It must not be thought, by those unacquainted with the plant-lore of the times, that the cherry received consideration only from the pens of Turner, Gerarde, and Parkinson. During the time covered by the lives of these three men a score or more of books were written in English on botany and pomology in which accounts were given of the cherry, all showing the esteem in which this fruit was held in England during and before the reign of Queen Elizabeth. Space permits comments on the account of the cherry given by but one of these Elizabethan herbalists, and of the several Gerarde's seems best suited to our purpose. We have chosen Gerarde because he treats the cherry more fully than do the other writers of the period and because he was a compiler and a translator, having, as he quaintly says, "perused divers Herbals set fourth in other languages;" thus from Gerarde we obtain a conception of cherries growing on the continent as well as those growing in England. Students of the English herbals say that Gerarde translated, copied and adapted from Matthiolus, whose book we have noted, but more particularly from Dodoens who in 1554 published in Antwerp _A History of Plants_. These two worthies, in turn, had borrowed very freely from still more ancient writers--Theophrastus, Dioscorides, Columella and others. As might be suspected, errors centuries old were passed down, yet each new translation or compilation contains much added information and is far freer from error. In particular, Gerarde seems to have been a wise compiler and adapter and to have combined a large measure of first-hand practical knowledge with his borrowings from others. This is especially true of what he writes concerning cherries, a fruit with which he seems to have been very familiar. The following is Gerarde's account, with interpolations by the author: "The ancient Herbalists have set down four kinds of Cherry trees; the first is great and wild, the second tame or of the garden, the third hath sour fruit, the fourth is that which is called in Latin Chamaecerasus, or the dwarfe Cherry tree. The later writers have found divers sorts more, some bringing forth great fruit, others lesser; some with white fruit, some with blacke, others of the colour of black bloud, varying infinitely according to the clymat and country where they grow." The four cherries which Gerarde says the "ancient herbalists have set down" are, it is easy to see: first, the wild _Prunus avium_; second, cultivated sweet varieties of _Prunus avium_; third, the sour _Prunus cerasus_; fourth, the Dwarf Cherry, _Prunus fruticosa_.