The Cherry Orchard the three or four outstanding plays by Chekhov, along with "The Seagull", "Three Sisters", and "Uncle Vanya". The play concerns an aristocratic Russian landowner who returns to her family estate (which includes a large and well-known cherry orchard) just before it is auctioned to pay the mortgage. Unresponsive to offers to save the estate, she allows its sale to the son of a former serf; the family leaves to the sound of the cherry orchard being cut down. The story presents themes of cultural futility – both the futile attempts of the aristocracy to maintain its status and of the
The Peach Orchard road." The orchard drains southward into Rose Run, through Rose Woods, to Plum Run; and the orchard tract has a modern north-south embankment along the Emmitsburg road to the west of which a drainage depression separates the orchard from Warfield Ridge. By 1858 on the southeast corner of the crossroads, the Peach Orchard had been planted by Reverend Joseph Sherfy, who had a homestead to the north on the opposite (west) side of the Emmitsburg Road. On the Battle of Gettysburg, Second Day, the "Peach Orchard Salient" military position of the Army of the Potomac had been established from the