The Canadian Horticulturist. 



85 



THE POSSIBILITIES OF OUR PROVINCE. 



E beer a reader of The Canadian Horticulturist since 

 as founded, and each year it has become a more and more 

 welcome visitor to my home. Prior to my twenty-five 

 years residence in Ontario I was for fifteen years chiefly 

 engaged in the nursery business, near, and at Rochester, New 

 York. I made a large delivery of trees in the autumn of 

 1853, at Dunnville, Cayuga, Paris and Brantford. I made a 

 careful investigation of Western Ontario at that time after 

 my business was completed, and fell deeply in love with it. 

 When the soil, timber, water, climate, fruit and agricultural possibilities are con- 

 sidered, combined with the beauty of the landscape, as a home for the farmer, 

 fruit and flower culturist it is not surpassed, if equalled, in North America. No 

 sunshine south of the lakes like that north of them. No air so clear, dry, brac- 

 ing and invigorating. No winter air like that in Ontario. My winters at Ottawa 

 in this respect were most delightful. When I tell my American friends of enjoy- 

 ing a walk with my friend Alexander Gun, of Kingston, with the thermometer 

 20 degrees below zero, they are inclined to question my sanity or veracity. No 

 autumn leaves here like those among oaks on the hills east of Toronto. No 

 winter fruit like the Ontario apples, in flavor. We get size and beauty, but not 

 the sprightly flavor which makes an Ontario apple so refreshing. I purchased 

 some of the finest Spitzenburgs a few days ago, at 80 cents per peck, that I ever 

 -saw in my life, but they were not up to par in flavor by any means. The possi- 

 bilities of Ontario as a fruit-producer no living man, it seems to me, realizes. 

 We get early fruits from the south, but the time will come when late fruits of 

 high quality will command a high price in this market, and pay as well as early 

 fruits. We have consumed 1,600 carloads of fresh fruit from California in New 

 York and Brooklyn last year, sold at auction ; they have realized from $900 to 

 $3,800 per car, depending upon quality and condition when they reach this 

 market. 



An average price would be $1,300 per carload of ten tons of fruit; 6,000 

 carloads crossed the Rocky Mountains in 1894, which, at an average of $1,300 

 per car, means gross sales of $7,800,000 at auction prices ; pretty good for an 

 infant fruit industry in hard times. Twenty-five years hence greater New York 

 will have a population of not far from 6,000,000, and this State of 10,000,000. 

 A fast line of steamers from Toronto to Oswego, and thence by the Ontario and 

 Hudson deep sea canal to Albany, and by the river to our wharves, will open 

 to your growers of small fruits, to come in after the local crop is gone, an unlim- 

 ited market, and the same for all the plums and apples you can produce. The 



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