This is the most abundant wild cherry of the United States, occurring mainly east of the Mississippi, where it is found from Florida to the Great Lakes, forming in the Ohio Valley a magnificent forest tree, but becoming reduced almost to a shrub on our northern borders. The ease with which it is grown, and its uniform productiveness, recommend it to the attention of improvers of our wild fruits. Although hardly eatable in its natural state, the fruit is probably quite as susceptible of improvement as many others. Its variability in different soils and climates would indicate this. On sandy "oak openings" in central Michigan the fruit is larger and better in quality than on heavy timbered lands in the same region. J. T. Allen of Nebraska, and Chas. W. Garfield of Michigan, have observed an improvement in the size and quality of its fruit under cultivation.

Although easily modified by surrounding conditions, this fruit (and the same may be said of other cherries) does not often produce distinct varieties. D. L. Adair of Kentucky, however, discovered many years ago a spontaneous variety of the black cherry, with fruit three times as large as the average, entirely devoid of all bitterness and astringency, and which he considered equal in flavor to the best cultivated cherries. Enough, at least, is known of this cherry, so well adapted to a large portion of the continent, to render it well worthy the attention of the cultivator, especially when we remember the results which have been obtained from the bitter mazzard of Europe.