APRICOTS. 21 



scale. There are red, orange, yellow, recl-anci- white, and white- 

 spotted varieties in cultivation. In size there is also great variation. 



The Chinese bud and graft their apricots upon seedling apricot 

 stock and also upon the wild peach (Amr/gdalus davidiana). The 

 trees generally are not grown in regular orchards, but in small lots 

 of a few trees each. A decomposed granite or gravelly soil is pre- 

 ferred, and the trees thrive especially well on terraces on the mountain 

 sides. 



The Shantung Province is famous for its fine apricots, and there 

 are several varieties there that are well worth introducing. There 

 is also a strain of apricots in the Chihli Province that has sweet 

 edible kernels. These kernels are sold as almonds and have created 

 the impression that the almond occurs in China. However, I have 

 never seen a single true almond tree in China, although I believe 

 that in certain sections the}' would grow to perfection. 



Apricots are nearly always eaten in China when not quite ripe, 

 even small, hard, green fruit being eagerly eaten in early summer. 

 Some of the less juicy and more acid varieties are cut in half and 

 dried and sold during the winter months as delicacies. The Chinese 

 say that a tea made from these apricots is very wholesome, purifying 

 the blood and being laxative. Various compotes are made from the 

 ripe and partly ripe fruit in which sugar and honey play a considerable 

 part. Some of these delicacies are very good. (S. P. I. Xos. 17152, 

 17154, 20067, 20072, 22344, 22437, 22444 to 22446, and 22580.) 



WILD APRICOTS OF NORTHERN CHINA, MANCHURIA, EASTERN SIBERIA. 

 AND NORTHERN KOREA. 



It has been proved that the apricot is able to stand far more cold 

 and drought than is at present supposed. One finds the shrubby 

 wild apricots all over the mountains of northern China and southern 

 Manchuria, and forms which \levelop into regular trees occur in 

 northern Korea, northern Manchuria, and eastern Siberia. The 

 writer observed giant apricot trees growing in a mountain ravine 

 near Tchangsong in northern Korea, fully 40 feet tall, the trunk of 

 one measuring 10 feet in circumference. The fruit, though, is small 

 and worthless, but as a stock plant and for hybridization purposes it 

 might be of very great value. 



That in the future large sections of the United States will be able 

 to grow apricots where now there are none can be readily shown, for 

 some of these Asiatic apricots have proved to be hardy at Boston. 

 Mass., and even in the trying climate of Wisconsin. At the present 

 time there is a large specimen of a central Asian apricot tree growing 

 in the grounds of the State Agricultural Experiment Station at 



