Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 65.djvu/316

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312
POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

and the great wall, north, and west, and east, has been most carefully explored and mapped by the foreign military authorities. From various individuals employed in this minute survey a great deal was learned relative to the fruit growing in the district indicated. Much of the fruit found in the markets of Pekin comes from the hill region leading up to the mountains separating China from Mongolia and Manchuria. These fruits are native apples, pears and peaches, and the little haw apple already mentioned. Great quantities of these fruits were examined in the market, with the exception of the peach, which

Portion of Wholesale Fruit and Nut Street in Pekin, China, showing Nut Products Chiefly Peanuts.

was then out of season, and later similar examinations were made at Tiensin. A very scanty but general infestation with San Jose scale was found on the different fruits examined. Perhaps one apple in a hundred would have a few of these scales about the blossom end and the same proportion was true of the haw apple and the native pear. Throughout the region where these fruits are grown, there has been no introduction of foreign stock. The occurrence of the San Jose scale on these two fruits was conclusive evidence that in the region whence it came the San Jose scale is native. The scattering occurrence of the scale also indicated, as would be anticipated, that this pest in its native home is kept in check by natural means.

The investigations made at Shanghai, and later southward to Hong-