74 



to the north and west, leading- np to the Great Wall of China. My 

 personal investigations of this region were confined to the district 

 about Pekin and between Pekin and Tonkoo. Our minister at Pekin, 

 Mr. Conger, kindly offered to give me an escort of Chinese soldiers 

 to explore the mountain region north of Pekin, but I was able to 

 satisfy myself of the conditions without undertaking this trip, which 

 at this season of the year would have been almost impossible, and, in 

 view of the unsettled state of the country, attended with considerable 

 risk. 



The facts which I learned here of greatest interest were obtained 

 from the examination of the markets in the city of Pekin. To explain 

 this it should l)e said that Pekin is the natural center and market for 

 all the region lying to the north and west, and the streets devoted to 

 the sale of fruits in the Chinese city are one of the sights of Pekin. 

 The fruit and nut products are brought into Pekin in the little two- 

 wheeled carts, or more generally on camel-back, great caravans of 

 heavil}^ loaded camels and streams of carts constantly entering the 

 city with the products of the outlying provinces. One gets, there- 

 fore, in the markets of the Chinese city the fruit products of all 

 northern China, and can study them at ease. 



The conditions under which this fruit is grown I was fortunate 

 enough to learn from engineers, officers, and others who had explored 

 the region in question. All of the district lying l)etween Pekin and 

 the Great Wall to the north and west has been very carefull}^ explored 

 by the militar}' authorities, and maps which amount to local road 

 maps of the whole country have been made. From various individu- 

 als emploj^ed in this minute survey, I learned a great deal relative to 

 the fruit growing of the district indicated. Much fruit is grown south 

 of the Great Wall, chiefly along the protected valleys running south- 

 ward and eastward from the mountain chain which this wall dominates. 

 These fruits are native apple, pear, and peach, and a little wild haw 

 apple which grows all over the hills. Of these fruits I examined 

 quantities of all except the peach (which was now out of season) in the 

 markets of Pekin, and later at Tientsin, Throughout all this region 

 no foreign introductions of fruits or fruit trees have ever been made, 

 and the fruits in the market ai'e all of the native sorts. The pears are 

 little and hard, somewhat like the native Japanese pear m ffrmness, but 

 being elongate instead of spherical. The apples are what we term crab- 

 apples, even the largest; and the smaller ones, which are more numer- 

 onsly represented, are not much larger than marbles, and of a brilliant 

 red. The haw apple grows wild over the hills in this region, and is 

 collected and shipped by thousands of bushels to Pekin and southern 

 ports. It is of about the size of the small crab-apple just mentioned, 

 and also a deep red, somewhat obscured, however, b}^ a downy pubes- 

 cence. This haw apple is much esteemed by the Chinese, and our min- 



