154. _The POMEGRANATE is an apple-shaped fruit with thick rind, and crowned with the leaves or teeth of the calyx. It is the produce of an evergreen shrub_ (Punica granatum, Fig. 47) _which grows wild in the southern parts of Europe._ _This shrub is usually from fifteen to twenty feet high. The branches are armed with spines; and the leaves are oblong, pointed, and dark green. The flowers, which are of a rich scarlet colour, have five rounded petals._ By the Greeks and Romans almost every part of the pomegranate tree (the root, leaves, flowers, and fruit) was considered to possess medical properties of a very remarkable and even marvellous description; and the country then chiefly celebrated for the production of it was that adjacent to the city of Carthage. The pomegranate is now, however, in little esteem, except on account of its fruit; the pulp or juice of which is pleasant to the palate, and, in common with other summer fruits, allays heat and mitigates thirst, but has a slightly astringent flavour. This pulp is red, is contained in transparent membranes, and included in nine distinct cells. The tough _rind_ of the fruit, which is of a bitter and astringent nature, was employed by the ancients in the dressing of leather; and it is still used in some parts of Germany, together with the _bark_ of the tree, in the preparation and dyeing of red leather in imitation of what is called Morocco leather. Pomegranates were first cultivated in England about the year 1596; but the fruit grown in this country seldom attains a delicacy of flavour equal to that which is imported from Spain, Italy, and other warm climates. 155. _The CHERRY is a fruit of the prune or plum tribe, the original stock of which is the wild cherry_ (Prunus cerasus) _of our woods._ The gradual effects of cultivation, as they regard the cherry, have been the production of several kinds, which, both in size and flavour, infinitely exceed the fruit of the parent stock, or wild cherry of the woods. The kinds that are best known are the _May Duke, Early Kentish Cherry, White Heart, and Black Heart Cherries_. The trees are propagated by grafting (see p. 147) them usually upon the stocks of wild black and red cherry trees, which are reared for that purpose. This agreeable _fruit_ is eaten either fresh or dried. It is sometimes preserved with sugar as a sweetmeat; is made into jam; used in preparations of the liqueur called cherry-brandy: and made into wine. From wild black cherries the Swiss distil an ardent spirit, by the sale of which to the French and Germans they derive considerable profit.