134 ROYAL SOCIETY OF CANADA 



These variations in the character of the hind chosen, as to situation, 

 exposure and soil, were intended to attord opportunity for testing exam- 

 ples of leading' agricultural and horticultural products under the many 

 conditions which surround settlement in different parts of the Canadian 

 Northwest. It was thought best that one of these fjirms should possess 

 special advantages of soil and shelter for horticultural work, while the 

 other should have a position as open, bleak and flat as that of any settler 

 on the plains. While agricultural undertakings claimed the larger part 

 of attention at both of these farms, experiments were begun in hor- 

 ticulture by sending to each large consignments of fruit trees and vines 

 of all sorts. 



As time went on. all the varieties' obtainable which arc grown with 

 success in the eastern parts of the Dominion, in the northern parts of the 

 United States, and the northern countries of Europe, were tested. Full 

 advantage was taken of the opjiortunities of securing the hardiest sorts 

 of European fruits arising from the importation of scions by the U. S. 

 Department of Agriculture from the northern parts of Eussia, in 1870. 

 Examples were also obtained from the importations made by the late 

 Charles Gibb, of Abbotsford, Quebec, and Professor J. L. Budd, of Ames? 

 Iowa, who visited Eussia together in 1878 with the express object of 

 securing hard}' varieties of fruit and other trees for test in the colder 

 districts of this country. Direct im])ortations have also been made from 

 Siberia and other parts of Eussia. Orchards including from four to five 

 hundred of such varieties, were established at Ottawa and these were 

 freely propagated by hundreds and, in some more promising instances, 

 b}' thousands, and distributed for test, not only to the western Experi- 

 mental Farms, but in smaller numbers to individual settlers, so that they 

 might be tested iinder every condition as to soil, shelter, etc. All new 

 seedhngs for which special hardiness has been claimed have been included 

 in the tests, which have been several times repeated with the same varie- 

 ties in order to make them thoroughly complete and reliable. The quan- 

 tities of ti'ees, of each sort, sent for trial to the branch Fai-ms have varied 

 in number from 2, 3 or 4 trees to 10, 20 and 25, and these have been tested 

 in different soils and under varying conditions as to shelter. At Brandon, 

 j)lantations were made on the open ])rairie land in the Assiniboine Valley, 

 also in clearings made in the scrub on the lighter land on the bluflPs, 

 where the trees had the advantage of such shelter as this natural 

 growth afforded. Sites were chosen in this scrub, with different aspects, 

 and half-acre plots cleared and devoted to the different kinds of large 

 fruits. In these protected spots there was, at first, promise of some mea- 

 sure of success, and on one occasion a Transcendant crab blossomed and 

 bore a few specimens ; but after eight years of trial, including tests of 

 over two hundred of the most promising varieties and of several thousand 

 trees in all, not a tree remains to-day from which there is any reasonable 

 hope of obtaining fruit in any considerable quantity. 



