THE OUTLOOK FOR APPLE GROWING IN ONTARIO. 



69 



notice from fruit men generally and be very at- 

 tractive to the buyers, and the markets of the 

 old world, where there is such an unsatisfied 

 demand for our beautiful sound Canadian ap- 

 ples. 



Central Packing House. 



We would further recommend that these 

 apples, as well as others grown in a neighbor- 

 hood, should pass through the hands of the 

 Central Packing Station to receive proper pack- 

 ing, careful handling and just and true assort- 

 ing. There is no system so vital to the best 

 interests of fruit as this modern system of sta- 

 tion packing, and for the interests of all who 

 are concerned it must have the most thorough 

 and immediate attention. These stations are 

 being planted so generally over the best fruit 

 regions of the United States, and even in Can- 

 ada, that all the particulars regarding them, 

 their rules of working, their expense of man- 

 agement, their officers and systems of organi- 

 zation may be all easily learned by correspond- 

 ing freely with them. It is essential to set 

 these in full operation in this country. These 

 apples, so packed and shipped away from a cen- 

 tral packing station and labelled with a well 

 known designation that carries value with it, 

 and can be relied upon by the buyers to take 

 one or five hundred or a thousand or more boxes 

 without questioning would shortly establish a 

 market for all the fruit that can be offered or 

 gathered. 



Management. 



Now, to successfully accomplish the work- 

 ing of this method of large commercial ap- 

 ple orchards there must in the first place be 

 the best of mature and well tested judgment 

 and a thoroughly trained competent experience 

 on the part of the management. There must 

 be no trifling in this case or merely experiment- 

 ing processes. They must know what to do 

 and how to do it. Everybody cannot do it. Of 

 course they cannot ; if they could there would 

 be nothing for anybody in it. But it is here, 

 as in all other business, that are successful. 

 It is simply a question of competence, wide ex- 

 perience and thorough business ability derived 

 from much actual work in the orchard in the 

 head of the directorate. In the man to do this 

 kind of work there must be better training in 

 head and heart, deeper study of all things re- 

 lated to the orchard, and the nature of his busi- 

 ness as to conditions of soil and surroundings, 

 etc., a general broader up-to-date intelligence 

 on the subject of apple growing than has ordi- 

 narily come to the practical business. I may 

 say here that this method of producing apples 

 is not merely dreamy, but has bright rays of 

 encouragement in it, for are we not even now 

 "having several attempts in this line of work ? 

 In our agricultural schools and horticultural 

 colleges there are numbers of hopeful and com- 

 petent young men being educated and trained 

 for this special line of introductory apple grow- 

 ing as their special life-work in this country. 

 Tt may not, therefore, be a long time before it 

 may be seen that this fine promising country 



may be dotted over from the rivers to the lakes 

 with large fine beautiful orchards of apples 

 such as will gladden the heart of the buyers in 

 the old world and enrich the patient toilers in 

 this. A few days ago I was corresponding with 

 one of those young men now being educated and 

 trained at our far-famed Ontario Agricultural 

 College at Guelph with regard to a trip lately? 

 made by him as an enquiry tour to old Georgia, 

 U. S., and mostly their peach regions, so suc- 

 cessful in their shipments last summer. The 

 following ideas were freely communicated for 

 my information and bearing on the points at 

 hand. I dedicate them to the apple growers of 

 this country. 



Peach Growing in South America. 



" Although I consider," said he, " the Geor- 

 gia peach region to be most promising and 

 most successful regions, especially that around 

 Port Palley, in Houston County, where 

 peaches are being raised in enormous quanti- 

 ties, and of the finest sizes and qualities, es- 

 pecially in the case of the Elbertas, and where 

 a man might enter into a business in the larg- 

 est desirable extent with the fullest assurances 

 of success on account of the most perfect 

 adaptability of both soil and climatic condi- 

 tions to produce the finest desirable samples of 

 fruit that would take a full market anywhere, 

 and where labor and packing material are both 

 so plentiful and so cheap, yet I am not going to 

 settle for my fortunes in Georgia. I have had 

 my attention directed to other fields farther 

 away, but better suited for my designs in my 

 future life work and lying within the borders of 

 the Argentine Republic, South America. Here, 

 as you know, the climatic conditions are the re- 

 verse of ours, so that when it is summertime 

 there it is wintertime here. So for this rea- 

 son a large company of capitalists are going to 

 plant a very large area in peaches for the old 

 London and New York markets. They will 

 clear and plant 1,000 acres at first at least, and 

 they want me to take charge of the work and to 

 superintend the progress of affairs to success. 

 When no fresh fruit can be had from the north 

 we intend to pack and ship our South American 

 peaches into these markets, and expect good re- 

 sults. As the first plantation is nearing ma- 

 turity, and the demand for peaches good, we in- 

 tend going on in our planting until some five or 

 ten thousand trees are out." Now, the whole of 

 this was a shining revelation to me, and 

 seemed at once a feasible and splendid business 

 undertaking. This is the kind of enterprise 

 we want applied to the business of apple grow- 

 ing in this country that is at once so safe and 

 as well adapted to the growth and production 

 of the most beautiful, good keeping and flavor- 

 ful apples. In this way the business must be 

 made a specialty, when planting, working, 

 cleaning, pruning and spraying must at all 

 times and in all cases receive their proper and 

 fullest proportional treatment through the full 

 worklife of the trees. So the enthusiast apple 

 grower will take a deep intelligent pride in his 

 work and the results will abundantly attest the 



