Prof. Budd, of Iowa, sends THE PRAIRIE FARMER the following copy of his
address before the Eastern Iowa Horticultural Society, remarking that
its appearance in this paper may lead the Bloomington nurserymen to look
up this very important line of propagation:

The topic assigned me is, as usual, experimental horticulture. I select
the division of the work implied in the heading for the reason that it
is, as yet, mainly an unoccupied field of inquiry. If the idea occurs
that my treatment of the question is speculative rather than practical
permit me to suggest that thought and investigation must always precede
the work of adapting fruits to a newly occupied country, especially if
that country is as peculiar in climate and soil as the great Northwest.

In the summer of 1882, I was fortunate in having a fine opportunity for
studying the varieties and races of cherries in Continental Europe. The
fruit was ripening when we were in the valley of the Moselle in France,
and as we went slowly northward and eastward it continued in season
through Wirtemberg, the valleys and spurs of the Swabian Alps to Munich
in Bavaria, through the passes of the Tyrol in Saltzburg to Austria,
Bohemia, Siberia, Poland, and Southwestern Russia. Still farther north
of St. Petersburg and Moscow we met the cherries from Vladimir on every
corner, and our daily excursions to the country permitted the gathering
of the perfectly ripened fruit from the trees.

Still again when we passed six hundred miles east of Moscow we had
opportunities for picking stray cherries of excellent quality from trees
standing near the 56th parallel of north latitude.