The Cherry Festival

Young is the Cherry Capital of Australia.

The vibrant and progressive town of Young, located on the south west slopes of New South Wales, is gearing up to host the 63rd National Cherry Festival this December. This year the festival will also be helping to celebrate "Australian Year of the Farmer".

The three day celebration will include quirky and colourful festivities including the National Cherry Festival Street Parade, Cherry Festival Carnival, cherry pie eating championships, animal nursery, shearing competition, cherry pip spitting competition, live music, celtic tattoo spectacular, Hilltops Wine Expo, Young and Region Farmers Market, fringe events and much more.

The first cherry trees were planted at Young in 1847 by Edward Taylor and in 1878 Nicole Jasprizza started conducting grafting experiments to produce a "good cherry".

By the 1890's Flourens, Napoleons, Bigarroux and Marguerite had all been developed and Mr Jasprizza kept grafting old varieties until he had 7,000 old cherry trees, 3,000 young ones and 5,000 in the nursery stage.

At first cherries were sold locally but when the railway opened, Young's early cherries captured the Sydney market. By 1908 15,000 cases were being consigned annually and the 50 pickers for the season, picked until 4pm daily when they packed to catch the evening train for Sydney where the cherries were sold the following morning.