256 STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



thing. However, I am not going to blow our own trumpet in that way, 

 and will suffice with a brief resume of our experience in experimental 

 work. 



Fruitgrowing in Canada, as I have no doubt is the case in the United 

 States, has come to be something like this: In each of the centers of 

 I'arly settlement or early civilization the settlers brought in their fruit 

 trees and brought in such as did best in their old homes. They planted 

 them here, and if they did well they gradually spread from those centers 

 along the lines of least resistence — that is, along those lines where trees 

 grew best, and so spread out and worked over the whole country, grad- 

 ually finding here and there a spot best suited to the cultivation of some 

 particular class of fruit, so that in Nova Scotia we find our whole area 

 very well suited for cultivation of some particular kind of fruit. In Que- 

 bec, and in Ontario again, we find that a particular area is best suited for 

 bringing some particular fruit to the highest state of development; and 

 that is a jjart of our work in the experiment farm, just as it is in the 

 experiment stations here. I was pleased this afternoon to find (and I 

 may tell you that it was very gratifying information to me) that our 

 fruits are creating such a stir in the Chicago markets, and to find that we 

 were of sufficient importance to have the fruitgrowers of this state 

 become somewhat exercised in their minds lest we should capture those 

 markets. I did not know it before, and the thought is very inspiring to 

 mo, and is one which I can take back to our fruitgroW'Crs and give to 

 them as an incentive to go on and do better things. Speaking seriously, 

 this brings me now to the reason why I think apples, for instance, in 

 certain localities in Ontario are better than the same varieties grown in 

 Michigan, and it is this: That, so far as I have been able to observe, the 

 further north you go with a certain variety of apple, until the furthest 

 point north where that variety can be successfully grown is reached, 

 there you will produce fruit of the best quality. Just so long as the 

 season is favorable to the growth of the tree and the ripening of the fruit 

 in that place, you will have fruit of the finest quality. That has been my 

 observation in Canada, and for that reason at those points Mr. Rice men- 

 tioned this afternoon, such as Prince Edward county, we find the North- 

 ern Spy growing, and to an excellence in i)oint of quality and appearance 

 that I do not think is equalled, certainly not exceeded, in any other por- 

 tion of North America. 



In speaking of our first province, I will go down to our eastern bounda- 

 ries. We have a little island there of wiiich the residents think a great 

 deal. It is called Prince Edward Island. It is a beautiful little island, 

 about 120 miles long by about three to five miles wide, and the peculiariLy 

 of this island is what was called the English cherries in the early days. 

 The cherries which were introduced from England, brought over by the 

 settlers, of the Kentish varieties, grow there remarkably and ]»roduce 

 themselves from buds; thej^ have been growing for generations, over a 

 century, anyway, from sprouts and buds, and we find the English cherry 

 growing all over that island, in great profusion, and the climate is sucii 

 that the growers are enabled to send Ihe cherries to the Boston market 

 at least three weeks after the cherry season, and being somewhat of a 

 novelty, and the growth being comparatively limitc^d, they are enabled 



