STATE HORTICULTURAL SOOIETT. 299 



der of the timber the native forms of the plum and cherry. The 

 wild plum is bright blue, small, and the little shrubs, three feet in 

 height, are so loaded as to make them decidedly oruamental. 



In this hasty letter, written, as usual, on short allowance of time, 

 I wish to speak specially of the pears of Simbirsk. Many thousands 

 of trees are found growing under exceedingly varied circumstances. 

 Some pear orchards slope to the east, and many to the south, west, 

 and north. Some are on cultivated ground, the most are in stiff 

 sod, and very many are found in yards and even planted in the 

 public park. Under about all circumstances they are loaded with 

 fruit. But, as a rule, the fruit is not good. Ninety per cent, of 

 the trees are seedlings of the Bergamot type, and the type of race 

 known as Grucha. Thousands of busiiels are dried for peasant use 

 in the winter, or made into a kind of bottled sherry for the use of 

 the more aristocratic. If proper facilities were at hand, the seeds 

 from the pomace would be just what we need for the growing of 

 pear stocks. As it is, they are chopped up in a rude mortar before 

 pressing. We have, however, contracted lor twenty pounds of the 

 seed to be taken out by hand by the peasant women. Both races 

 of the pear found here grow from seed with perfect uniformity. 

 The leaves and fruit from 100 trees we found more nearly identical 

 than would be the seedlings of our native wild crabs of Iowa. They 

 seem to be indigenous races of the Volga region. The fruit is 

 bright yellow, about the size of our Seckel, but too acrid to be rel- 

 ished by most people. The trees are hardy as the white poplar, and 

 make beautiful street or park trees. The grafted varieties are only 

 modified forms of the native species. Some of the Bergamots are 

 large, nearly round, somewhat rough and knotty, and fairly good 

 for eating, as are also some of the pyriform varieties of the Grucha 

 race. We have not as yet tasted a single variety that equals in 

 quality a well-ripened Flemish Beauty, but we are told that some 

 of the autumn varieties, yet hard as bullets, are very good. We 

 hope to find this true. But if we find that the grafted varieties are 

 only valuable for culinary us<^, we have here a race hardy enough to 

 grow on our most exposed northern prairies, even for windbreaks, 

 or as a street tree. That we will find very good varieties in the 

 real climate of Iowa farther south, we do not doubt. Even in this 

 far north interior region we find great quantities of large-sized 

 pears, first-class for cooking, and some of them sweet, pleasant, and 

 fair for eating, but coarse in texture. 



Taken all in all, we are surprised at the quality and quantity of 

 the fruit grown in the steppe region 1,000 miles north of Des 



