The Canadian Horticulturist. 103 



a good large table kind, and (2) " Odessa," pale yellow, excellent, sweet and 

 firm ; a suitable apricot for preserving. 



It is to be inferred that it was chiefly these two kinds of apricots which 

 the Mennonites brought with them into America, as they were generally 

 cultivated in the places from which they emigrated ; and, therefore, that 

 all American varieties of the Russian apricot have been raised from pits of 

 the Holland and Odessa. The method of propagating them by pits is very 

 popular in this country. The fruit of such trees is variable, but the trees 

 themselves are more hardy than those propagated by grafting ; they are 

 also more productive and long-lived, and the acclimation of them to the 

 conditions of any country is easier. The success of the Russian apricots in 

 North America can be explained in this way, though brought by the Men- 

 nonites from southern Russia, they are grown from pits. The difficulty of 

 the acclimation of the apricot, the peach and the tender varieties of plums 

 to cold climates, may be overcome both in north of Russia and in America 

 by propagating by the seed and not by grafts. 



No doubt it will at first produce fruit of poorer quality, but many among 

 them will prove worthy of selecting for dissemination. 



As I observed above, a seedling that has not been transplanted and 

 whose tap root is entire, is the more hardy because it strikes deep below the 

 reach of frost. The most northern point in Russia where the apricot suc- 

 ceeds, thanks to the labors of our experienced and eminent pomologist, Mr. 

 F. Ansjutin, we must count Niegin, in Chernigovskajagov. His apricot 

 originates in Crimea, and was raised from two pits brought away about the 

 3'ear 1840 by Mr. F. Ansjutin, who was at that time a young man. At first 

 he tried propagating several foreign kinds by grafting. After these had all 

 perished m the first cold winter, he noticed two seedling trees which were 

 wholly uninjured by the cold, and after these had fruited he was so pleased 

 with them that he raised a large plantation. I saw in his garden apricot trees 

 like apple trees in growth, twenty-five years old ; they require no protection 

 in winter ; also a plantation of seedlings which had been raised in quite an 

 open exposure. 



Frost is sometimes about twenty-eight degrees (Reau.) at Niegin ; the 

 trees do not die even at that temperature, but it destroys the flower buds 

 and consequently the fruit crop. Mr. F. Ansjutin raised, from two stocks, 

 some varieties of which the four following are worthy of attention : — (i) 

 Apricot, large white, early (like Nicholas) ; (2) Apricot, small white, late, 

 sweeter than preceding ; (3) Apricot, yellow, large early ; (4) Apricot, yellow, 

 small late. I sent you some scions and pits of these, the most hardy of all 

 kinds. Next year Mr. Ansjutin promises to give me more of them for your 

 respectable Society. Many American nurserymen's [catalogues call these 

 seedlings of the Mennonites " the Siberian Apricot," and some gardeners 

 in their fancy actually suppose it originates in the Blue mountains of 



