1 90 Americdn Horticultural Society. 



per tree. W ,tli the same method and ey:?tem the watering of orchards and 

 smill fruit plantations coulJ be made extremely jirolitahle in many jiarts of 

 our country. 



Here we must sandwich in the remark that many of these great com- 

 mercial orchards are owned by members of the peasant class who have risen, 

 as in this country, by a process of development to the ownership of property 

 and the ability to wisely manage it. Again, it may be well to say that we 

 did not meet a i)easant orchardist on the Volga who was not able to read and 

 write, which are no mean acquirements in a land where only a small per 

 cent, of the peasant jiopulation can write their own names. 



Below Saratov the river has an average width of three miles, and the 

 thrifty looking cities on the west bank are more thickly planted than at any 

 point above. On the east bank, however, the towns on the low, sandy plain 

 have a dingy business look, and their main uses are as headquarters for the 

 pastoral iuterestv--, and for storage of the grain brought in by the camel train> 

 from the east. 



The city, of Kamyshin, a few miles below Saratov, is noted in the his- 

 tory of the Volga as the point where the robbers of the Don gathered, prior 

 to the time of Peter the Great, to prey upon the river commerce. To guard 

 the position Thomas Baillie, of English education and descent, wasemi)loyed 

 to superintend the erection of fortilications and extensive barracks for mili- 

 tary use, which are still supposed to be necessary to keep in check the 

 piratical Don Cossacks. Here, also, can be seen traces of an extensive work 

 undertaken in the sixteenth century to connect the waters of the Black sea 

 and the Caspian by way of the channel of the Don. Had the work been 

 completed, it would have made changes in the lower Volga valley not real- 

 ized at that time, when the difference of level between the two inland seas 

 was unknown. 



The city of S.irepta was founded by the Moravian brethren of Germany 

 in 1765. It is yet communistic in management of property, and the general 

 arrangements as to board, common property, system of labor, etc., do not 

 diHer materially from the system adopted in the communistic colonies on 

 the Iowa river in Johnson and Iowa counties. This old German colony is 

 noted for the production of prepared mustard, sweet-oil from suntiower 

 seeds, and the growing of melons and fruits for shipment up the Volga and 

 by rail to the northeastward. 



Astrachan, near the Caspian, is an ancient Uiwn of over oO,(iUi) inhat)it- 

 ants, mainly engaged in the sturgeon and general fishery interests of the 

 river estuaries and the Caspian. An idea of the extent of the business may 

 be gathered from the fact that the average catch of the city inhabitants is 

 over so,<>00 tons, and in 1.SS3 the number of fish caught was over l.ii ),<)()< i,(mX), 

 principally sturgeon, pike, sea i)L'rch, herring and bream. From this point 

 was brought the first specimen of the Russian apple, under the name of 

 White Astrachan, which Loudon dignified with the specific name Malug A8- 

 trnchanica. 



