1 62 The Canadian Horticulturist. 



THE HARDINESS OF THE CANADA RED (RED CANADA). 





N a paper read by me before the Farmer's Congress, at 

 the City of Quebec, in January, 1893, and which was after- 

 wards published in the last June number of the Horti- 

 culturist, I mentioned Canada Red as having proved to 

 be a very hardy tree, after upwards of three years of trial 

 at Hudson-on the-Ottawa. It is extraordinary that the 

 fact of the hardiness of this variety does not seem to have 

 been brought prominently before the notice of fruit growers heretofore. The 

 test of the hardiness of Canada Red, to my mind, is conclusive. The orchard 

 at Mount Victoria, Hudson, Ont, is situated within two miles of my own at 

 Como, and I have had ample opportunity to observe the present condition of 

 the trees of that orchard, and to know of the dreadfully neglectful way in which 

 these trees have been cared for, ever since the death of the late Mr. George 

 Matthews (some twenty years ago), who planted out the orchard. The farm was 

 sold shortly after Mr. Matthews' death to a Montreal gentleman who never, I 

 understand, visited the place, and the several tenants who have rented it, from 

 year to year, of course never took the slightest trouble to cultivate the orchard 

 properly, or even to prune the trees. The soil of that orchard is the poorest 

 quality of sand, so poor that the present tenant has told me he sometimes fails 

 to get even a crop of oats off it in dry seasons. Under such conditions it is 

 surprising that any of the trees planted by Mr. Matthews, nearly thirty-five years 

 ago, are alive at all. Some of the trees were obtained from Montreal, such as 

 Fameuse, St. Lawrence, Pomme Grise, and Bourassa, and of these only a few 

 survive. I distinctly remember Mr. Matthews saying that he bought a number 

 of his trees at Rochester, N. Y. Among these, I think only Canada Red and 

 some Talman Sweet survive. But the best trees by far, the healthiest and most 

 productive, are the last named. The present tenant says he has frequently taken 

 six barrels per tree, of good marketable apples, off them, and obtained some 

 years four dollars per barrel. For many years the several tenants of Mount 

 Victoria sold the Canada Red under the name of Red Spitz. I never took par- 

 ticular notice of this apple until four years ago, when I was struck by the fine, 

 clean, healthy appearance of the fruit. Knowing that Red Spitz could not be 

 the correct name, and at the same time being aware that many of the trees of 

 this orchard were brought from the State of New York, I sent specimens to 

 several pomologists, among others to Mr. L. Woolverton, of Grimsby, and all 

 pronounced the variety Canada Red. 



Fine specimens were sent from this province to the World's Fair in the fall 

 of 1892, and placed in cold storage there, with other Quebec apples, and were 

 exhibited until the disastrous fire in the Cold Storage building destroyed all the 

 fruit, of 1892, in July last. No specimens of Canada Red were sent to the fair 

 from this province in 1893. 



