A canvass of the leading cherry-growers and nurserymen in the United States shows that, in all parts of the country excepting California, Oregon and Washington, Sour Cherries are much more commonly grown than Sweet Cherries. In New York at least 90 per cent of the cherry trees are of sour varieties and this proportion will hold for the region east of the Rockies. The leading commercial varieties of Sour Cherries, in order named, are Montmorency, Early Richmond and English Morello. No other variety is nearly as commonly grown as is even the least well known of these three. No one of the Duke cherries is mentioned as of commercial importance, but May Duke, Late Duke and Reine Hortense are frequently grown in home plantations. Growers of Sweet Cherries are not nearly as closely in accord as to the best varieties as are those who grow sour sorts. The most popular Sweet Cherries in the East seem to be Windsor, Black Tartarian, Napoleon and Wood with a very insistent statement of the few who have tried it that Schmidt is better than any of these for the market. On the Pacific Coast honors go to Napoleon, which the Westerners continue to call Royal Ann despite the fact that it has been cultivated for three centuries and had been called Napoleon for nearly a half-century before Lewelling took it to Oregon in 1847. Other popular sorts on the Pacific seaboard are Bing, Lambert and Republican--all western productions. Rather more important than the information obtained from growers of cherry trees as to varieties was that as to the stocks on which cherries are grown in America. This brings us to a discussion of the whole subject of stocks for cherries. STOCKS FOR CHERRIES Cherries have been grown in America for over 200 years and for 50 years the crop has been important commercially. Yet despite the extent and the importance of the industry and the years it has been in existence, curiously enough so fundamental a question as the best stock upon which to grow cherries has not yet been settled; indeed, though cherries behave markedly different on the several stocks, interest as to which is the best seems but recently to have been aroused. Now there is a rather warm controversy as to which is the better of the two leading stocks, the Mazzard or the Mahaleb.