NOTES AND COMMENTS. 



309 



growing- my own plants for early fruit for 

 the last five years, with such success that 

 now I set annually from 12,000 to 15,000 

 plants. 



It was a delightful visit to Mr. Armstrong-'s 

 home, on the 29th of Jnne ; it is situated on 

 the bank of the Niagara River and his place 

 is known as Riverside Fruit Farm. 



How early do yoti ripen your first tomatoes? 

 we enquired. 



Usually by the first of July and sometimes 

 sooner. 



What is your favorite variety? 



I prefer the Atlantic Prize to any other 

 variety. It is flat, roundish, not too large, 

 and excellent for slicing- up for table use. 

 I make it a special point to carefully select 

 the seed from the finest specimens each year 

 for my own planting-, so that my strain of 

 Atlantic Prize tomatoes is much better than 

 any which can be bought under that name. 

 Ignotum I find too large and too shy in 

 bearing for profit. 



PKOFIT IN PLUMS 



Do you consider plums profitable? 



I do. Come and see my orchard for 

 yourself. Mr. Armstrong showed us 



through an acre of land planted chiefly with 

 Niagara and Washington plum trees heavily 

 laden with fruit. It was fenced in and con- 

 tained some fowls, which, he said, accounts 

 for the fact that no curculio can be found 

 in it. These, said Mr. Armstrong, are in 

 my opinion the best commercial varieties. 

 True, Washington is somewhat tender in 

 flesh, but I have no trouble sending it to a 

 near market like Toronto in perfect condition. 

 Our Toronto boats leave at 7 and 1 1 o'clock 

 a. m. and by shipping them the same day 

 they are gathered, they reach Toronto by 

 boat in perfect condition. 



One Niagara tree about ten years planted, 

 Mr. Armstrong estimated, would yield 

 fifteen baskets of plums; surely it is difficult 

 to estimate the cash value of such a tree! 



Peaches, grapes, strawberries, plums and 

 tomatoes, seem to be Mr. Armstrong's 

 specialties, and in the latter we know of no 

 one who excels him. He is surrounded by 

 the fruit farms of men whose names are 

 familiar, as for example, Carl E. Fisher, 

 secretary of the Niagara Peninsula Fruit 

 Growers' Association ; Major Sheppard, the 

 Farmers' Institute lecturer ; and Mr. V^roo- 

 man, one of the early settlers of Queenston. 

 In location it is most picturesque, with the 

 Toronto boats in full view in old Niagara 

 river, and the cliff" rising up gradually in 

 close proximity, surmounted by the famous 

 monument to Sir Isaac Brock. 



SUCCESS WITH PLUMS 



THE Lombard is an enormous cropper, 

 and this is the great fault with it, 

 because the fruit is consequently small, and, 

 growing in such clusters, is very subject to 

 rot. If thinning is needed with any fruit 

 it is surely needed in the case of the Lom- 

 bard, and that with no stinted hand, for in 

 this way alone can we succeed in producing 

 such fruit as will command remunerative 

 prices. 



One of the finest young plum orchards we 

 have seen belongs to Mr. George Davis, 

 Beamsville, who took great pride in showing 

 us what a magnificent load of Lombards the 

 trees were carrying. There were 200 trees 

 per acre, from five to eight years planted on 

 clay loam, and such immense loads of fruit 

 are seldom seen in a whole orchard. Mr. 

 Davis said he had been wishing for curculio 

 to come along and thin out his Lombards 

 and save him the work, which he could see 

 was positively necessary to secure fruit of 

 any size. "I manure heavily," said he, 

 "and I think that, in part, accounts for the 

 enormous yield. I give a load of barn 

 manure to every seven or eight trees, or 

 about thirty tons an acre, and this I repeat 

 every year. The result is evident in the 

 wonderful thrift of the trees." 



