The Canadian Horticulturi^ 



Floral Edition 



Vol. XXXIX 



TORONTO, ISOVEMBEK, 1916 



No. 11 



The Triumph of Efficient Methods 



W. E. Biggar, Chief Provincial Fruit Pests Inspector, Hamilion, Ont. 



NEVER in the history of Canadian 

 orcharding has there been a year 

 when the value of systematic 

 ;ind thoroiin^h .s^praying has been more 

 clearly demonstrated than during the 

 past season. Last spring, owing to the 

 scarcity of labor and the liigh price of 

 materials, many orchardists did not 

 give their trees the usual amount of at- 

 tention. Then followed a season wliich 

 was peculiarlj' adapted for the spread 

 of diseases, particularly apple scab. 

 The result of this has been that farm- 

 ers who did not give the usual amount 

 of attention to spraying have very lit- 

 tle if any No. 1 fruit for sale this year. 

 The pecuniar J' loss to themselves 

 throughout the province can hardly be 

 estimated, but it will total up to mucli 

 more than whatever might have been 

 saved in time in the spring. 



•Written by an editor of The Canadian Hor- 

 ticulturist from notes obtained during a recent 

 Interview with Mr. Biggai'. 



The comparatively few men who 

 gave the usual thorough spraying this 

 spring are the men who are marketing 

 the No. 1 fruit this fall, and incidental- 

 ly the men who are making the profits. 

 Orchards throughout Ontario which 

 were not spra.yed this year have been 

 practically worthless. In many orchards 

 the fruit has scarcely been worth the 

 trouble of jjicking. An exception to 

 this, however, is the district around 

 Owen Sound where, for some reason or 

 other, the fruit even in unsprayed 

 orchards was very good. 



Some exceptionally large returns 

 have been obtained this year from ap- 

 ple orchards in which spraying was 

 systematically practiced. Proba-bly the 

 greater amount of spraying this j^ear 

 was done in the Niagara District. As 

 a result there are more clean apples in 

 this district this year than in all the 

 I'est of the province. On several farms 



where spraying was thoroughly done 

 exceijtio'nally large returns have been 

 obtained. The crops throughout have 

 been remarkably free from scab and 

 codling moth. In many orchards 

 where spraying had been practiced the 

 entire crop of apples, Nos. 1, 2 and 3 

 have sold at an average of three dollars 

 a barrel. In one orchard east of 

 Hamilton, twenty-five acres in extent, 

 through careful pruning and spraying 

 a crop was harvested this year whicli 

 will sell at between $6,000 "and $7,000. 

 Another grower in this district from 

 his eight acres of apples expects to sell 

 ?3,000 worth of fruit. Still another man 

 sold six acres of apples on the tree for 

 •tOOO. This has been accomplished only 

 by careful watching of the orchard and 

 thorough spraying at the proper time. 

 The fact that a good quality of apples 

 was so scarce made for better prices 

 to those who had clean friut. 





A roai baok-to-lht'-land district. 



Cedar Hill, Vancouver Island, was once suH^divided into lot's for real estate. 

 and vegetables, for which It is admirably adapted. 



It is now reverting to farming fruit 



