300 ANNUAL REPORT 



Moines. We go now to a city 80 miles further south, where we 

 are told the orchards are still larger and more numerous than here 

 at Simbirsk, and where a greater number of varieties are grown. 



To give an idea of the summer aridity and winter cold of this 

 region, I will say that all the varieties of the apple of the Duchess 

 and Aport classes are short lived and liable to be killed or badly 

 injured by the test winters. Our Duchess we do not find, but the 

 Borowinka and a dozen other sorts are so like the Duchess in leaf, 

 tree, and fruit, as to be hard to distinguish only by tasting. All of 

 the varieties of the Duchess type are finev in texture and milder in 

 flavor than our Ironclad. 



The true Ironclads have the leaf and habit of growth of the wild 

 apples found native near the bluffs of the Upper Volga. The trees 

 are low and scrubby in habit, but they are loaded with high col- 

 ored and really excellent fruit. With the quality of the apples 

 here called good, we have been much surprised. On our table at 

 this time are apples approaching very nearly the quality of the 

 Dyer and Rhode Island Greening. Mr. Gibb is very fastidious in 

 his notions as to qualit}' of fruits, and he continually expresses his 

 surprise at finding so many really good varieties far north of the 

 point where we had hoped to find them. Nor are these varieties 

 short-lived, even on the black soil west of Simbirsk. We have 

 been in many orchards planted thirty years ago, where few trees 

 are missing from the rows. That these varieties of the apple, pear, 

 cherry and plum will thrive on the bleakest prairies of northwest 

 Iowa, we have not the slighest doubt. 



OBSERVATIONS AT KNAVLINSK. 



Knaylinsk, Russia, Sept. 5, 1882. 



The town from which I write is on the west bank of the Volga 

 in latitude 53 degrees north. In the vicinity, on black drift soil 

 mostly, are very extensive orchards of the apple and pear, among 

 "which we have been roving under rather unfavorable circumstances. 

 Here are varieties which have stood the test of winters for TO years, 

 and have borne this year large crops of very smooth, perfect apples. 

 Without exception the five varieties of the Ants, everywhere grown 

 in this region in immense quantity, are ahead on the score of health 

 of tree and profitable bearing at all stages of growth. From this 

 town we are told by the mayor, (the only man who speaks French, 

 but who was too much occupied to go with us except to one very 

 interesting garden within the city limits,) the shipments of fruit 



