Question: When was The Cherry Tree written and how many orchards did Vincent have?
About the article "Vincent van Gogh", section "Flowering Orchards".

Candidate passages:
The series of "Flowering Orchards", sometimes referred to as the "Orchards in Blossom" paintings, were among the first groups of work that Van Gogh completed after his arrival in Arles, Provence in February 1888.
The 14 paintings in this group are optimistic, joyous and visually expressive of the burgeoning Springtime.
They are delicately sensitive, silent, quiet and unpopulated.
About "The Cherry Tree" Vincent wrote to Theo on 21 April 1888 and said he had 10 orchards and: "one big (painting) of a cherry tree, which I've spoiled".
The following spring he painted another smaller group of orchards, including "View of Arles, Flowering Orchards".
Van Gogh was taken by the landscape and vegetation of the South of France, and often visited the farm gardens near Arles.
Because of the vivid light supplied by the Mediterranean climate his palette significantly brightened.
From his arrival, he was interested in capturing the effect of the seasons on the surrounding landscape and plant life.
Cherry pickers were originally designed for use in orchards (though not just cherry orchards) where they are still used frequently.
It lets the fruit picker pick fruit high in a tree with relative ease.
Similar devices, also known as 'cherry pickers', are used to service telephone, cable television, and electrical equipment on utility poles.
Christmas light displays and banners can also be affixed with a cherry picker.
Some fire trucks have a cherry picker, known as a snorkel, instead of a ladder.
Some window cleaners also use them.
Cherry pickers are also used in mining, construction, exterior painting, and sometimes by arborists to work safely in otherwise unclimbable trees.
Cherry pickers were also used for the Mayor of London's "Hatwalk" in July 2012.
Cherry pickers were used to put hats onto the heads of some of the city's most iconic statues, including the statue of Admiral Lord Nelson atop Nelson's Column in Central London's Trafalgar Square.
Cherry pickers are also used to rescue people from roller coasters if the cars are stuck.
In the film and television industry, cherry pickers are known as "condors" and are often used to suspend large lights above sets when not on a soundstage.
Some artists use cherry pickers on stage for effects, most notably Michael Jackson, Justin Bieber and Kanye West.
Jackson would use one on his tours performing Beat It and Earth Song from above the crowd.
Bieber used one on an acoustic set which featured Be Alright and Fall during his Believe Tour.
West used one on his song Dark Fantasy which was usually the opening of his concerts.
Ceramic boom lifts can be utilised for specialised work in confined spaces, however, they are not as common as scissor lifts. 
Lambert developed what became known as the Lambert cherry, by grafting a volunteer seedling, found in 1848 under a Napoleon cherry tree to the rootstock of a May Duke cherry.
The crown of the tree died in 1880 and a new tree grew from its roots that was not a May Duke, nor was it identical to the original seedling.
The resulting cherry was large, richly colored, flavorful, and had a small pit, and it immediately became popular.
Lambert introduced his cherry to the Oregon Horticultural Society in 1896 and it became one of the most important cherries grown in the early Oregon orchards, along with Royal Annes, Bings, and Black Republicans.
In 1916, it was called the "finest cherry grown in America". 
  "It is difficult to say what is impossible, for the dream of yesterday is the hope of today and the reality of tomorrow."
(From his high school graduation oration, "On Taking Things for Granted," June 1904)  "On the afternoon of October 19, 1899, I climbed a tall cherry tree and, armed with a saw which I still have, and a hatchet, started to trim the dead limbs from the cherry tree.
It was one of the quiet, colorful afternoons of sheer beauty which we have in October in New England, and as I looked towards the fields at the east, I imagined how wonderful it would be to make some device which had even the possibility of ascending to Mars.
I was a different boy when I descended the tree from when I ascended for existence at last seemed very purposive."
(Written later, in an autobiographical sketch)  "Every vision is a joke until the first man accomplishes it; once realized, it becomes commonplace."
(His response to a reporter's question following criticism in "The New York Times", 1920)  "It is not a simple matter to differentiate unsuccessful from successful experiments.
.
.
.
work that is finally successful is the result of a series of unsuccessful tests in which difficulties are gradually eliminated."
(Written to a correspondent, early 1940s)  
Summary:Cherry X disease also known as Cherry Buckskin disease is caused by a plant pathogenic phytoplasma.
Phytoplasma's are obligate parasites of plants and insects.
They are specialized bacteria, characterized by their lack of a cell wall, often transmitted through insects, and are responsible for large losses in crops, fruit trees, and ornamentals.
The phytoplasma causing Cherry X disease has a fairly limited host range mostly of stone fruit trees.
Hosts of the pathogen include sweet/sour cherries, choke cherry, peaches, nectarines, almonds, clover, and dandelion.
Most commonly the pathogen is introduced into economical fruit orchards from wild choke cherry and herbaceous weed hosts.
The pathogen is vectored by mountain and cherry leafhoppers.
The mountain leafhopper vectors the pathogen from wild hosts to cherry orchards but does not feed on the other hosts.
The cherry leafhopper which feeds on the infected cherry trees then becomes the next vector that transmits from cherry orchards to peach, nectarine, and other economic crops.
Control of Cherry X disease is limited to controlling the spread, vectors, and weed hosts of the pathogen.
Once the pathogen has infected a tree it is fatal and removal is necessary to stop it from becoming a reservoir for vectors.
Hosts:For Cherry X disease there are two types of hosts for the phytoplasma, reservoir and non-reservoir hosts.
Reservoir hosts can survive for long periods while being infected with the disease.
This allows them to be a constant food source for the leafhoppers which act to vector the phytoplasma from these hosts to other hosts in the area.
Choke cherry is the most common reservoir host and a favorite food for the cherry leafhoppers.
Other reservoir hosts include clovers and dandelions.
Sweet/sour cherries, as well as almonds and Japanese plums are all fruit tree reservoir hosts for the Cherry X disease.
All of these, once infected, can act as a source for the disease to be vectored from to other hosts.
While non-cherry hosts can become infected they are not the preferred host of the phytoplasma.
Because of the vectors preference for cherry trees, choke cherry which is a wild growing cherry species is the most common host of the disease.
The range that Cherry X disease is distributed over is directly linked to the distribution of wild choke cherry populations.
Non-reservoir hosts are hosts that once infected do not allow for the disease to be spread.
Peach and nectarine trees can be infected but they do not allow for the spread of the disease.
This process which causes them to halt the spread of the pathogen is still not well understood.
Peaches are commonly infected when near cherry orchards.
Non-reservoir hosts are infected when cherry leafhoppers that are carrying the phytoplasma feed on non-reservoir hosts that are near a cherry orchard that has the pathogen.
Symptoms:The symptoms of Cherry X disease vary greatly depending on the host.
On cherry hosts symptoms can usually first be seen on the fruits, causing them to be smaller in size with a leathery skin.
Pale fruit is common at harvest time.
It is common for symptoms to first be seen in a single branch.
The branch may lose its older leaves, and the leaves tend to be smaller with a bronzed complexion.
The rootstock that the cherry is grafted onto can play a significant role in the disease symptoms seen.
Rootstocks of Mahaleb exhibit different symptoms from stocks of Colt, Mazzard, or Stockton Morello.
When the scion is grafted onto Mahaleb, symptoms consistent with Phytophthora root rot can be seen.
To distinguish between root rot and x-disease the wood under the bark at the graft union should be examined.
If it is x-disease the wood at the union will have grooves and pits this causes a browning of the phloem and shows the cells in decline.
This rapid decline is caused by the rootstock cells near the graft union dying in large quantities.
Foliage begins to turn yellow and the curl upward and inward toward the leaf midrib.
Trees infected with Mahaleb rootstock die by late summer or early the following year.
When Cherries are grafted onto Colt, Mazzard, or Stockton Morello rootstocks, there is a different range of symptoms.
Affected leaves are smaller than normal and the foliage may be sparse.
Dieback of shoot tips is common as the disease progresses.
Fruit on branches are smaller, lighter, pointed, low sugar content, poor flavor, and a bitter taste.
Peaches are the next most common economic fruit host of the X-disease.
Symptoms can be seen after about two months single branches will begin to show symptoms of their individual leaves.
These leaves curl up and inward with irregular yellow to reddish-purple spots.
These spots can drop out leaving “shotholes”.
Leaves that are affected by the disease will fall prematurely.
After 2–3 years the entire tree will show symptoms.
Disease Cycle:Mountain leafhopper (Colladonus montanus) overwinters on winter annual weeds, particularly near streams and canals.
Adults can be plentiful on sugarbeet during late winter/spring and migrate to favored weed hosts such as curly dock or burclovers in orchards.
The Mountain leafhopper is most abundant vector found on cherry but does not reproduce on cherry.
The mountain leafhopper (Colladonus montanus) spreads the disease from wild herbaceous hosts to woody hosts.
It is believed that it is more responsible for the introduction of the disease into cherry trees, then in transferring them from cherry tree to cherry tree in an orchard.
The cherry leafhopper (Fieberiella florii) reproduces on a broad range of woody hosts.
The cherry leafhopper is more important in vectoring the disease from tree to tree within an orchard, since cherry is a favored host.
After a leafhopper feeds on an infected host the pathogen has to undergo a latent period.
During the latent period the pathogen spreads and multiplies inside the vector.
Depending on temperature and the vector, the average latent period for the cherry x disease is about a month or longer.
The phytoplasma is then transmitted from the leafhopper to the tree when the leafhopper is feeding on the trees phloem.
It's then spread throughout the tree becoming systemic.
July through October is when the highest concentrations of pathogen are present in leaves of infected trees.
Importance of the Disease:The disease is fatal and will always yield damaged fruit (choke cherries) as well as a dying/dead tree.
If left unattended to, the leafhoppers can become life-time transmitters/vectors for the disease following about a 1 month latent period.
The disease can take as quickly as 2–3 months to develop symptoms but more commonly 6–9 months, but the symptoms are usually first seen in the next growing season after the infection, with the rare exception that the infection and first symptoms occur both in the same spring season.
In high cherry producing areas, such as California, Washington, and Oregon, this disease could be devastating if left unchecked.
For instance in 2002, 57,000 tons of cherries were harvested from 24,000 acres in California.
The year grossed a total of over $152 million.
If, in 2002, this disease was allowed to incubate, the results would show a drastic decline of production and huge loss of revenue as early as 2003!
This disease does not take long to develop and since fatality is always the endgame, high producing areas such as these would see results of epidemic proportions!Environment: Leafhoppers are the only known vectors that can carry the X-disease from a wild host into peach and cherry orchards.
Orchard trees are most often infected by insect vectors.
In California where it was first noted, the two most important vectors were the mountain leafhopper, Collandonus montanus, and the cherry leafhopper, Fieberiella florii.
Mountain Leafhopper ("Collandonus montanus") The mountain leafhopper survives on winter annual weeds during winter, usually near stream banks or canals.
In late winter or spring, adults can be found in sugar beet fields and can then migrate to favored weed hosts (curly dock, burclovers) in orchards.
The mountain leafhopper is most often the abundant vector found on cherry, however, cherry is not the preferred host and the leafhopper does not reproduce on cherry.
Preferred hosts for the mountain leafhopper are; alfalfa, California burclover, clovers, curly dock, and sweet clovers.
Of the preferred hosts alfalfa and curly dock cannot become infected with the disease itself but are just a host for the leafhopper.
Occasional hosts are; vetches (in legume family) and sweet cherry.
It’s believed that the role of this leafhopper is introducing the disease into cherry orchards rather than spreading the disease between cherry trees within an orchard.
(http://ucanr.org/sites/cccoopext/files/80935.pdf)   Cherry Leafhopper ("Fieberiella florii") The cherry leafhopper has a more significant role in spreading the disease between cherry trees because cherry is a favored host.
The leafhopper feeds and reproduces on a wide range of woody hosts.
Preferred hosts for the cherry leafhopper are; box wood, lilac, myrtle, privet, pyracantha, sweet cherry, and viburnum.
Of these preferred hosts only sweet cherry can become infected with the disease itself.
Occasional hosts are; almond, apple and crabapple, apricot, bitter cherry, ceanothus, chokecherry, hawthorn, peach, pear, Japanese plum, and prune.
Of these occasional hosts only chokecherry and bittercherry and occasionally almond, peach and Japanese plum can become infected with the disease itself.
There are seven known vectors that transmit the disease in western United States.
These leafhoppers are "Colladonus geminatus, Fieberiella florii, Keonolla confluens, Scaphytopius delongi, Osbornellus borealis, Colladonus montanus," and "Euscelidius variegatus".
Other possible leafhopper vectors are "Scaphytopius aculus, Paraphlepsius irroratus, Colladonus clitellarius," and "Norvellina seminude".
Not a lot of information is available for ideal environmental conditions for the disease.
However, conditions conducive to leafhoppers is most likely the key for the greatest spread of disease.
Management:There are numerous steps one has to take to try to manage the disease as best as possible.
The aim is at prevention because once the pathogen reaches the cherry trees, disease will surely ensue and there is no cure/remedy to prevent the loss of fruit production as well as the ultimate death of the tree.
Pest Management: The first approach, which is the best approach at an effective management practice would be to eradicate or severely damage the Mountain and Cherry Leafhopper population because the leafhoppers are the number one vectors for this pathogen.
To do this, pesticides (i.e.
"acephate", "bifenthrin", "cyfluthrin") could be applied or biological control (predators of the leafhopper) could be used.
There should be a pre-season application of control measures as well as a post-season application.
This is to maximize the effort at controlling both types of leafhoppers (Cherry and Mountain), thus cutting down the starting inoculum at both stages in the life cycle.
Weed Host Management: As seen in Hosts and Symptoms, there are some herbaceous hosts that naturally have the Cherry X Disease.
Once the spreads to the cherry hosts, with the help of the mountain leafhoppers, the cherry leafhoppers can spread the disease around to other woody hosts.
Here are some approaches at management with each host type:1- Herbaceous HostsThe herbaceous hosts are common weeds (i.e.
clovers, dandelions, alfalfa) that serve as a feeding ground for the mountain leafhoppers.
The herbaceous hosts are the source of the X Disease, which is picked up and transmitted to the cherry hosts by the mountain leafhopper.
(See Environment) For a control, use conventional herbicides like "Round-Up".
There exists a common herbaceous host, curly dock, which serves as the mountain leafhopper's main breeding ground.
Getting rid of curly dock with an herbicide would be key to limit the population, thus limiting the spread of the X Disease to the cherry hosts.2- Woody HostsAfter the disease moves on from the herbaceous host with the help of the mountain leafhoppers, it moves to the cherry hosts (i.e.
bitter cherry and chokecherry).
Once there, the infected trees should be destroyed and removed, along with all infected fruits.
This is to prevent further spreading into other woody hosts like: peach, plum, apple etc., because once a tree is infected, it cannot be saved and it will become a source of the X Disease which the cherry leafhoppers can pick up and spread to the other woody hosts.
In conclusion, all infected woody hosts should be removed and destroyed along with all infected fruits.