THE CANADIAN HORTICULTURIST 



173 



consist of two houses and two barns. 

 Thev are old and of little value. 



All that will be done this year will be 

 to put the farm in shape for experi- 

 mental work. This will require a lot 

 of cleaning, fencing, and drainin'g. The 

 farm is run down, and careful work will 

 have to be done to put it in order. 



This year it is proposed to put a good 

 fence around the entire farm. The 

 farm will be cleaned up, old and worth- 

 less trees will be removed, some sum- 

 mer fallowing will be done. Probably 

 a man from the Ontario Agricultural 

 College will be put in charge for this 

 summer. Next year experimental work 

 will be taken up and planting will be 

 commenced. 



APPOINTME-XT OF THE DIRECTOR 



The government has stated that it 

 intends to take plenty of time to select 

 a competent man for the position of 

 director. Not until such a man is 

 found will the appointment be made. 

 The future of the undertaking will rest 

 largely with the man who is appointed 



to superintend the work. It is not 

 likely that any class rooms will be 

 built on the farm just now. 



The farm will be attached to the 

 O. A. College, Guelph, and the director 

 made an additional professor of hor- 

 ticulture. Probably the specialists in 

 horticulture at Guelph will be required 

 to take considerable practical training 

 on this farm. In time, perhaps a sep- 

 arate institution for students of hor- 

 ticulture will be established on the 

 farm. Adjoining the farm, as already 

 stated, is the Rittenhouse school. This 

 school is splendidly equipped with a 

 library, museum and other accessories 

 necessary for work in natural science 

 and nature study, and has beautiful 

 grounds and a school garden. This it- 

 self might be developed into a school 

 of horticulture. Public school teachers 

 could take courses in nature study right 

 on the farm as well as at Guelph. 



VEGET.\BLE EXPERIMENTS 

 Experiments in growing vegetables 



will likely be given equal importance 

 with fruit. At Guelph the work with 

 hardy vegetables and with vegetables 

 under glass will be carried on ; while at 

 the new place, investigations will be con- 

 ducted in the growing of early market 

 vegetables under glass and in vegetables 

 for canning. 



Within three and a half miles of the 

 farm is being erected E. D. Smith's can- 

 ning factory, a big plant, which will 

 tend to stimulate the work of growing 

 fruits and vegetables for canning pur- 

 poses. This factory, in conjunction with 

 the farm, will greatly increase the value 

 of farms in the neighborhood. 



While primarily the farm is to bene- 

 fit the Niagara district, other sections 

 of Ontario are alive to the fact that 

 the province as a whole will have to 

 pay for the equipment and for keeping 

 it up, and not the Niagara district 

 alone. For this reason it will be so 

 managed as to be of benefit to the en- 

 tire province, and necessarily to the 

 whole Dominion. 



Ontario Fruit Gro^wer's Opinion of BritisK Columbia 



D' 



URING a recent trip to British 

 Columbia in the interests of 

 farmers' institute meetings in 

 the fruit districts, I had an excellent 

 chance to size up the situation and 

 compare the conditions of the fruit 

 grower of that western province with 

 those of Ontario growers, more par- 

 ticularly those in the Niagara district. 

 In some sections the possibilities in the 

 fruit business are exceedingly great, but 

 there is a large market in the prairie 

 provinces which the production of the 

 immediate future in British Columbia 

 orchards cannot hope to fill. 



When I arrived at Victoria on March 

 5, I found the peach and apricot trees 

 in bloom, and the pears well out. One 

 week later they had four degrees of 

 frost that caused considerable damage 

 to early fruits. On Vancouver Island 



e fruit grower is sadly handicapped, 



ing to the long distance from market 

 ^nd a lack of enough growers in one 

 locality to make up car lots. As soon 

 as they form cooperative associations and 

 make up car lots they will be able to ship 

 to some of the northern coast markets. 



In the lower country and along the 

 Eraser delta they have to do a great 

 deal of spraying, and fruit growing is 

 not increasing very rapidly. In the 

 upper country valleys, however, you 

 ^lear fruit talked of everywhere. The 

 iruit industry bids fair to be the largest 

 cultivated crop in the province. I3x- 

 cursions are run in from Winnipeg to 

 the Okanagan valley, and land is being 

 sold in many places at $40 to $200 an 

 acre unimproved. In many places the 



xo 



Robert THompson, St. CatHarines. Ont. 



land is sold in 10 and 20 acre lots. The 

 greatest boom is from Enderby to 

 Vernon, and down the shores of the 

 Okanagan lake to Peachland and Sum- 

 merland. 



Around Salmon Arm there appears 

 to be a large area suitable for apples 

 for sale at reasonable prices. In the 

 Kootenays there are some places where 

 it is claimed that apples and berries will 

 do better than in the Okanagan. The 

 Kamloops district is too dry without 

 irrigation, and I do not look on this 

 section as likely to be a heavy fruit pro- 

 ducing section. Erom 800,000 to 1,- 

 000,000 trees were planted last spring, 

 but as a conservative estimate not 

 one-fourth of them will ever produce 

 fruit. .Many unsuitable varieties are 

 purchased. Peaches and Japan plums 

 are planted where the frost will kill the 

 bloom. In British Columbia, trees 

 should be planted not over one year 

 old, but the people persist in buying 

 trees two or three years old. Others 

 plant them in wheat fields and in mead- 

 ows, where they stand for one, two or 

 even three years, and have made little, 

 if any, headway. 



Nevertheless, Ontario fruit growers 

 need not be jealous of their western 

 brethren, as the growth of the Terri- 

 tories will absorb all the fruit produced 

 by them for many years. The apple 

 trees bear very young; in fact, too 

 young, as it checks their growth if the 

 orchard is not well cared for. In many 

 sections the blight is very bad on the 

 pear trees. Our fruit growers think 

 that they have a hard time fighting in- 



sect pests, and suppose that our west- 

 ern friends have no troubles, but I 

 found it was only the wideawake, 

 active grower, who cultivated, pruned 

 and sprayed, who was making a suc- 

 cess of his business. The climate is 

 ideal, and possibly in some sections too 

 dry in summer, but where they can get 

 a sufficient water supply irrigation 

 takes the place of the rain. 



The packing is nearly all done after 

 the western states style in boxes. 

 Grapes will never be a great success, 

 owing to the cool nights. The people 

 are whole-souled, generous and hos- 

 pitable, very ready to give information, 

 and as ready to learn and adopt any- 

 thing that they consider may benefit 

 them in any way. British Columbia 

 is sharing in the boom of the Northwest, 

 as many of the older settlers in the 

 prairie provinces are selling out and 

 moving west. Many English and Scotch 

 settlers are coming in and settling on 

 fruit lands. 



After seeing the country and the 

 conditions under which the fruit grower 

 has to produce the fruit in the west, 

 and comparing our lot in the Niagara 

 district with theirs, I have no hesita- 

 tion in saying that we have as good a 

 chance to succeed here. We have no 

 more drawbacks than our western 

 friends, and we have a larger and more 

 varied market. Canada is a great 

 country. We think we have the Gar- 

 den of Eden in our section, and our 

 western friends are also justified in 

 thinking that they have it in a dozen 

 places in their many valleys. 



