NOTES AND ABSTEACTS. 



629 



growth than on their own roots. In a wild state they grow in dry, 

 rockx places in the mountains. Sweet cherries (P. Avium) appear nO't 

 to be^ grown in the north, but in the moist and mild-wintered regions 

 of the Yang-tse Valley sour cherries (vars. of P. Pseudo-cerasus) are 

 grown, the fruit of which is small, generally sour, and very early. 

 A scion of one of these was grafted in the spring of 1906 upon the 

 Mazzard cherry at Chico, California, and the following year it bore 

 fruit which was half-grown on April 12, a time when other cherries 

 were just in bloom (pp. 23 and 24). 



Jujubes (vars. of Zizyphus sativa) are quite an important fruit in 

 Northern China, growing wherever winter temperatures are not too 

 low, and standing a remarkable amount of neglect without any apparent 

 detriment. Some farmers ring their trees every ^year, claiming that 

 thereby they considerably increase the crop (pp. 35 to 40). 



Grapes are much esteemed, and great care is taken of the vines, 

 which are always grown trained over arbours, and, after the first cold 

 snap in October, taken down, pruned, and tied together in bundles, 

 and laid in pits four to six feet deep, where they are covered with 

 sorghum stems and old mats and a couple of feet of soil over these. 

 Where it is too cold for varieties of Vitis vinifera, its place is taken by 

 V. amurensis, which withstands temperatures of -40° F. (pp. 40-42). 



Walnuts and chestnuts are not propagated by grafting, all the trees 

 being seedlings, so that there is a great variation in the character of the 

 fruits, and, in the case of the walnut, of the trees also (pp. 51 and 52). 



Many other fruits are more or less briefly dealt with. The true 

 Chinese quince {Cydonia sinensis) is said to produce fruits sometimes 

 a foot long and ten pounds in weight (p. 32). Edible haws (vars. of 

 Crataegus pinnatifida) are largely grown, the fruits of the best kinds 

 'V being as large as good-sized crab-apples. As the tree is very hardy 

 and endures considerable drought and heat, it is suggested as a substi- 

 f tute for cranberries where the latter are hard to obtain (pp. 33 and 34). 

 i Loquats are extensively grown in Chekiang, and it is stated that from 

 the village of Tangsi alone $20,000 worth (Mexican) were exported in 

 1906 (p. 35). 



The Citrus group is well represented, and there are said to be more 

 than eighty different varieties of edible oranges growing along the 

 south-eastern coast and on the islands fringing it (pp. 42-45). 



The Chinese understand the principles of cold storage thoroughly. 

 Grapes are kept from one year to another by storing them in deep, 

 dug-out cellars, kept cold with baskets of broken ice placed among the 

 baskets of fruit. Fruit merchants usually keep perishable fruits in 

 thick- walled earthen jars with broken ice in the bottom, and closed 

 with a w^ooden lid with a strip of felt round it (pp. 50 and 51). — A. P. 



Fruit, Varieties of, Origrinated in Michigran. By S. W. Flet- 

 cher {U.S.A. Exp. Stn., Michigan, Spec. Bull. 4:4:] Aug. 1910; illus.). 

 — A descriptive list of 185 varieties, of which only fifteen are known to 

 have resulted from a definite attempt to originate them by crossing. 



