STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 95 



growu except by irrigation. Yet at Saratov we saw a tree of this 

 primitive race of Bero^umot over three feet in diameter. 



Going still north of Sinihirsk Ave reach, on the oOth ])arallel, the 

 ancient Tartar city of Kazan. We were invited to inspect the 

 orchards of this coldest climate of the world where orcharding is 

 really a paying business, by the conservator of cultivated and natu- 

 ral forests of the province, whom we met at the forestry convention 

 at Petrovsk, near Moscow. We expressed doubts as to making" the 

 growing of fruits profitable on the 56th parallel of north latitude, 

 and fully six hundred miles east of Moscow. " Come and see,'' was 

 his laconic re])ly. He met us by appointment in the City of Kazan, 

 and led us on a three-day trip among the orchards of the province, 

 grown mainly by peasant proprietors as a source of revenue and 

 profit. We travelled rapidly from orchard to orchard discussing 

 modes, methods, and varieties. Not Avhile memory lasts will we for- 

 get the tens of thousands of low, bushy trees, or rather large shrul)s, 

 we saw loaded with beautiful and really good apples, in this land 

 where the extreme winter temperature has reached 58° below zero, 

 Fahrenheit. As an instance, the large orchard of Count Pauluci. on 

 the edge of the open prairie back of the Volga bluffs, and a few 

 miles southwest of Kazan, was planted about thirty years ago, and 

 contains about forty varieties or the apple. The little trees of all 

 these sorts are low-headed, l)ushy, and the trunks, near the ground, 

 will not average more than seven inches in diameter, and the top- 

 most apple could be reached by standing on a low box made for the 

 purpose. Almost without exception the trees seemed healthy, 

 exempt from our usual signs of winter injury, and were literally 

 loaded with even-sized, high-colored fruit. The names of the apples 

 in this orchard are now before me as taken under the trees, but 

 except the omnijjresent varieties of the Anis, peculiar to all the 

 Volga region, it would be useless to repeat them in this connection. 



The indigenous Bergamot and Grucha pears are yet found on 

 every estate, growing much larger in tree than any of the apples, 

 and as defiant to wind and weather as the native Caragana or 

 Poplars. 



The cherries are equally common, and always of the Vladimir 

 race. Plums are abundant and cheap, grown on bushes often not 

 more than four feet in height. They are red. blue, and black, and in 

 size and quality much like tlujse at Saratov and Orel. 



Going westward from Kazan until we reach a point about one 

 hundred and fifty miles east of Moscow, we strike the great commer- 

 cial cherry-growing region of Russia in the Province of Vladimir. It 

 is evident that the position is a thing of chance, as the soil and cli- 

 mate is no better for cherry growing than is found in provinces 

 where only wheat is grown. Here we find tens of thousands of 

 acres covered with cherry bushes, usually with five or six stems, 

 which are thinned out from time to time, very much as is practiced 



