We hesitatingly follow the American Pomological Society in calling this variety Eagle when it has so long been known as Black Eagle, the name given it by the great pomologist, Knight. Were this choicely good cherry larger in size, it would still be a prime favorite with growers for in many respects it is one of the best varieties of its species. Its flavor is excellent; the trees are usually fruitful; it ripens at a good time in the cherry season, just after Black Tartarian; the cherries are less liable to crack than many of its rivals; and the trees are as hardy, healthy and vigorous as those of any Sweet Cherry. Some complain that the trees do not bear well at first but are productive only with age. But, after all, it is its high quality that gives Eagle so much merit that it ought not to be forgotten--makes it worth a place in every home orchard and commends it highly to commercial growers of cherries who want a finely finished product for either local or general market. The fruit-stems of this variety are characteristically long. Eagle was grown about 1806 by Sir Thomas Andrew Knight at Downton Castle, Wiltshire, England, by fertilizing the Bigarreau of the old writers, our Yellow Spanish, with pollen of the May Duke. The correctness of the parentage as given has been questioned because of its inherited characteristics. But if the May Duke is a hybrid between a Sweet and a Sour, a pure Sweet offspring is not an impossibility. In 1823, Honorable John Lowell of Massachusetts received Eagle from Knight. Prince mentioned this cherry in his _Treatise of Horticulture_, 1828, but the exact date of its introduction into New York is unknown. In 1848 it was placed on the list of fruits adopted by the National Convention of Fruit Growers and since then it has been retained on the fruit list of the American Pomological Society. [Illustration: EAGLE] Tree large, vigorous, upright-spreading, dense, unproductive at first but improving with age; trunk and branches thick, smooth; branches reddish-brown partly covered with ash-gray, with numerous small lenticels; branchlets thick, brownish partly covered with light ash-gray, the surface slightly ribbed and with small, raised, inconspicuous lenticels. Leaves numerous, five inches long, two and one-half inches wide, folded upward, long, obovate to elliptical, thin; upper surface dark green, rugose; lower surface light green, thinly pubescent; apex variable in shape; margin coarsely and doubly serrate, with dark glands; petiole nearly two inches long, tinged with red, with a few hairs, with from two to four reniform, brownish glands usually on the stalk.