Station, Esel Kirsche has proved to be May Duke. In Ohio the two could not be distinguished and with this evidence we have listed Esel Kirsche as a synonym of May Duke. In 1832, William Prince mentioned May Duke as being among the first of the cherries introduced to America from Europe. From the references to this variety in the horticultural literature and in the nursery catalogs throughout the United States we may say that it is one of the most widely distributed and best-known cherries in the country. The American Pomological Society placed May Duke on its fruit catalog list in 1848.

MAY DUKE