"Very well indeed!" was the reply; "I am glad you have not forgotten it.--Of our cultivated cherries, we have here at Elmridge, besides the large black ones, which are so very sweet about the first of July, the great ox-hearts, which look like painted wax and ripen in June, and those very acid red ones, often called pie-cherries, which are used for pies and preserves. The cherry is a beautiful fruit, and one that is popular with birds as well as with boys. The great northern cherry of Europe, which was named by Linnaeus the 'bird-cherry,' is encouraged in Great Britain and on the Continent for the benefit of the birds, which are regarded as the most important checks to the over-multiplication of insects. The fact not yet properly understood in America--that the birds which are the most mischievous consumers of fruit are the most useful as destroyers of insects--is well known by all farmers in Europe; and while we destroy the birds to save the fruit, and sometimes cut down the fruit-trees to starve the birds, the Europeans more wisely plant them for the food and accommodation of the birds." "Isn't it wicked to kill the poor little birds?" asked Edith. "Yes, dear; it is cruel to kill them just for sport, as is often done, and very foolish, as we have just seen, to destroy them for the sake of the fruit, which the insects make way with in much greater quantities than the birds do." "Miss Harson," asked Clara, "do people cut down real cherry trees to make the pretty red furniture like that in your room?" "It is the wood of the wild cherry," replied her governess, "that is used for this purpose. It is of a light-red or fresh mahogany color, growing darker and richer with age. It is very close-grained, compact, takes a good polish, and when perfectly seasoned is not liable to shrink or warp. It is therefore particularly suitable, and much employed, for tables, chests of drawers, and other cabinet-work, and when polished and varnished is not less beautiful for such articles than are inferior kinds of mahogany." "'Cherry' sounds pretty to say," continued Clara. "I wonder how the tree got that name?"