Page:Foods and their adulteration; origin, manufacture, and composition of food products; description of common adulterations, food standards, and national food laws and regulations (IA foodstheiradulte02wile).pdf/370

 a great magnitude in this country, and Wayne Co., New York, especially, may be regarded as one of the centers of the evaporating industry.

Cherries.—The cultivated cherry tree is believed by Bailey and Powell to have been derived from its ancestral type, the sour cherry (Prunus cerasus L.), which is characterized by a diffuse and mostly low, round-headed growth with fruit which is always red, with soft flesh and very sour taste, and from the sweet cherry (Prunus avium L.), a tall growing tree with the bark tending to peel off in birch-like rings and with variously colored fruit, spherical or heart-shaped, with the flesh hard or soft and generally sweet. There are a great many varieties of these trees. The cherry orchard begins to bear profitably at about the age of five years; the trees often live to a great age and continue to bear fruit. Records of cherry trees over a hundred years old are known. However, it is believed that about thirty years is the limit for profitable bearing. Cherries grow in all parts of the United States. Formerly the crop was a very important one in the East, especially New York, but of late years the California cherries have been more and more occupying the market. As a rule the California cherries are finer in appearance, larger, and freer from worms and imperfections, and possess a flavor which is often equal to that of the best flavored cherries grown in the East.

Composition of Cherries.—What has been said respecting the variations in the composition of apples is applicable with equal force to cherries. In the following table is given first the mean composition of six samples of cherries of American origin with the maximum and minimum. Following this is the mean composition of nine samples of foreign cherries.

+-+-+++-+-               |         |         |          |     |         |                |   |    |      ||  |                 |Samples. | |          |H_{2}SO_{4}.|N × 6.25.| +-+-+++-+-               |Percent. |Percent. | Percent. | Percent.   |Percent. |Percent. American origin:|        |         |          |            |         | Average,      |         |  20.13  |  .443    |  .432      |  1.425  |  11.10 Maximum,      |   6     |  38.84  |  .521    |  .605      |  1.727  |  12.75 Minimum,      |         |  11.46  |  .403    |  .328      |  1.100  |   8.98 Foreign origin: |        |         |          |            |         | Average,      |   9     |  19.74  |  .73     |  .665      |   .620  |  10.24 +-+-+++-+-

The data show that the average quantity of insoluble matter in cherries is about the same whether of American or foreign origin. The total solids represent that part of the cherry which is not water, including principally the cellulose, the ash, and the protein. The quantity of protein, as is seen, is quite small, the average being a little less than 1-1/2 percent. The total sugar present, including cane sugar and reducing sugar, is a little over 11 percent. The analytical table does not give the minute portions of essential