26 



THE CANADIAN HORTICULTURIST. 



of this new species, the illustration is 

 so true to nature in every particular, 

 that our readers will understand the 

 habit of the plant and the form and 

 color of its flowers from an examina- 

 tion of the plate better than from any 

 description in words. It remains only 

 to say that, in this climate at least^ it 

 dies down on the advent of frosty 

 weather to the gi'ound, springing up 

 again on the return of warm weather, 

 and growing very rapidly, comes into 

 flower in July and continues to bloom 

 profusely until stopped by the frosts of 

 autumn. The root has so far proved 

 to be perfectly hardy in the Niagara 

 district, without any protection what- 

 ever. Like all climbing plants of this 

 family it requires to be well fed, in 

 order to secure rapid growth and con- 

 tinuous and profuse bloom. 



RUSSIAN FRUITS. 



Mr. Charles Gibb, of Abbotsford, 

 Province of Quebec, writes to the Jour- 

 nal of Agriculture from St. Petersburg, 

 Russia, that the hardiness of a variety 

 is not dependent upon the place of its 

 birth, but upon hardy ancestry ; hence 

 he finds in England and France, under 

 Eiiglish and French names, apple trees 

 of that early terminate growth and 

 thick pubescent leaf which show pure 

 Russian or Astrachanican descent. At 

 Reutlingen, in Wurtemburg, he foimd 

 the perry and cooking pears to be of a 

 different race from those of Western 

 France, and .at ,yienna a race of apples 

 .wholly new tjO' hini, with very thick, 

 spi^ll, plicate leaves, natives of Tran- 

 sylvania, some of which grow from 

 cuttings like currants. 



Many of the fruits ,of Poland he 

 ;found to be of native origin And quite 



unknown in Western Europe. In the 

 nurserieS; and in the gardens of the 

 Pomological Institute at Warsaw he 

 met, for the first, with collections from 

 the Russian steppes. The Antonowka 

 and Titowka seemed the most popular 

 of the coast-section apples. The hardiest 

 good pear is the Sapieganka, of which 

 he saw trees, whose trunks were two 

 feet in diameter, growing in the cold 

 climate of Wilna. At Riga he found 

 that the selections of apples were made 

 mainly from the Russian steppes, and 

 that the trees and shrubs in the nur- 

 series were largely Asiatic, 



At St. Petersburg^ in latitude 60**, 

 so far north that for nearly two months 

 in the summer the stars at mid-night 

 are not visible, the sun being too short 

 a distance below the horizon, he learned 

 that the trees and shrubs of Central 

 Europe have usually failed, and have 

 been replaced by those from Northern 

 Turkestan, Southern Siberia, Mongolia, 

 Dahuria and the Amoor district. The 

 market was supplied with chen-ies from 

 the cold region of Yladimir east of 

 Moscow, which variety and the Ostheim 

 cherry he says are better than the Early 

 Richmond and the Kentish, and can be 

 grown in much severer climates. 



At Moscow he found himself some- 

 what north of the limits of successful 

 fruit culture. Five years ago, a week 

 of unprecedented cold had killed or 

 injured most of the trees in their fruit 

 gardens, which in many cases had not 

 been replanted. 



In the Vladimir district he found 

 that there are sections where the chief 

 commercial industry is cherry culture, 

 which cherry is usually of large size, 

 and when fully ripe nearly black in 

 color and almost sweet, and in quality 

 very much better than our Kentish. 

 Many proprietors have ten thousand 

 trees, or rather bushes of this cherry, 

 and entire cars, and at times even whole 



