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Show WHY NOT GROW YOUR OWN CHERRIES? "Cherries ripe, cherries ripe Ripe, ripe, I cry!" There was a time when the words of that old English huckster's cry meant something. That was when the cherries which came to market were grown near where they were sold, and had a chance to ripen on the tree A cherry pie really ripe is one of the most delicious of all fruits; but a cherry half ripe, is about as satisfactory as a pretty good egg! To get the most delicious cherries, the surest, safest and most economical -way is to pick 'em from your own trees. That is not such a difficult thing to do. Cherries can be grown successfully success-fully in most places, and in many respects re-spects require less care than apples or peaches. How much more satisfactory it is to gather your own cherries, by the pailful, than to to content yourself with a taste from a few rows in a little round, wooden box, for which you pay enough to buy a cherry tree. (And usually the cherries you do get from one of these tightly packed botes, bot-es, although they look delicious will prove, upon trial, to be either unripe un-ripe or decayed.) Did you ever stop to think what a can of cherries costs, compared to most other fruits? And yet there used to be plenty of them on the cellar cel-lar shelves of the old home farm. Remember Re-member those cherry pies? It is seldom, nowadays, however, that we experience the pleasure of having them on the table, for so many of the old cherry trees are now gone gone simply because, neglected! neglect-ed! and abused for generations, they finally succumed ,to age and insects. And in the meantime we had not planted younger trees to take their place! But there is no reason why they should not be planted. Every farm may well have its half doen or so cherry trees to supply the farm home with fruit. They need not be planted in an "orchard." They can be put anywhere that it is convenient, conveni-ent, where they are not likely to be run over or damaged while they are small. Even on the small place a few cherries can be grown to advantage. They require little room; and even a small tree will bear many quarts of delicious cherries. A cherry tree in bloom is one of the most beautiful things in all the plant world. In Japan, you know, every spring a national holiday and festival is held "what time the cher- ry blossoms blow." So when both beanty and economy will grow on the same tree, why not plant cherries? Any good garden soil will grow excellent ex-cellent cherries. Like most fruit trees however, cherries must have good drainage. Where the soil is not naturally nat-urally well drained, it must be properly prop-erly prepared to carry off surplus water. wa-ter. A simple drainage can be prepared pre-pared by digging a large hole and filling In a foot to 18 inches at tho bottom with gravel or screened con-dera. con-dera. 4 |