8. 



profitable orchard region of the world, and the conditions of 

 growth deserve study. The soil upon these exposed bluffs is a 

 fine comminuted dusty clay, like a "loess." For retaining moisture, 

 for absorbing it, for holding frost without injury to the roots, 

 there is no better. The dry fall here causes perfect maturity of 

 growth : the thick, fine textured leaf does not suffer from the dry- 

 ness of the air. It was Mr. Budd, whose microscopic study of 

 the leaves of these climates first showed their peculiar cell 

 structure. Thus we see that the apple tree of Kasan is a tree 

 thoroughly adapted to the climate it lives in. However, the cold 

 of Kasan seems more uniform than ours. In this Province we 

 suffer from the warmth of the sun in late winter and early spring, 

 warmth followed by sudden cold. This results in " bark-bursting " 

 and "sun-scalding" of the trunk and lower branches. Such 

 injury is rare in Eastern and Middle Russia, but how much this is 

 owing to climate, how much to the character of their hardy race of 

 trees I cannot say. In Kasan, too, we find the cherry and the plum 

 grown in fair quantity — that is, nearly all the peasants have some. 



In the Government of Vladimir, a climate scarcely different 

 from that of Kasan, the cherry is grown in vast quantity and 

 shipped by the car load. Upon what kind of soil I cannot say. 



At Simbirsk on the Volga, in lat. 54, a climate just like Kasan, 

 a degree less cold, and about one inch less rain-fall, we find the 

 pear grown in fair quantity though only of second-rate quality. 

 These trees, too, are thoroughly adapted to that climate, trees of 

 terminate growth, with very thick, close-textured, dark glossy 

 foliage, just like the pears of Northern China. Simbrisk and Toula 

 seem to be the Northern limits of pear culture East of the Baltic 

 Provinces. 



At Saratof, on the Volga, in lat. 5 1 , where the winter temper- 

 ature is but one degree milder than the City of Quebec, we find 

 very large orchards, one of 12,000 trees. A pear orchard, too, of 

 500 trees, and most of the varieties in good health. Yet here we 

 were told that the naercury at times became solid. So near is 

 Saratof to the desert steppes, so light the rain-fall, that irrigation 

 is necessary for profitable orcharding. 



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