STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 283 



special divisions of the work and experimental grounds in which 

 we were most interested, which of course was a study of the wax 

 casts of fruits, and the trees of varieties and species specially 

 adapted for healthy growth in climates with hot, dry summers and 

 cold winters. We found the facilities for study unexpectedN 

 good. For instance, in the great collection of apples we found, 

 more or less in bearing, many of the varieties we grew in Iowa, as 

 well as the leading varieties of all central Europe. We specially 

 asked him to indicate varieties of winter apples of good size and 

 quality which would endure a temperature of 27* Fahrenheit. At 

 once he said our American varieties like Porter, Jonathan, Grrimes 

 Golden and Dominie would not endure such climates as portions 

 of Bohemia, Hungary, Silesia and Transylvania; nor would still 

 hardier varieties, such as Golden Russet and Belle de Boskoop. He 

 then in rapid succession took us to trees which were grown suc- 

 cessfully where trees we call hardy in the central district of Iowa 

 utterly failed. Among these were four or five late keeping winter 

 apples from Transylvania of wholly a new race. The leaves are 

 thick, peculiarly serrated, and plicated like viburnum plicatum, or 

 rosa rugosa. Two of these, named red and white Batulin, he men- 

 tioned as among the best in size, quality and appearance, of the 

 late keepers. He gave a list of winter apples, desirable in all re- 

 spects, of about fifteen varieties, none of which we knew except twa 

 or three selected from the list received from Moscow, Russia, by 

 the Iowa Agricultural College. This list will be given after we 

 have compared notes carefully with horticulturists on our road 

 northward, as will also the list of extra hardy pears, etc. We place 

 rather a high estimate on the Doctor's opinions of the relative 

 ability of varieties to stand the heat of summer and the cold of 

 winter, as he has made this question a special study, as has his 

 father, and they both have visited the orchards and fruit exhibits 

 of about all portions of northern Europe. 



"I have only time to add that the object lessons in all the pro- 

 cesses of horticulture, in utilizing fruits, in fighting insects, in 

 illustrating the nomenclature of fruits, etc., will not, I am afraid, 

 be equalled in Iowa for the next century. We went to Bohemia 

 and Saxony to study the cherry question. Peculiarly they are tJw 

 countries where the hardier forms of the cherry are grown on a 

 great scale. It is one of the strange and unaccountable facts that 

 we have been confined to the Early Richmond, Late Richmond, 

 and English Morello cherries, when on the great plains of Bohemia 

 and Saxony a dozen varieties are grown hardier than any we have,. 



