FRUIT GROWING IN THE EARLY DAYS. 



19 



HORTICULTURAL LITERATURE. 



The Department of Agriculture has also 

 issued two publications during the year 

 which are of special interest to our mem- 

 bers. The first is the Hand Book of Wo- 

 men's Institutes. This contains articles on 

 floriculture which are practical and up-to- 



date. The second is just out, and is in line 

 with the resolution passed by the associa- 

 tion last year. It is entitled Nature Studies, 

 and will be useful in the study of elementary 



science. 



G. C. Creelman, Secretary. 



Toronto. 



FEUIT GEOWING IN THE EAELY DAYS 



AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF OUR PIONEER FRUIT GROWER, 

 A. M. SMITH. OF ST. CATHARINES, WRITTEN BY RE- 

 QUEST—ONE OF THE TWO LIVING CONSTITUENT MEM- 

 BERS OF OUR ASSOCIATION— CREATED AN HONORARY 

 LIFE MEMBER AT BRANTFORD IN 1900, AND AN HONOR- 

 ARY DIRECTOR AT COBOURG IN 1901. 



IF you think I have succeeded in any way 

 in making the country more prosper- 

 ous, or in making the people happier 

 or better, and that my example and efforts 

 will help others to strive to make Canada 

 the brightest spot on the face of this great 

 world we live, I shall have no objections to 

 giving you a little of my history. 



I was born in the town of Brandon, State 

 of Vermont, on the side of the Green Moun- 

 tains, Sept. 24th, 1832. My father was a 

 farmer and a charcoal burner. When I 

 was 12 years old he lost his farm and all 

 the property he had through the failure of a 

 firm he had a contract with for burning or 

 making charcoal. He then went to West- 

 ern New York, taking with him a family of 

 six children, to " begin life anew," as he 

 expressed it, working on a farm by the 

 month for a year, and then working land on 

 shares for a time, and finally purchasing a 

 small farm to be paid for on time. 



The early efforts of my life, from the age 

 of 14 to 20, were to help pay for the farm 

 and clear up a part of it, which was in bush. 

 This was accomplished with the aid of an 

 older brother, both us of working out by the 



day or month among neighboring farmers 

 and we had the satisfaction of seeing my fa- 

 ther have a comfortable home in his old age. 

 The only chance I had for schooling was 

 three months each winter, when I generally 

 boarded with some farmer and did chores 

 for my board and attended the district 

 school ; excepting six weeks after I was 20, 

 which I spent at the Yates Academy, or 

 High School. 



I always had a fancy for fruit and fruit 

 growing, and in the summer of 1852 I 

 worked for Mr. E. Moody (father of the 

 Moodys who now carry on an extensive 

 nursery at Lockport, N. Y.) in his nurseries 

 and peach orchards, where I obtained a 

 knowledge of the nursery business before I 

 embarked in it on my own hook. In the 

 fall of that year I received a stroke of light- 

 ning, which killed the horse I was driving 

 and laid me up for two years, six months 

 of which I was in bed helpless. So the 

 capital I had to start with when 1 was 

 twenty-one years of age was, two years' 

 sickness and $100 of a doctor's bill to pay. 

 My father cared for me when I was sick and 

 gave me a cow when I first went to house- 



