RUSSJAN FRUITS FOR AMERICAN PRAIRIES. 47 



fourth of an inch thick, the margin (being marked with lines as above described), 

 resembling a horseshoe. The center of this part was thinner and transparent. 



Of eighteen large stones picked up, two were spherical, thirteen lens-shaped, 

 two with horseshoe attachment and one like number four, which might be called 

 the crucial form. Of these eighteen hail-stones only seven had nuclei. Some of 

 them also had a peculiar roughness, comparable to that on the rind of an orange, 

 which I think I have never observed before. 



More than an hour has now passed since the storm ceased, yet from my 

 window I can still see a few of the hail-stones that have been diminished to the 

 size of a pea by a temperature ot foriy nine degrees. 



Morrison, III., April i, 1884. 



RUSSIAN FRUITS FOR AMERICAN PRAIRIES. 



prof. a. e. popenoe. 



A bulletin lately received from the Iowa State Agricultural College is occu- 

 pied by the account of Professor Budd's "Experiments with, and Investigation 

 of, the Fruits, Trees and Shrubs of the North of Europe." In the search for 

 varieties of fruits adapted to the trying extremes of climate met in Iowa, Profes 

 sor Budd was led, several years since, to look to the north of Europe for varie- 

 ties not then on our list, in hope that they would prove better adapted to the 

 needs of the northwestern horticulturist than the fruits originating in the moist 

 equable climate of the countries along the western European coast, the latter 

 sorts having been found wanting when subject to the severe tests of the Iowa 

 winters and summers. In company with Mr. Charles Gibb, of Abbottsford, 

 Quebec, Professor Budd visited the interior of Russia at points where fruit- 

 growing was extensively and profitably engaged in, and in climates resembling, 

 in high, dry winds and changes to the extremes of temperature, those of the 

 northwestern states in the Mississippi Valley. Portions of the reports ol these 

 two horticulturists are of such interest to the Kansas fruit-grower that they may 

 be here quoted. "The east European plain, the counterpart of our western 

 prairies and plains, covers the larger portion of continental Europe, or the 

 northeast. * * With the Caucasus and Carpathian mountains on the 

 south, the prevailing winds prevent the moisture of the Caspian and Black seas 

 from benefiting even the provinces nearly adjoining them ; while the dry winds 

 of the deserts and sterile steppes of the southeast shrivel the foliage of trees and 

 ,plants in Central Russia, as do our southwest winds from the dry plains of New 

 Mexico. * * As to sudden changes of temperature and humidity of 

 air, our one summer's experience favored the idea that changes of the wind 

 brought atmospheric changes as sudden and complete as with us. As to winter 

 changes, we are told at Tula of a winter, twelve years ago, when a warm, south- 



