THE CANADIAN HORTICULTURIST. 



ess is one of our best, for it carries well, Is 

 large in size, and very good in quality. 



THE BOSC. 



Here is a pear that is worth attention, and 

 Mr. Woodward finds that it succeeds well 

 top worked on Duchess bodies, becoming 

 quite productive. It is a pear that is wanted 

 in the markets, will ship grandly, and give 

 good satisfaction for export. It is a poor 

 grower, and for that reason needs to be top 

 worked on some better growing variety, such 

 possibly as the Kieffer. On the quince it 

 is a failure, and therefore it is useless to 

 plant as a dwarf. 



THE I.AWRENCE AND OTHERS. 



Here is a pear that is wanted in the home 

 garden, for it is uniformly excellent in qual- 

 ity, ripens easily, and is unexcelled as a De- 

 cember table pear. It is too bad that it is 

 not more in demand in the market, but it 

 seems to be little appreciated, and there- 

 fore not profitable. 



The Anjou is first-class, but will not hang 

 on the trees long enough; and the Clair - 

 geau is large and beautiful, but not good 

 enough in quality to be very highly com- 

 mended. 



SMALL SIZED FEUIT FARMS BEST. 



E7^ VERY year we are more convinced that 

 J many of our Ontario fruit growers 

 are trying to cultivate too much land for 

 their capital. To buy the trees, plant, cul- 

 tivate, spray and prune them for ten or fif- 

 teen years, until they begin to give a pro- 

 portional income, means an expenditure of 

 $200 or $300 per acre, and this added to the 

 first cost of the land, means a greater in- 

 vestment than the average man dreams of. 

 Instead, therefore, of attempting to plant 

 one hundred acres in fruit, and starve for ten 

 of fifteen years while it comes into bearing, 

 it is wiser for the man with limited capital 

 to begin with ten, fifteen, or twenty acres. 



according to his ability, and give the best 

 cultivation to this area. The usual farming 

 methods in Ontario agriculture will not an- 

 swer ; he must treat his orchard as a large 

 garden, and while adopting horse cultiva- 

 tion, and economical methods, he must give 

 in the most intensive cultivation and the 

 closest attention if he would really make a 

 good percentage on his investment, in addi- 

 tion to his annual expenses. ^^^ H. Covert, 

 of Grand Forks, B. C, has a fruit ranch of 

 11,000 trees, of apples, pears, prunes, 

 peaches, plums and cherries, but he does not 

 manage it as a whole, but in sections ; proba- 

 bly this is the only way he can make so large 

 an orchard give paying returns. He says : 



The tendency of the times is to cut the large 

 tracts of land up into smaii piots. This sys- 

 tem I have strongly advocated, and have myself 

 subdivided my property into five and ten-acre 

 lots. There has ueen a considerable influx of 

 people desirous of engaging in diversified farm- 

 ing during the past year, and as the possibili- 

 ties of the valley become better known on the 

 outside, it will rapidly fill up. In my opinion 

 no section of the province offers better oppor- 

 tunities for fruit growing than the Kettle River 

 Valley, and a 10-acre plot is quite sufficient to 

 maintain a family and give a good livelihood. 



PLANT MIXED ORCHARDS. 



SINCE it has become evident tiiat cer- 

 tain varieties of apples are more in 

 demand than others, as well as more produc- 

 tive, it has been the custom to advise plant- 

 ing large blocks of a single variety. In con- 

 sequence we have very large orchards of 

 Baldwin apples, for example ; but when the 

 trees reached bearing age, and then con- 

 tinued barren for many years, the owners 

 became disgusted and set to work to dig out 

 these magnificent trees because they were 

 wholly unremunerative. 



Qfadually we are solving the probleiv. and 

 coming to an understanding of the difficulty. 

 We find, from the results of careful experi- 

 ments, that nearly all varieties of apples are 

 unproductive unless their blossoms are ferti- 

 lized by the pollen of other varieties, brought 

 to them b\- the Ix'cs. wliich are far more re- 



