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THE CANADIAN HORTICULTURIST 



The dry atmosphere probably accounts 

 for the absence of fungous diseases in 

 apples, cherries and plums, but it is the ex- 

 cellent cultural methods that have to do 

 largely with the fine quality of the fruit. 

 Here again the intiuence of the environ- 

 ment is very clearly to be seen. The local 

 market is a comparatively small one. 

 Everything is packed for the distant mar- 

 kets. Hence, great attention is given to 

 grading and packing. Their teachers in 

 this were the Americans in California, 

 Washington and Oregon, who by long and 

 costly experience had demonstrated that it 

 did not pay to ship inferior or over ripe 

 fruit. 



The fruit grower of British Columbia, 

 profiting by this experience, spends time 

 and thought upon packing and packages 

 that would seem wasteful to an eastern 

 grower, but the result of this is seen in the 

 prices which they obtain for their fruit. 

 Calgary markets give about $2.50 per box 

 for British Columbia fruit when they only 

 give $4 per barrel for Ontario fruit. 



There is no reason why the apple grow- 

 ers of Ontario should mix different grades, 

 and ship in barrels, fruit, which if properly 

 packed and p-raded. would eciual in every 

 respect the British Columbia fruit. It is 

 very true that the eastern orchardist has a 

 larger proportion of No. 2 fruit than the 

 British Columbia grower, but there is com- 

 paratively little diflference between the best 

 fruit of Ontario and the best fruit of British 



Columbia. The difference is largely in the 



intelligence, skill and care of the growers. 



HIGH WAGES. 



Surprisingly high wages are paid to 

 laboring men. For ordinary orchard work 

 $1.25 to $1.75, with board, per day was 

 given. Some of the larger plantations 

 have expert fruit men from the Pacific 

 states to whom the owners pay salaries that 

 professional men in the east might envy. 



]\Iany of the larger estates on which cat- 

 tle feeding was tried are being broken up 

 into small lots devoted to fruit growing. 

 The delightful climate, where the tempera- 

 ture rarely goes, even in the coldest 

 weather, down to zero, and that only for a 

 few weeks in the year, has attracted many 

 farmers, who have accumulated a compet- 

 ency in Manitoba or the Territories. The 

 next largest class would be comparatively 

 wealthy Old Country people. All these 

 make most desirable citizens. 



The social conditions are not those of a 

 primitive settlement. There is an air of 

 refinement and leisure everywhere which 

 bespeaks not only culture but material pros- 

 perity. Libraries and lawn tennis flourish 

 with the fruits. Churches and schools are 

 well equipped and generously supported. 

 Parks and home grounds abound, where 

 trees, grass, flowers, rocks and water are 

 worked into beautiful landscape effects not 

 easily duplicated in the east. It is not a 

 mere figure of speech to say that British 

 Columbia is the California of Canada. 



Grain in the Orchard. — Many advo- 

 cate leaving grain in the orchard in the fall 

 for the mice. They claim that when there 

 is plenty of grain the mice will eat it and 

 leave the trees alone. My experience has 

 been that when I leave any vetch on the 

 ground that has seed in it the mice will 

 gather in great numbers, more than thev 

 otherwise would, and that they will girdle 



the trees just the same. — (Jos. Tweddle, 

 Fruitland. Ont.) 



Draining Orchards. — I might as well 

 go out of business as give up tile draining 

 in my orchards. One of the drains stopped 

 up one spring and I lost 15 trees through the 

 water backing up. — (Adolphus Pettit, 

 Grimsbv, Ont. 



