The Canadian Horticultim^ 



Vol. XXXI 



JANUARY, 1908 



No. 1 



Fruits Originated in Canada* 



"W. T. M«coun, Horticultvirist, Central Experimental Farm, Otta-wa 



UP to the present time no extensive 

 list of fruits which have origin- 

 ated in Canada has been pub- 

 lished, but it is now thought desirable, 

 owing to the rapidly developing im- 

 portance of the Canadian fruit indus- 

 try, that such a list should be at least 

 begftm. It is with much pleasure, there- 

 fore, that I present before the Ameri- 

 can Pomological Society a preliminary 

 paper, believing that the best place to 

 introduce such a subject is before this 

 society, which has done so much to 

 systematize nomenclature and to bring 

 new fruits into notice. 



Fruits have been cultivated in Can- 

 ada almost or quite as long as they 

 have been in the United States. Early 

 in the history of the country, apple 

 trees were successfully planted by the 

 French in Nova Scotia, and by 1663, 

 according to history, trees were grov.ing 

 on the banks of the Dauphin, the 

 L'Equille, and L'Orignal rivers, and 

 in the vicinity of Minas Rasin and the 

 rivers Canard and Oaspereaux. Ac- 

 cording to Pierre Poucher, who wrote 

 in 1663, trees were growing in the 

 vicinity of Montreal, for he states: 

 "Not many trees have been introduced 

 ■from France, except some apple trees 

 that bear very fine fruit in large quan- 

 tity, but there are not many of these 

 trees yet." In Ontario and the other 

 provinces of the Dominion, the culti- 

 vation of fruits was begun later. For 

 at least 250 years, then, fruits have 

 been cultivated in Canada, although 

 little progress was made while the 

 country was thinly settled and the 

 permanence of the settlements uncer 

 tain. There is no doubt, however, 

 but that from the very earliest of the 

 introductions have sprung some varie- 

 ties distinctly Canadian. While manv 

 of the fruit trees introduced from 

 France and England to Nova Scotia 

 were suited to the conditions there, 

 and have been the parents of many 

 seedlines showing evidence of the blood 

 of old French and Finglish sorts, it was 



•A portion of a paper read before the American Pomo- 

 loeical Society, at the Jamestown Rxhibition. 



quite otherwise in the case of the prov- 

 ince of Quebec, where the cold winters 

 must have destroyed most of the trees, 

 but in the Fameuse apple, which Cana- 

 dians claim to be the best apple of its 

 season, there is an instance of a variety, 

 or a Canadian seedling, which we pre- 

 fer to think, that has survived, and in 

 the seedlings of Fameuse there is a 

 group of varieties bearing a close re- 



Assists Societies 



The Woodstock Horticultural So- 

 ciety has been taking The Canadian 

 Horticulturist for 12 or 13 years. 

 The society was organized about 

 1895, at which time The Canadian 

 Horticulturist was given as a 

 special premium. Ever since that 

 date, the members of the horticul- 

 tural society have looked forward to 

 receiving their copy of The Cana- 

 dian Horticulturist. We know 

 that it has proved to our advantage 

 to give the publication as a pre- 

 mium to our members, and I would 

 advise all other societies to do the 

 same. Not only will it assist in 

 increasing the membership, but The 

 Canadian Horticulturist is of such 

 a nature as to greatly assist the hor- 

 ticultural interests of the society. — 

 M. Dawes, Secretary-Treasurer, Wood- 

 stock Horticultural vSociety, Wood- 

 stock, Ont. 



semblance to the parent which are 

 proving of great value. In Ontario, 

 where the cultivation of fruits was 

 begun somewhat later than in the 

 provinces of Nova Scotia and Quebec, 

 the parentage of most of the seedlings 

 may be traced to American varieties 

 which were already quite numerous 

 when orchards were first planted in 

 Ontario. 



Up to within a few years ago most 

 of the fruits of merit which had orig- 

 inated in Canada were chance seed- 

 lings, or seedlings which had origin- 

 ated with little or no effort on the 



part of man. There is no doubt but 

 that considerable seed was planted by 

 the early settlers, but in those stormy 

 times the young trees nmst have re- 

 ceived little care. Later, there was 

 less incentive to originate trees from 

 seed, as good varieties could be pro- 

 cured from the New England states, 

 hence most of the Canadian fruits of 

 which we now have a record have 

 originated by chance from seed fallen 

 by the wayside. 



It is not my purpose to present at 

 this time a long list of varieties which, 

 for the most part, would be uninter- 

 esting, and which can be studied if 

 desired when this paper appears in 

 the Annual Report, but to say some- 

 thing more about those Canadian varie- 

 ties which have now more than a 

 local reputation. 



apples originated in CANADA 



The apple, being the most important 

 Canadian fruit, has naturally given 

 more desirable sorts than any other 

 kind of fruit. Perhaps the most note- 

 worthy of all Canadian apples is the 

 Fameuse. While some writers have 

 tried to show that this apple is of 

 French origin, and was merely intro- 

 duced from France by the early Cana- 

 dian settlers, there is no good evidence 

 to support any such contention, and 

 while there is no positive proof that 

 it is Canadian, the evidence is very 

 strong that it was originated some- 

 where along the St. Lawrence river 

 near Montreal or Quebec early in the 

 seventeenth century. The Fameuse and 

 some of its seedlings stand out prom- 

 inently among the high-class dessert 

 apples of their season, and in addition 

 to their beauty and quahty they are 

 very profitable, and if an unprejudiced 

 vote were taken by all fruit growers 

 who are well acquainted with apples, 

 on what were the two best des.sert 

 varieties of their season, which is No- 

 vember to January in Canada, the vote 

 would be almost unanimous in favor 

 of the Fameuse and the Mcintosh, the 

 latter a Canadian seedling of the former. 



