FORTY-SECOND ANNUAL REPORT. 35 



low level, etc. Of course, we want to bar 1906, and even frost came 

 from the northeast, just a land wind from the Polar regions. But 

 I do not think we ever lost a fruit crop by reason of frost in the spring 

 when the wind was from across Lake Michigan. 



CARE OF SMALL FRUITS. 



ROBT. THOMPSON, ST. CATHERINES, ONTARIO. 



Ladies and Gentlemen : It gives me a great deal of pleasure to be 

 here. I have intended to come for a couple of years, but have always 

 been so busy that I could not seem to be able to get away from home. 

 And, as it is, our own annual meeting is being held at the same time 

 as yours here, but my sense of duty is this : We have had the pleasure 

 of several of your best men — we have had the benefit of their experience 

 at our meetings, both local and provincial, at Toronto and other places, 

 and I felt that it would only be simple justice to reciprocate and give 

 you any help within my power. 



In a good many ways your conditions are something similar to our 

 own, almost more so than some of the conditions in the State of New 

 York, with which we are more conversant. 



The question of lakes, the influence of large bodies of water, interests 

 us because we have the same condition with us, — lake to the north of 

 ns. then Lake Erie to the south. 



Another reason why I am pleased to be here is that we find when 

 we come among you, we are brothers — we are one people. While, at 

 certain seasons, we pair off, and as in politics and other questions we 

 20 our own way, yet as it is in the case of the fruit growers, there comes 

 a time when we bunch together for our mutual benefit. When your 

 worthy secretary was over to see us a year ago, he can recall that we 

 had a land-slide over in Canada something like you have had in the 

 recent past here. And possibly Mr. Bassett would appreciate it more 

 because, as he knows, I happened to be on the losing side; and I 

 think he came out also on the losing side. 



But, although, we had a landslide, and you have had a radical change 

 of public sentiment, yet the fruit growers will go on just the same as 

 before, and will no doubt succeed just as well, if we attend to our 

 business as we should. This will come, no matter what the administra- 

 tion. Fruit growers have found that if they do not attend to their 

 business it will go down, no matter what the administration may be. 



I do not feel that I want to make a set address, but rather follow 

 the line of asking questions, and in this way, we can get real helpful 

 advice more surely than otherwise, for some of our conditions are 

 not the same as they are with you. We find that certain varieties of 

 small fruits do better on certain soils than on others. Take straw- 

 berries, we have the Williams, and I presume that ninety-nine out of 

 every hundred acres of the strawberries grown in our vicinity is the 

 Williams. In some other sections, they do not do well at all. I do 



