BRITISH NORTH AMERICA 



BRITISH NORTH AMERICA 573 



Southern Alberta proper is the district lying east of 

 the foothills, and south of central Alberta. It also has 

 conditions peculiarly its own. The prairie is bare of 

 trees, and while the soil is of excellent quality, it is not 

 the black, deep, vegetable mold of the other parts of the 

 province. It is what may be classified as a friable clay 

 loam, that is, a rich clay loam containing enough sand 

 to enable it to be worked easily. It is in the dry belt, 

 and the rainfall ranges from 12 to 15 inches per annum. 

 Being bare, it is often windswept, and gardening with- 

 out shelter-belts will never be successful. It is the home 

 of the warm chinook winds, and these may come at any 

 time, and often in a few hours, or even minutes, a rise 

 of temperature from 30° below zero to S° or 10° 

 above freezing will take place. This is an extreme 

 change in temperature, and if the warm wave is fol- 

 lowed, after a few days or weeks, by a cold spell, it can- 

 not fail to be a severe trial to growing trees. These rapid 

 changes in winter have been declared by many of the 

 old settlers to be the cause of the scarcity of trees on 

 the prairie. This, however, is to a large extent a fallacy, 

 as is being now proved constantly by the successful 

 growth of shelter-belts of suitable species all over the 

 country, and exposed in the fullest degree to the in- 

 fluences of the chinooks. The lack of rainfall, however, 

 does constitute a menace to successful fruit-growing, 

 for if there is a scarcitv of moisture in the .soil in the fall, 

 there is invariably greater risk of dead trees in the 

 spring. Snow cannot be depended on to preserve the 

 moisture, or to supply it, as only about twice in thirty- 

 eight years has it lain steadily the whole winter. The 

 dry winds drift the snow off, and the chinooks melt it, 

 so that in winter for weeks at a time the ground may be 

 bare of snow. Cultivation to preserve the moisture is 

 a necessity, though irrigation in the fall, in some dis- 

 tricts in which it can be done, is of great assistance in 

 carrying the trees over winter. Notwithstanding all 

 these untoward circumstances, a number of apple 

 trees are growing and producing fruit in southern 

 Alberta. Settlement has been general only in the last 

 ten years, and yet in that time many successful experi- 

 ments in fruit-growing have been made, possibly more 

 in the same time than in the history of any of the other 

 prairie provinces. Apples, crabs and plums have been 

 growing in several gardens for the last seven or eight 

 years in Medicine Hat, Irvine, Lethbridge, Magrath, 

 Calgary and Macleod, and they also have been grow-n in 

 several instances at Stirling and Raymond. Thus, al- 

 though southern Alberta would appear at first sight to 

 have natural conditions unfavorable to large-fruit-grow- 

 ing, experience shows that, in .spite of these, it is possible 

 to do so. It would seem as if the dryness of the coun- 

 try, intensified perhaps by the influence of the chinook, 

 tends to ripen the annual growth before frost comes in 

 the fall, so that the trees do not wdnterkill. There is 

 no doubt, also, that the nature of the soil has much 

 to do with this early ripening, lacking as it does the 

 stimulating effect of the more vegetable soils of the 

 north. Experience in grain crops and forest trees serves 

 to bear this out. However, it is still doubtful whether 

 southern Alberta will ever become a fruit country. 

 The high winds that occur at any time in the .spring 

 and fall may interfere greatly with the setting or matur- 

 ing of the fruit, and, as a consequence, the regularity 

 of the supply. There is no doubt, however, about the 

 farmer in time being able to grow fruit enough for his 

 own use, with the help of shelter-belts, \\hen fruit is 

 grown under irrigation in Alberta, care must be taken 

 to avoid irrigating after the last of .June. If water is 

 applied after that time, there is usually grave risk of 

 winterkill, or rather fallkill, as the trees continue 

 growing late into the fall and are not mature when the 

 first frost comes. Even cultivation to preserve the 

 moisture should not be carried on later than .July 15. 



There is no provincial horticultural society, and no 

 state aid devoted purely to horticulture, although much 



good work is being done by the experimental farms, 

 maintained by the Dominion government. Ihese, how- 

 ever, have not been able to do much as yet, having been 

 established only six years. The chain of demonstra- 

 tion farms which is being established by the provincial 

 government will probably be of some assi-stance in this 

 direction. There are two fairly strong local horticul- 

 tural societies at Edmonton and Calgary. 



Arch. Mitchell. 



British Columbia. 



In the time since the Cyclopedia of American Horti- 

 culture was published, horticulture in British Columbia 

 (Fig. 603) has passed through the experimental stage. 

 Although the province is one of the largest in area in 

 Canada, its population in 1891 was only 98,000; in ten 

 years it had almost doubled; and in twenty years the 

 census of 1911 shows a population of 362,000, of which 

 over half is urban in character, and located on the coast. 

 While practical experiment has shown that different 

 forms of horticulture can be most successfully conducted 

 commerciall.y under the widely diversified conditions 

 existing throughout southern British Columbia, devel- 

 opment has been so recent that only the fringe of its 

 possibilities has been touched. Yet, even now the prov- 

 ince has gained such a reputation as a fruit-growing 

 country as to warrant a rather full description here. 



Fruit-growing in British Columbia has been inspired 

 by the success that the industry has attained in the 

 states of Oregon and Washington directly to the south, 

 in which conditions of climate and soil are not dissimilar, 

 and by the rapidly increasing demand for fruit, not 

 only b}' the growing population of the province, but by 

 the phenomenal increase in demand from the Canadian 

 prairie provinces, which cannot possibly produce all 

 their own fruit. Early dreams of possible markets for 

 all the horticultural products of the province have been 

 far surpassed by the actual development of the market. 

 The population of western Canada was in 1911 over 

 three times as great as in 1901. On the other hand, 

 fruit-growing is now firmly established as one of the 

 conunercial industries of the province and though lum- 

 bering, manufacturing and mining surpass agriculture 

 in the amount of wealth now being produced, fruit- 

 growing will in a few years aid in bringing the returns 

 from agriculture well to the front. 



In general physical features British Columbia is 

 mountainous, the greater part of the area being covered 

 by the Rocky, Selkirk, Cascade and Coast ranges, 

 between which lie the valleys of the rivers and lakes in 

 which agriculture is being practised. It is probable 

 that about one-twentieth or one-thirtieth of the entire 

 land is cultivable. The land is, therefore, usuallj- fer- 

 tile, and in many districts unusually .so. The chmate is 

 remarkably varied. The greater part of the cultivated 

 area of British Columbia lies within the upper au.stral 

 and transition zones. On the coast the atmosphere is 

 humid, the rainfall copious and the annual temijora- 

 ture has a very limited range. In the interior, con- 

 tinental temperature conditions prevail, and in most of 

 the interior valleys it ranges from zero to 90° or 100° as 

 the extremes. Some of the interior valleys have a total 

 precipitation of only S or 9 inches, while others run 

 from 35 to 40 inches. Irrigation is essential in the first- 

 mentioned, not in the latter. ,V large percentage of 

 British Columbia horticulture is conducted under 

 irrigation. The altitude of the horticultural districts 

 on the coast varies from a few feet above sea-level to 

 400 or .500 feet above. In the interior vallevs the altitude 

 runs from 800 to 2,800 feet, and even to 3,300 feet, 

 above sea-level. 



.Vmong the tree fruits grown in the province, the 

 apple holds preeminence, and especially is this true in 

 the arid and humid valleys of the interior, in which 

 many varieties of apples reach a degree of perfection 



