4 NOVA SCOTIA 



as France, spring comes a little later than in Ontario or along the 

 Pacific coast ; but, on the other hand, mild summer-like weather, 

 often lingering until the very end of October, more than makes 

 up for this. To some of the more northerly portions of the North- 

 west Territory the term of ' Our Lady of the Snows ' may not be 

 inapplicable for some months of the year at least, but it has no mean- 

 ing whatever when applied to Canada generally : particularly to 

 her maritime provinces. 



There is no province of the Dominion of Canada possessing 

 a more astonishing variety of natural resources than the little 

 sea-girt peninsula of Nova Scotia. Few indeed are the regions 



APPLE ORCHARD IN BLOSSOM : HIGH-CREST, ANNAPOLIS VALLEY. 



of the world where vast coal fields, iron ores, gold-mining areas, 

 great natural water powers, the resources of the forest, farm and 

 fisheries are found existing side by side. Hence it happens that 

 scarcely a year passes without a boom in one or other of such 

 enterprises, so that the average of prosperity is kept at high-water 

 mark, and there are scarcely any of the class of the very poor 

 (with the rather inconvenient result that good domestics and farm 

 hands are often very difficult to obtain). Nor must we omit 

 fully to gauge the importance of the apple-growing industry, 

 which is rapidly being developed into great dimensions. The fit- 



