The Canadian Horticultun^ 



Vol. XXXVII 



MARCH, 1914 



No. 3 



Reality vs. Fiction in the Fruit Business 



PERHAPS there has been no branch 

 of horticulture so much boomed and 

 advertised as fruit farming. By this 

 '{ mean tree fruits, particularly apples. 

 The public are gulled and misled in many 

 s (I don't bay all, mind) by flowery 

 ten advertisements, highly drawn 

 ires of the imagination from the pen 

 man who has probably never in his 

 seen an apple nearer its native state 

 iiiii in a grocery shop window. But— 

 ie has land to sell ! 



!iese advertisements do an enormous 



11 to the fruit industry at large, as 



make the reader expect his fortune 



..lie in a few years at the business. The 



;iilied one is persuaded to put his hard- 



arned money into some of these enter- 



irises only to find his fortune does not 



ome as soon as he was expecting. Thus 



ii^ appointed and disgusted, he does not 



et to let other people hear of it (usu- 



with emandations) and in so doing 



^ a lot of harm to some other man's 



eally meritorous proposition. 



. Now, if this same man had been told in 



!jfie first place in an honest and straight- 

 |Drward way, the real standing of the 

 jruit industry, he would not have looked 

 jr a fortune lying in wait for him to 

 ick up, but would have been contented 

 /ith a reasonable thing ; that is, a good 

 (ling, and some money put aside for a 

 jainy day. In this way a good booster 

 (f the fruit industry would have been 

 lade, instead of a backbiter. 



T. W. Palmer, Victoria, B.C. 



As an indication of how some of the 

 literature of these land sharps is worded 

 the following will give an idea of how 

 the reader is led to expect an Eldorado, 

 viz. : 



"Do you wish peace and prosperity?" 



"Your answer is 'Yes.'" 



"If you are earning less than $2,000 a 

 "year, would you like to double it?" 



"Again your answer will be 'Yes.' " 

 — THEN— 



"Our land is only (some small figure) 

 'per acre. Suppose as a working basis 

 'you buy only six acres of our land. Fig- 

 'ure on one hundred trees to the acre; 

 'total, 600 trees. These will bear when 

 'from four to five years old. When eight 

 'years old you should get at a low esti- 

 'mate five boxes to the tree. This is, 

 'then, for six hundred trees at five boxes 

 'boxes per tree, three thousand boxes 

 'of apples. These you should sell for 

 'one dollar and a half per box, making 

 'four thousand five hundred dollars for 

 'your season's apples. Does this look 

 'good to you?" 



INPOEHATION SUPPRESSED 



So far so good, but — , what they don't 

 tell you in their literature is, first, that 

 your apples won't be all No. i apples; 

 second, that there is a certain cost at- 

 tached to the marketing of said apples ; 

 third, no allowances are made for off- 

 seasons, bad prices, diseases, and so 

 forth. That these things have to be 

 found out by the grower is all the more 



to be censured. When experience teach- 

 es these things to the farmer he is nat- 

 urally disgusted at having his ideals 

 battered, when, had he been told in the 

 first place he would have been prepared 

 and on the look out to "beat the game." 



THE TRUE SITUATION 



I shall endeavor to give a rough esti- 

 mate as to the real cost of marketing six 

 acres of apples in full bearing eight year 

 old trees, figuring on a full crop and no 

 di.sease. I will tell of the different works 

 that have to be done during the year 

 before the crop, and also the labor in- 

 volved in marketing the same. But it 

 must be bore in mind that in no two dis- 

 tricts is the cost the same, nor is it pos- 

 sible to give an exact estimate in any 

 case. In this illustration it is based on 

 marketing the fruit on Vancouver Island, 

 in vicinity of Victoria. 



First, then, is pruning. This will have 

 to be done in the fall, after the sap is 

 withdrawn, or in the spring before it has 

 risen again. This may be done by the 

 owner of the orchard, so that he need not 

 deduct any money from the amount re- 

 ceived at the end of the year, as it is 

 part of his living. 



After this the first spraying of the 

 year has to be attended to. This is done 

 by a mixture of lime, salt and sulphur. 

 This is sold in handy form now by manu- 

 facturers in British Columbia at about 

 six dollars for a thirty gallon barrel. This 

 only needs diluting with water in pro- 



J 



phe Ontario Fruit which carried off the Premier Honors La*t Summer at the Convention of the International Apple Shippers Atiociation 

 held in Cleveland, Ohio. It competed againit fruit from Oregon, Waihington, Colarado and other states 



47 



