130 Kansas Fruits. 



on the beauty of the exhibition at Philadelphia ; but the half had not 

 been told us. It is not difficult in any state or county to select, in 

 ordinary fruit seasons, specimens of pears, apples, and grajDCS which 

 are large and foir, and will make, with the aid of " the art of putting 

 things," a pyramid that shows oft' to great advantage. But when we 

 went into the cellar of the Messrs. Farrell, who are large fruit dealers 

 in Leavenworth, and saw the bins of apples and pears, just as they 

 were brought in by the farmers in their lumber wagons without 

 springs, and only a little straw on the bottom to keep them from 

 bruising, we were convinced that the pyramid at Philadelphia was no 

 humbug, and that the gold medal was well merited. The season for 

 pears was pretty much over, but the apples were large, fair, tender, 

 and high-flavored. The IVfessrs. Farrell have sold this fall two thou- 

 sand barrels of apples, and thought we could not find a wormy speci- 

 men among the large stock now in their cellar ; but we did find, after 

 considerable examination, the tracks of a worm. 



We afterwards visited the home of Mr. William Tanner, President 

 of the Kansas Horticultural Society, and in his cellar we found no 

 signs of the apple worm, but abundant evidence that the soil and cli- 

 mate of Kansas are in the highest degree congenial to the production 

 of the ajDple — the king among fruits. Mr. Tanner has five thousand 

 apple trees, and some two hundred varieties, and among them were 

 some that were new to us. The Kansas Keeper, that holds good till 

 May, and the Chronical, that continues sound the whole year, he con- 

 siders promising fruits. The Kansas Qrieen, a seedling from the New 

 York pippin, and the Lady Finger are also fine apples. Most of the 

 varieties that grow east also do well in Kansas ; but it was a little diffi- 

 cult to recognize our old friends, as they had grown so portly by 

 transportation to a more genial soil and climate. Virgil was not more 

 astonished when, leaving Mantua, he fii'st saw Rome, than we were 

 to see the large Northern Spys and Yellow Bellflowers. The poet 

 thought that one city must be like another city, and we thought one 

 Spy must be like another Spy ; but the Kansas Spys seemed more like 

 small pumpkins, and the ribs of the Bellilower stuck out like the sides 

 of a fat ox. 



