18G American Horticultural Society. 



a nunibtr uf tilled lainlhoKlers ilerived large incomes from conunercial 

 orchards. But we found the reality to largely exceed our expectations of 

 the possible in this far northern and interior region, near the 57th parallel 

 of north latitude. 



The commissioner kindly spent three days with us, acting as guide and 

 interpretc r, giving us a constant succession of surprises in the way of fine and 

 well-managed estates, fine artificial forests of great extent, and large and 

 healthy orchards 'aden with handsome and good fruit, and this in a climate 

 where no variety of the apjile, pear, cherry or plum of any part of West 

 Europe would endure their mildest winter. 



Our guide also gave u^ a fine opportunity to observe that official guidance 

 among the peasants was a good thing from the stand point of comfort, con- 

 venience and rapid transportation from point to point. He controlled the 

 selection of rooms at stopping points, the horses at post stations, and his sig- 

 nal would stop any steamboat on the river when we wished to return to the 

 city. Everything pertaining to these inland excursions was novel in the 

 extreme, and at times grew exciting. For instance, we were often driven 

 from point to point in a four-wheeled drosky without springs, sitting on 

 straw in the bottom of a long tlat basket woven from twigs of the willow or 

 birch. To this batket on wheels three spirited, long-winded black Tartar 

 horses were attached abreast in a way we would call awkward and danger- 

 ous. The central horse is in heavy shafts, and is guided by one-horse lines in 

 the hands of the driver ; but the two outer horses are without lines, and 

 only attached to the central horse with long light tether straps, which per- 

 mit them to run with their heads outward, giving rise to the constant im- 

 pression that they were utterly beyond the control of the boyish drivers. 

 We often thought that the drivers wished to astonish or frighten the Yankee 

 visitors by the breakneck speed often attained on a down grade by the 

 strangly geared up team. xVt first our long drives seemed a consUuit run- 

 away of the spirited horses, and to the last our faith in the system was not 

 much increased, as we constantly heard of deaths resulting from the wild 

 system of running horses on the ( fficial post lines. 



But this wild habit of driving is not confined to post lines, as it is com- 

 mon and fashionable among the gentry in all parts of Kussia ; but the place 

 of the basket drosky in the city and on the estates is taken by the best car- 

 riages of West Europe styles. Yet even here the true Russian drives the 

 three horses abreast at a jiace not known, I think, in any other country of 

 the world. Our guide at one time, farther down the river, spoke of six wid- 

 ows among the upper classes of the vicinity whose husbands had been killed 

 by wild racing with Tartar horses with the two outer ones totally without 

 the control of lines. 



Before leaving the capital of the North Tartars we must speak of the 

 unexpected uprightness of their persons, their fairness of complexion, and 

 their fine cranial development. As this does not apply to the Mongol Tar- 

 tars, the Magyars, the Don Cossacks, and other tribal divisions farther gouth, 



