^0t^s and C0mmertts 



SMALL SIZED FRUIT FARMS 



WE are more and more convinced that 

 many of our Ontario fruit farms 

 are too large for the best results. How 

 often do we read of the immense crops 

 of strawberries taken from a small garden, 

 where every inch of ground received the 

 best of cultivation and xwas enriched in 

 the highest degree. Eight thousand quarts 

 to the acre are seldom harvested in 

 field culture, but frequently the small 

 plot oversteps this exceedingly remuner- 

 ative yield ; and we say, how is it that 

 we get 2,000 quarts of berries from the 

 quarter acre garden, and sometimes only 

 same quantity from a whole acre under field 

 culture ? 



On the loth ultimo we visited a fruit 

 grower who had only one acre and a half of 

 ground, and nearly the half acre was occu- 

 pied with house yard, wood shed and barn. 

 The rest was given intensive cultivation, 

 mostly by hand. It was planted with peach, 

 cherry and plum trees, with currants, rasp- 

 berries and strawberries between the rows 

 and under the trees. In 1901, a year when 

 some of the large fruit farms barely paid 

 expenses, he sold about three hundred dol- 

 lars worth of fruit oiT his small garden, be- 

 sides having abundance for his own table. 

 All this he had done, without losing much 

 time at the nursery at which he was em 

 ployed. This man had been in Canada 

 some years cultivating a fifty acre farm, 

 which he found too hard work for his ad- 

 vanced years. He is greatly pleased with 

 the change in his life, and says " I actually 

 take in just about as much cash off my gar- 

 den as I did off my farm." 



Now this might not be the result in every 



case. Some men are born gardeners, and 

 succeed at the business, while others would 

 sadly fail. Besides conditions count, and 

 our friend is situated along one of those 

 electric trolley lines which gather up the 

 fruit at his door, and carry it to the city ; 

 and he is saved all expense of teaming his 

 fruit. 



Of course it is impossible for the 100 acre 

 man to get such results from fruit growing, 

 else he would soon be a millionaire. Usual- 

 ly if he gets a gross average of $40 per 

 acre, year after year, he is counted to be 

 doing very well, for he has off years when 

 crops fail, or gluts in the markets which 

 stagger him, and prove that to succeed it is 

 quality and not always quantHy that counts. 



CANKER WORM 



^"^HREE ounces of Paris Green to 40 

 X gallons of water, as recommended on 

 page 214, we find is not effective in killing 

 this worm. Trees so sprayed were still 

 full of them and hung down by threads 

 almost as numerous as ever ; so we doubled 

 the dose, with eight pounds of lime to the 

 barrel, and this worked like a charm. 



THE PLUM CURCULIO 



"^'^HE plum curculio,"; 

 X of Winona, "is my r 



says Mr. M. Pettit 

 my most persistent en- 

 emy, and I am anxious to spray it just at 

 the time when the poison will do the most 

 good. I have been advised," said he, "to 

 wait until the blossom has fallen, and that 

 there was no use treating the plum trees 

 until the young plum was exposed." In 

 our opinion this advice was bad. The young 

 and tender foliage of the plum tree cannot 

 be poisoned too early, for the little Turk 



