Discussion. 155 



world 'cio you find a great prairie country that answers to 

 the prairie country that is founrJ in Russia? Why is it that 

 the land is not covered with timber? It is because they 

 have a very dry atmosphere, just as we have at the west of 

 us. Where there is moisture we find timber growing, as in 

 the region of the oceans; but when you get beyond that you 

 iget into a country that has a dry atmosphere, and where 

 the great prairies have been produced in consequence. In 

 Russia they have more extreme cold than we have. They 

 have there a climate which is certainly as severe a trial for 

 fruit trees as we have here, and yet those orchards have 

 been growing for hundreds of years. 



Now I have been testing these trees for nearly twenty 

 years. I have had them in favorable and unfavorable loca- 

 tions. We have put them in the most unfavorable locations 

 that we have had, and we have seen the test. A year ago 

 last winter we saw nearly everything swept from the board; 

 nearly all of my trees were destroyed out of several hun- 

 dreds; but a great variety of these Russian fruits — nearly 

 a hundred on my ovvn grounds — came through all right. I 

 am no more a believer in the Russian fruits since that time 

 than I was before. I never had a doubt but what they would 

 stand every extreme of climate. There have been objections 

 to them all along; there have been men to find fault with 

 them, but it is getting pretty late in the day to make such 

 claims. We have as good fruit from the Russian varieties 

 as from any. We have keepers fully equal to the older var- 

 ieties. Of course a large proportion of these apples are 

 either summer or fall apples, but so it was with our old 

 fruits. We have fully as large a proportion of fine eating 

 apples as we had from the old varieties. Of course, where 

 you are in the region of the lake here, you find many varie- 

 ties that do well that are worthless with us. I have heard 

 men talk about the Russian fruit not being good, and then 

 recommend crabs. Crabs are good in their place, but they 

 are not good for eating. 



I have here specimens of the wood of some of the Russian 

 varieties, and also specimens of some of the old American 

 varieties. In collecting from the old varieties 1 have taken 



