HOW TO MAKE FRUIT GROWING PAY. 



It costs the same money to grow a poor 

 variety as it does a good one. The 

 packages and the freight are the same, 

 and now that the costs of reaching dis- 

 tant markets have to be added, the high 

 grade, fine size, well colored varieties 

 are the only varieties that will pay. The 

 variety should not only be a good ship- 

 per and of good appearance, but of the 

 best quality. The Ben Davis apple and 

 the Kieffer pear, for example, are lack- 

 ing in this last particular, while almost 

 faultless in the previous qualifications. 

 It is hard to find all these points in any 

 one fruit, but let us seek after them. 



Then when the best varieties are 

 chosen, (3) only the best samples should 

 be grotvn or shipped. What is the use 

 of allowing our trees to produce a lot 

 of small peaches, or apples, and then 

 find that one half the crop is worthless. 

 We must stop growing such stuff. We 

 must manure, prune, and thin in a 

 scientific manner, just as a trained gar- 

 dener in the old land does, with a view 

 to producing only the finest grade. 

 Michigan peach growers thin their 

 peaches to eight inches, and say it pays 

 them, even for a home market ; how 

 much more is it important for a foreign 

 market. In our experience at Maple- 

 hurst thinned peach trees yielded about 

 as much fruit as unthinned by increase 

 of size, and when you count advanced 



price, it will always pay. Pears for 

 export in 1898 were packed in cases 

 23^ inches long, 11 inches wide and 

 5 inches deep, and graded extra A No. i, 

 A No. I and No. i. Of the first grade, 

 60 pears, about 2^ inches in diameter, 

 filled a case. Of the second, 80 pears, 

 2 1^ inches in diameter ; and of the 

 third, 100 pears, 2^ inches. We have 

 not the full and complete returns yet, 

 but in general we may say that the 

 I St grade Bartletts netted us $1 a box, 

 the 2nd grade 75 cents, and the 3rd 

 about 50 cents. Pears smaller than 

 2^ inches were entirely unfit for ex- 

 port. Herein lies a lesson of great im- 

 portance to the Canadian fruit grower 

 which must not be despised, viz., that 

 it w^ill no longer pay to grow small-sized 

 fruit of any variety for export, and that 

 the grower must make up his mind to 

 pull off all small, poor and mean speci- 

 mens, and allow only the best to come 

 to maturity. Over in Michigan, the 

 growers are wide awake on this even 

 for their home markets. They are 

 asking the legislature to pass an Act 

 forbidding any man from offering for 

 sale poor trash of any kind of fruit, in 

 order to bring about this very end. 

 Must our Association ask this ? will 

 our growers have sense enough to stop 

 growing second class stuff, and so make 

 such action unnecessary in Ontario % 



TO GliT EARLY PEACHES. 



J. H. Hale, the peach grower, gets 

 ripe peaches two weeks earlier by the 

 following method : 



In the middle of the growing season 

 put a strong wire around a large arm of 

 a tree and twist it fairly tight. This 

 checks the flow of sap and causes fruit 

 buds to form early and in great number. 

 The fruit on the branches of this arm 



will ripen two weeks earlier than that on 

 the untreated branches and will be much 

 more highly colored. But this part of 

 the tree will be so weakened by the 

 treatment that it should be cut away 

 after fruiting that new shoots may come 

 and take its place. Thus one large arm 

 or limb of a tree may be forced each 

 year. — Strawberry Culturist. 



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