50 EXPERIMENTAL FARMS 



2-3 EDWARD VII., A. 1903 



and shrubs and decorated with borders and beds of perennial and annual flowers, and 

 thus made very attractive. Under the energetic management of the superintendent of 

 parks, the planting of these parks as well as that of the boulevards along many of 

 the city streets making rapid progress. The more general use of the American elm 

 in the street planting at Winnipeg is to be highly commended. These trees are obtained 

 by transplanting native specimens found growing along the banks of the Red and 

 Assiniboine Rivers. 



EXPERIMENTAL FARM, BRANDON. 



The experimental farm at Brandon was reached on July 15. The farm had been 

 much injured and the work disarranged by the flood which followed a remarkable 'cloud 

 burst ' on June 1, when over 4 inches of rain 'fell in forty minutes, and the rainfall of 

 that day was 5| inches. This unprecedented rain storm had flooded about 300 acres 

 of land, but over the larger part of this area the flooding was not long continued. There 

 were, however, about 62 acres of crop destroyed, including 12 acres of rotation plots and 

 most of the uniform trial plots of pease. The plots of barley were also so much injured 

 that no satisfactory comparisons of the jdeld of varieties could be made this season. Indi- 

 vidual plots in the series of oats and wheat were also injured, and the value of this 

 useful work at Brandon for 1902 interfered with. The additional crops destroyed were 

 chiefly oats which nad been sown for feed purposes. The other experimental plots and 

 fields had been but slightly injured and these crops were looking well. The plantations 

 of ornamental trees were not much damaged, and the orchards of cross-bred and seedling 

 crab-apples being mostly on higher lana had sufiered but little and many of the trees were 

 well laden with fruit Under the energetic direction of the Superintendent, the injury 

 caused by the flood was rapidly repaired, and at the time of my return to Brandon from 

 the Pacific coast on September 1 the farm had almost resumed its usual appearance and 

 everything was again in excellent order. The crops of grain harvested were above the 

 average and the yield of hay was good, ranging from 2 to 2| tons per acre. 



VISIT TO SEWELL. 



On July 16 a drive of 22 miles was taken from Brandon to Sewell to see the swamp 

 where supplies of native white spruce and tamarac have been obtained for planting on the 

 experimental farm. A large area of swampy land was found, much of it covered with 

 good specimens of these trees of various sizes. White spruce and tamarac when care- 

 fully transplanted from this locality to Brandon have done remarkably well, and it was 

 gratifying to find so large a number of young trees available there for future planting 

 in different parts of Manitoba. , 



EXPERIMENTAL FARM AT INDIAN HEAD, N.W.T. 



The Indian Head experimental farm was visited on the way west on July 18-20 

 and again on the journey eastward, August 20-21 and 26-28. The crops were exceed- 

 ingly good and the yield of grain of all sorts very heavy. Brome grass was cut and in 

 stook and had given a very satisfactory yield. The wheat crop on the experimental 

 farm, also that all through the Indian Head district on summer fallowed land was 

 remarkably even and heavy, the heads being plump and well filled. A large part of the 

 crop in the North-west Territories is on summer fallow and the proportion is increasinc^ 

 from year to year. The demonstrations which have been annually made en the western 

 experimental farms during the past 15 years of the great advantage arising from the 

 summer fallowing of land, has induced farmers generally to adopt this profitable method 

 of treatment of the soil. 



The condition of the cattle and other stock on the Indian Head farm was quite 

 satisfactory. 



