Possibilities in Iowa Cherry Growing.
Prof. Budd, of Iowa, sends The Prairie Farmer the following copy of his address before the Eastern Iowa Horticultural Society, remarking that its appearance in this paper may lead the Bloomington nurserymen to look up this very important line of propagation:
The topic assigned me is, as usual, experimental horticulture. I select the division of the work implied in the heading for the reason that it is, as yet, mainly an unoccupied field of inquiry. If the idea occurs that my treatment of the question is speculative rather than practical permit me to suggest that thought and investigation must always precede the work of adapting fruits to a newly occupied country, especially if that country is as peculiar in climate and soil as the great Northwest.
In the summer of 1882, I was fortunate in having a fine opportunity for studying the varieties and races of cherries in Continental Europe. The fruit was ripening when we were in the valley of the Moselle in France, and as we went slowly northward and eastward it continued in season through Wirtemberg, the valleys and spurs of the Swabian Alps to Munich in Bavaria, through the passes of the Tyrol in Saltzburg to Austria, Bohemia, Siberia, Poland, and Southwestern Russia. Still farther north of St. Petersburg and Moscow we met the cherries from Vladimir on every corner, and our daily excursions to the country permitted the gathering of the perfectly ripened fruit from the trees.
Still again when we passed six hundred miles east of Moscow we had opportunities for picking stray cherries of excellent quality from trees standing near the 56th parallel of north latitude.
To undertake to tell of the varieties of the fruit and the relative hardiness of the trees—as estimated from the behavior of varieties we knew something of—of the many varieties and races we studied on this extended trip would make too long a story. On the plains of Silesia, north of the Carpathian mountains we first began to be intensely interested in the cherry question. Here the cherry is the almost universal tree for planting along division lines and the public highways. As far as the eye could reach over the plains when passing over the railways, the cherry tree indicated the location of the highways and the division of estates. As we passed the highways running at right angles with the track we could get a glimpse down the avenues to a point on the plain where the lines seem to meet, and we were told that unbroken lines along the highways were often found thirty to fifty miles in length.
As a rule these street and division trees are of a race wholly unknown in this country excepting a few trees of the Ostheim in Iowa and Minnesota. They are classed in the books as Griottes with colored juice and long, slender, drooping branches. The trees are smaller than our English Morello with low stems, and neat round tops. While some other races are hardy on this plain as far north as Warsaw in Poland and Russia the Griottes are grown for three main reasons. (1) The trees are deep rooted and so small in size that they do little shading of the street or cultivated fields. (2) They rarely fail to bear full crops as the fruit buds are hardier and the fruit buds expand later than the Kentish and the other and more upright forms of the Morello. (3) The fruit is less acid and richer in grape sugar than the Kentish forms making it more valuable for dessert, culinary use, and above all for making the celebrated "Kirsch wasser" which here takes the place of wine. Some of the thin twigged Griottes with dark skins and colored juice are as large in size as our Morello and nearly or quite as sweet. That they will prove hardy and fruitful with us we can hardly doubt as they grow on the dry plains of Northeast Europe where the Kentish forms utterly fail. Why have they not been introduced? I once asked this question of Mr. George Ellwanger, of Rochester, N.Y. He replied that in the early days of their nursery some varieties of the Weichel type were introduced in their collection. But the Eastern demand ran in the line of the Heart cherries and the Dukes, and if sour cherries were wanted for pies the Kentish forms with uncolored juice seemed to be preferred. I suspect the difficulty of propagation and the inferior look of the little thin twigged trees in the nursery had something to do with the ignorance of our people of the merits of this hardy and fruitful race. In the trying climate of the Swabian Alps, the Tyrol, and the east plain of Silesia, Hungary, Poland, and South Russia, the trees are on their own roots mainly, and the sprouts are used for propagation. When small they are placed in the nursery with the tops and roots cut back in the form of root-grafts. For the use of methodic growers and or planting on private grounds where sprouts are not wanted the trees are budded or inarched on Prunus Padus.
How will we propagate this valuable race of the cherry? The scions are too small for profitable grafting, and budding on our Morello seedlings hardly answers, as the slow-growing top favors sprouting from the root. Perhaps we shall find that our bird cherry (Prunus Pennsylvanica) is best suited for our use. The question of propagation of this race is important, as the cherries grown in immense quantities in the Province of Vladimir, one hundred and fifty miles east of Moscow, and in all the provinces of the upper Volga are of this thin twigged race. Beyond all doubt it is the coming cherry for universal use in Central and Northern Iowa, and even in Dakota and the far Northwest. Yet it is not the only race of the cherry which will thrive on our prairies and prove longer-lived, more fruitful, and far better in quality than any we now have.
On the grounds of the Pomological Institute, at Proskau, Silesia, we saw many varieties of the Amarelle and Spanish cherries that will bear more summer heat, an aridity of air, and a lower summer temperature than our Richmonds or English Morello. In leaf and habit of growth these Amarells of Austria and South Russia are much like our Carnalion, but some of the varieties bear large fruit, as nearly sweet as is desirable for dessert use. The race known as Spanish bears sweet fruit, much like our tall growing Hearts and Bigarreaus, but the leaves are smaller, firmer, and thicker, and the habit of the tree is nearly as low and spreading as that of the Amarells. In Austria we are told that the original stock of these round-topped, sweet cherries came from Spain, but as we went east to Orel, Veronish, and Saratov we met varieties of this race on the grounds of amateurs and proprietors who told us that the race was indigenous to Bokara and other parts of Central Asia. While these varieties are hardier than the Richmond the trees are lightly protected with straw during the winter for protection of the fruit buds, when paying crops are secured. North of Orel the Griottes alone are grown on the bush plan, with from three to six stems springing up from the crown. In Vladimir tens of thousands of acres are covered with these bush cherry orchards, producing many train loads annually of fruit of surprising excellence, considering the far northern and inland location of the plantations.