130 Aiiurirdit Jloilicn/tiinil '%ci('(i/. 



Here also ride olher eviingelists— siern-vlsaneil men, weak in numbers 

 but strong of purpose— lilling all llie air ami tlie newspapers willi loud 

 acclaim, " Here come the Russians! Make way for the noble Kus:<ians! They, 

 and they only, arc able to live and rule in the land. They are crude and 

 wild, but tliey are vigorou.s and h.irdy. The imperial purple costs money, 

 but it is our only refuge. Buy and plant and have faith ! " 



Thus exhorted, men arc i)lanting again, dowly. Perhaps anything is 

 better thiui nothing, and all these ])roclaiining evangelists may find mercy 

 hereafter throuj:li that consideration. l*rudent men know all these for tinsel 

 kings, and look into each others eyes for an answer to our first question: 

 How shall we get a hardy race of fruits lit to rule our tables and our cellars? 



Experience teaches that crown-grafts on whole roots are a delusive 

 remedy; that with a short piece of root, a long scion of a hardy variety soon 

 forms a tree subsLnntially on its own roots — the best form of a root-grafted 

 tree; :in'l that the bept sorts budded on seedling stocks are less reliable than 

 any sort (.f root grafted tree. Clearly, no known method of i)ropagating the 

 varieties we have gives promise of full relief. 



Facing the evangelists of the new gospel of the Russians, we cry in de- 

 spair : " Show us your divine right of kingship and we will bow in submis- 

 sion." Comes the answer: " Russia is a land far northward, with a climate 

 more sevM-e than ours and a similar soil ; therefore, trees hardy there will 

 lie still more hardy here. Moreover, many of them are winter ajiples, which 

 may be depended upon to be reliable winter-keej)ers as far south as latitude 

 41°." It is admitted that the home of the Russian apple is beyond north 

 l.itittide 51°, from 600 to 1,000 miles north of central Iowa, and should be 

 rcnsonably expected to mature unseasonably in a much longer season. But 

 the Russians say the influence of the Atlantic gulf stream carries the line of 

 equal summer heat 10° farther south in Europe than in America, therefore, 

 10° farther south in America will eqialize conditions, and Russian ajiples, 

 winter-keepers in latitude 52' there, will keep equally well grown in latitude 

 42° here. How two climates can cons'stently be claimed as similur, while in 

 one the moist and warm influences of the gulf stream are potent enough to 

 change the isothermal line through ten degrees of latitude, and are ab>ent 

 from the other, no man has yet risen to explain. Central Russia is far from 

 the sea, but no elevations of land rise between them, while western America 

 has range upon ran).':e towering heaven high, so that the soft influences of 

 the I'.icific are scarcely felt beyond a few miles inland. 



The foremost authority in geograpliical botany. Uriesbach, divides the 

 earth into twenty-four botsmical regions. A map of those regions shows the 

 green shade of the north Europe and Asiatic timber region as extending 

 from the shores of the Btltic fully live hundred miles beyond Moscow, Orel, 

 Verone.sh and B »gd tnofF, where, we are told, is the home of the mor-t pr.nu 

 ising Russians. Our own Asa Gray, after a journey of ob.servation-. used 

 these words: " 1 have been able to see for myself what species ami what 

 forms constitute the main features of the vegetation of each region, and 



