258 



Plant-Breeding 



climate. In 1870, the Department of Agriculture at 

 Washington imported cions ' of many varieties of apples 

 from Russia, but these did not satisfy all fruit-growers 



of the Northern states. 

 It was then conceived 

 that the great interior 

 plain of Russia should 

 yield apples adapted to 

 the upper Mississippi 

 Valley, whilst those al- 

 ready imported had come 

 from the seaboard terri- 

 tory. Accordingly, early 

 in the eighties, Charles 

 Gibb, of the province of 

 Quebec, and Professor 

 Budd, of Iowa, went to 

 Russia to introduce the 

 promising fruits of the 

 central plain. The re- 

 sults have been most in- 

 teresting to the pacific 

 looker-on. There are ar- 

 dent advocates of the 

 Russian varieties, and 

 there are others who see 

 nothing good in them. 

 There are those who 



think that all progress must come by securing seedlings 

 from the hardiest varieties of the Eastern states ; there 

 are others who would derive everything from the Siberian 



FIG. 72. A pompon chrysanthemum. 



