THE GOOD WORK IN PRINCE EDWARD 



Fig. 1594.— Rev. A E. Bdrke, P. P., Alberta, P 

 Director F. G. A. 



E feel sure that the mem- 

 bers of the Fruit Growers' 

 Association of Ontario, the 

 mother and mistress of all 

 such associations in Can- 

 ada, will learn with inter- 

 est something of the work 

 which the daughter society so recently 

 organized in the little Garden Province 

 of Prince Edward Island is doing for 

 the advancement of horticulture within 

 its borders. 



The strangest thing about this Prince 

 Edward Island movement seems to us 

 to be its tardiness. To think that not 



ISLAND. 

 IL- • - 

 till the year of grace 1898 

 was any properly organized 

 effort made to tempt a foreign 

 market with our fruit, al- 

 though we had stood before 

 the world for almost a cen- 

 tury as the abundant pro- 

 ducers of the best roots in 

 Canada, a superior quality 

 of grains and horses, cattle, 

 sheep, pigs and poultry equal 

 to the best ! But the answer 

 to this wonderment is easily 

 accepted when we state that 

 no provincial organization 

 vowed to the fostering of 

 the fruit industry and its 

 development was established 

 here until 1896, when our 

 far seeing, energetic and 

 patriotic governor, Hon. G. 

 W. Howlan, convinced him- 

 self by what he saw of the 

 fruit put on exhibition at the 

 county shows which he had 

 officially patronized and 

 opened, that we could grow 

 excellent apples and grow 

 enough for ourselves and enough also 

 to fill a big hole in the British trade. 

 Previously even the fruit consumed in 

 the Province was imported from the 

 United States, from Ontario and from 

 Nova Scotia. It is safe to say that the 

 day of importation is now over and that 

 the fruit growers of the Island will put 

 themselves into sharp competition with 

 the two above named provinces in the 

 great British market. 



Although scarce a decade has flown 

 by sin ce a premier of the Province from 

 his place in our local parliament boldly 

 asserted that good apples could not be 

 grown in Prince Edward Island, we have 



E. I. 



184 



