Possibilities of Cherry Growing.
The insertion of one little word gives too unfavorable an idea of the best varieties of the Griotte cherries, grown all over the interminable steppes north and east of the Carpathian mountains in Europe.
As printed the paragraph reads: "Some of the thin-twigged Griottes, with dark skins and colored juice, are as large as the Morello and nearly or quite as sweet."
The copy reads—or should read—"as large as the English Morello and nearly or quid sweet."
As you say my object in talking the matter up is the hope of interesting some of the large nurserymen, like those at Bloomington, in the desirable work of importing and propagating the Griottes, Amarells, and the Asiatic sweet cherries known as "Spanish," of the East plain, on a large scale.
Why should our Western propagators permit our importing of fruits, ornamental trees and shrubs, to be done by the nurserymen of the Eastern States.
If we turn to a good map of Europe we will see at a glance that the importing of fruits so far has been from the west coast of France, Belgium, and Holland, or from the south of England. As with our west coast, this whole region has been made a land of verdure by the soft, humid air of the Gulf stream. Tracing on the map the line of the Carpathian and Caucasus mountains, we find three-fourths of all Europe, north and east of these ranges, without a mountain or hill traced on the great expanse except the Valdai hills, and these are only bluffs not as high or extensive as those of our rivers and dividing ridges. It is the greatest plain section of the world, and is the ancient home of the best fruits of the temperate zones. Common sense should lead us to give trial to the horticultural products of this plain. To find apples, pears, cherries, and plums as hardy, and as well adapted to the hot summers and cold winters of Illinois and Iowa as the Fameuse apple, we need not enter the empire of Russia. Northeastern Austria has a variable summer and winter climate, which will not permit the growing of apples of the grade of hardiness of the Ben Davis, Stark, Jonathan, and Dominie; of pears of the grade of Flemish Beauty, or of cherries of the grade of Early Richmond as to foliage and ability to endure low temperature. The commercial nursery-man who will visit the "King's Pomological Institute," at Proskau, in North Silesia, will see at a glance, as he wanders over the ground, that the fruits, forest trees, ornamental trees and shrubs of the nurseries of England, France, Belgium, etc., suddenly disappear with the Carpathians on the edge of the great steppes.
J. L. Budd.
Ag. College, Ames, Iowa.