SHADE TREES ABOUT THE FARM. 



longer period. It is better to store 

 pears in the city where they are to be 

 sold, as the customer can secure his 

 fruit at the time he wants it, and rent or 

 storage charges at thirty cents per bar- 

 rel per month, are not more costly than 

 to provide storage where the fruit is 

 grown. 



6. Importance of co operation — Our 

 fruit business needs to be placed on a 

 better, thoroughly organized business 



basis. There should be in every town,, 

 where orcharding is attempted, a fruit 

 growers' union or association, to which 

 every grower should belong. All fruit 

 should be properly graded, inspected 

 and placed in the market in the best 

 possible condition. Upon such basis, 

 the income to grower and handler 

 would be materially and permanently 

 increased. — Am. Agric. 



SHADE TREES- ABOUT THE FARM HOUSE. 



'HE annual report of Thomas 

 Southworth, Clerk of 

 Forestry for Ontario, for 

 the year 1 897, is a credit- 

 able one, and a step in 

 the right direction. The terrible famine 

 in India, and the almost annual drought 

 in our province, are warnings that we 

 must beware of denuding of our country 

 of its forest areas, and that it is all- 

 important to make vast forest reserva- 

 tions for the sake of their climatic in- 

 fluence, if for no other reason And not 

 only so, but our country might well spend 

 some money in making, or at least in 

 encouraging, artificial forestation. 



We give an extract from the report, 

 which deals with the importance of plant- 

 ing shade trees near the house. 



Nothing will improve the appearance 

 of the farm-house and outbuildings more 

 than a shelter belt, or even a few iso- 

 lated trees planted near them, care being 

 taken to put them not so close as to 

 exclude the sunlight. They will not 

 only serve as protection from the wind, 

 but their shade will keep the house cool 

 during the heated term. A well-planted, 

 attractive looking farm, with the build- 

 ings half hidden in verdure and the lanes 

 and field corners green and shady, will, 



should it come into the market, bring a 

 considerably higher price than one where 

 all looks bare and bleak from the ab- 

 sence of trees. 



The length of time that must elapse 

 before a tree becomes commercially 

 valuable or useful for its wood to the 

 owner, is the usual objection raised 

 when farmers are advised to become 

 timber-growers. There is no doubt that 

 this feeling has done much to deter 

 them from utilizing in this way their 

 waste land — which at present contri- 

 butes nothing, except perhaps pasturage, 

 to the returns of the farm. Yet this is 

 a mistaken, short-sighted view. There 

 are many things requiring to be under- 

 taken in every branch of productive in- 

 dustry which involve a large outlay that 

 will not be repaid short of many years. 

 Farmers will build large barns and un- 

 dertake subsoil drainage on an extensive 

 scale without foolishly expecting to be 

 recouped during the next two or three 

 years for the cost and labor involved. 

 They realize that these are investments 

 which add permanently to their capital. 

 It is exactly the same with tree-planting. 

 A plantation of thriving young pines, 

 maples or chestnuts of merely a few- 

 years growth, is not, it is true, bringing 

 l37 



