1 90 Work in a Canadian Orchard. [Sess. 



Sometimes root -grafting is adopted, and consists in taking 

 pieces of a root and carefully uniting them to a branch. In 

 this way young trees are produced rapidly. The farmer 

 naturally chooses a position for his orchard in close proximity 

 to his house. It is not necessary that the orchard should be 

 on any particular slope, as no matter what the slope, there 

 are drawbacks peculiar to it. On a slope to the north, for 

 example, trees suffer from root -killing, whereas scorching of 

 the trunk of the tree is a common calamity when the orchard 

 slopes to the south ; but given good drainage, perhaps a level 

 piece of land is best. To have an orchard protected by forest 

 trees from prevailing winds is another thing of importance. 

 The kind of soil is not, perhaps, very important, although 

 whatever nature it possesses, it should be worked well, and 

 properly broken up, so as to allow of the free access of air. 

 If the land is not properly prepared before the trees are 

 planted, it cannot be done after. Each tree must be so set 

 that it will not be overshaded by its neighbour, but must 

 have abundance of light and air. The popular tree in the 

 past has been one with a trunk five or six feet high, on 

 account of the advantage thus gained in the growing of other 

 crops on the same land along with the trees. The grower 

 was also able to work the land with the aid of horses. This 

 idea is perhaps now gradually giving place to the newer order 

 of things, where the orchard is for fruit-trees only. 



As already said, there are now probably over 2500 kinds 

 of apples, and one of the things for which the grower has to 

 thank his Government is the help he has received in determin- 

 ing what kinds to plant in his district. The fruit-growing 

 part of Canada has been divided out into sections, and lists 

 have been compiled, giving the names of the varieties found, 

 after years of experiment, to be most suitable for each of 

 thirteen of these. It does not exhaust a tree to bear a 

 good crop of fine fruit, so much as it does to produce a heavy 

 crop of small fruit. The exhaustion of the tree is in propor- 

 tion to the number of the seeds matured and not to the size 

 of the fruit. Unfortunately pruning is much neglected, partly 

 because of the time it takes and partly through want of con- 

 fidence on the part of the grower in his own ability, — the 

 subject being one on which very much has been written, but 



