224 STUblES OF NATURE. 



whofe company I was then vifiting the forti» 

 fled places of that province : it was likewife his 

 intention; but our Ruffian attendants, carelefs, 

 as all Haves are, fuffered it to be loft. He was ex- 

 ceedingly vexed at this, as well as I : 1 cannot 

 help thinking, that a Iheaf of corn fo rich and 

 beautiful, the produce of a province, confidered, 

 even at Peterfburg, asfmitten with fterility, becaufe 

 of the rocks which cover it's furface, and procured 

 for it, from ancient Geographers, the epithet of 

 lapidofa, (flony) would have been as acceptable to 

 her Majefty, as the huge block of granite which 

 Ihe has fince had conveyed from thence, to be 

 formed, at Peterfburg, into the bafis of a ftatue 

 of Peter the Great. 



I have feen, in Poland, feveral private indivi- 

 duals cultivate the vine and the apricot-tree with 

 very great fuccefs. Mr. de la Roche, Conful from 

 the Prince of Moldavia, carried me, when at War- 

 faw, to a little garden, in the fuburbs of that City, 

 which produced to the occupier an annual revenue 

 of one hundred pilloles, though it did not contain 

 quite thirty of the laft-mentioned tree. It was to- 

 tally unknown in that country a hundred and fifty 

 years ago. The apricot was firfl introduced into 

 it by a Frenchman, valet-de-chambre to a Queen 

 of Poland. This man raifed the fruit fecretly, and 

 made prefents of it to the Grandees of the Country, 



pretending. 



