The greatest amount of space is taken up by orchards in Bessarabia (40,000 hectares), where the more delicate kinds of apples, pears, plums and walnuts, almonds and apricots are raised. In Podolia the orchards of the peasants alone comprise more than 26,000 hectares. Besides apples, pears and plums, great quantities of cherries are raised here. The orchards usually lie in the deep river-valleys. The yar of the Dniester, between Khotin and Yampol, produces annually half a million metric hundredweights of fruit. From Podolia and Bessarabia over 800,000 q. of fresh fruit, 100,000 q. of dried fruit and 20,000 q. of nuts and almonds are exported annually. The most luxuriantly growing orchards are those of Tauria, which cover over 7000 hectares on the northern declivities of the Yaila Mountains. The annual production exceeds 160,000 q. of fruit and 40,000 q. of nuts. In this region the tenderest species of apples, pears and plums flourish, besides apricots (4,000 q. a year) and peaches. About the middle of May the cherries ripen here. In the middle of June the apricots; at the end of June plums and early pears; about the middle of July peaches and early apples; in August we have autumn pears and apples, and in the first half of September, the winter apples. Beyond these districts, fruit-culture is practised on a large scale in the Kiev region and in Volhynia. Here, above all, the hardier northern species of apples and pears are raised, as well as cherries. In Kherson and Katerinoslav, too, fruit-raising flourishes; especially in the Dnieper valley, where apricots also thrive. In the Poltava country fruit-culture is still important enough, while in the districts of Kharkiv, Voroniz, Kursk and Chernihiv it is much less significant, altho we find, even here, a few centers of intensive fruit-growing; for instance, in the [269]vicinity of the cities of Kharkiv, Okhtirka, Bohodukhiv. In Galicia fruit-growing is not especially developed, except in Pokutia, the vicinity of Kossiv, and the Podolian yari-valleys, where (near Zalishchiki) even apricots and grapes are grown.