Bing is one of the best of the several very good cherries from the Pacific Northwest. But few Sweet Cherries equal it in size and attractiveness and none surpass it in quality, so that it may be said to be as good as any of the dessert cherries. It is, too, a very good shipping fruit, ranking with the best of the Bigarreaus, to which group it belongs, as a cherry for distant markets. Another quality commending the variety is that it hangs well on the trees and the crop ripens at one time so that the harvest consists of but one picking. While many cherry-growers speak well of the trees, unfortunately we cannot do so from their behavior on the grounds of this Station,
They have not been as vigorous, as healthy or as productive as cherry trees should be in a commercial variety of first rank. The cause, however, may be in the location rather than in the variety, for in an orchard but a few miles distant Bing does much better than on these grounds. The variety, though comparatively new, is no longer on probation. It has a niche in the cherry flora of the country, deserving a place in the collection of every amateur by virtue of its splendid fruit. When it is happy in soil and climate, Bing is bound to be one of the leading commercial cherries.
Seth Lewelling of Milwaukee, Oregon, the originator of several of our finest cherries, grew Bing from the seed of Republican 1875. The variety was named after a Chinese workman. In 1899 the American Pomological Society placed the variety on its fruit list.
Tree large, vigorous, erect becoming upright-spreading, rather open, productive; trunk and branches thick, smooth; branches brownish with numerous, small lenticels; branchlets thick, long, with long internodes, greenish-brown, smooth, pubescent, with small, raised, conspicuous lenticels.
Leaves abundant, large, folded upward, ovate to obovate of medium thickness; upper surface dark green, smooth; lower surface light green, pubescent; apex abruptly pointed, or acute, base abrupt; margin slightly serrate, glandular; petiole long, pubescent, thickish, tinged red, with from one to three large, reniform, reddish glands on the stalk.
Fruit matures in mid-season or later; very large, one inch in diameter, broadly cordate, somewhat compressed, slightly angular; cavity deep, of medium width, abrupt, regular; suture a dark line; apex roundish or slightly depressed; color very dark red, almost black; dots small, russet, inconspicuous; stem variable in thickness, one and one fourth inches long; skin of medium thickness, tough, adherent to the pulp; flesh purplish red with dark purple juice, rather coarse, firm, very meaty, brittle, sweet; of very good quality; stone semi-free, large, ovate to oval, blunt, with smooth surfaces.
U.S.D.A. Rpt. 262, P1. 4 fig. a. 1892. 2. Wash. Bd. Hort. Rpt. 126,128. 1893. 3. Am. Pom. Soc. Cal. 24. 1899. 4. W. N. Y. Hort. SOC. Rpt. 192. 1900. 5. Ibid. 26. 1904. 6. Am. Pom. Soc. Rpt. 192. 1907. 7. Wickson Cal. Fruits 187. 1908. 8. Am. POM. SOC. Cat. 26. 1909. 9. Wash. Sta. Bul. 92:23. 1910.
[Bing info in 'Cherries of Utah']