PRINCE EDWARD ISLAND. 



Notes on the Past Season's Work. 



HLTHOUGH our sister Province 

 of Nova Scotia is rejoicing in 

 a bountiful fruit crop, perhaps 

 the largest in years, this would 

 be considered in the true sense of the 

 term " an off year " in Prince Edward 

 Island. There will, therefore, be but 

 little fruit for export to the British 

 market, which gave our trial consign- 

 ment of last year such a hearty recep- 

 tion. But although we have not a great 

 deal of fruit to show this fall, this im- 

 portant industry has none the less occu- 

 pied the attention of our people. Con- 

 siderable planting out of new orchards, 

 top grafting, replacing and fitting-up of 

 old ones has been done. Then more 

 attention than ever has been given to 

 the all-important work of spraying. We 

 have, too, with the assistance of that 

 excellent work " Fruits of Ontario," and 

 by the aid of experienced horticulturists 

 within and without the Province, come 

 to have the most of our apples identi- 

 fied, and this is a very important matter 

 and one not so easily accomplished as 

 amateurs imagine. The various names 

 given to some one variety by a half 

 dozen experts would soon convince the 

 incredulous that some apples at least 

 are difficult enough of identification. 



This work of naming is particularly 

 practical just now with us, because the 

 fruit industry is comparatively new, and, 

 as I said in a former article, the trees 

 sold here, as well as being inferior from 

 many other points of view, were in few 

 cases true to name. Only the other 

 day was it discovered that a farmer in 

 the eastern portion of the Province, who 

 had bought and planted Baldwins and 

 Russets, had now an orchard bearing 

 the most beautiful Starks and Kings. 



His case was one of the happy mistakes 

 which are made by those of us who take 

 stock on faith, but I fear for one like 

 this, we have ninety-nine in which only 

 the veriest trash replaces the well-known 

 good apples desired. This mistake has 

 emphasized the fact, however, that 

 Prince Edward Island can grow splendid 

 Starks. In our shipment last year some 

 of those apples were forwarded as Bald- 

 wins, and the British merchant, in re- 

 turning a top figure for them, declared 

 them the best Baldwins on the market, 

 and held the demand for them to be 

 unlimited. Mr. McLaughlin, a most 

 efficient graftsman from New Brunswick, 

 put on quite a number of Stark grafts 

 here last year, which we are hoping will 

 shortly put us in possession of the fruit 

 which the British merchant so much 

 wants. 



For the first time I heard the other 

 day from Senator Ferguson, who had 

 been attending the exhibitions in Nova 

 Scotia and New Brunswick, that the 

 Ben Davis tree was regarded as slow 

 growing, delicate and of short duration 

 in Nova Scotia, and that in the eastern 

 part of our Province it was not vigorous. 

 I send you a sample of my own Ben 

 Davis this year, an off year, when I 

 have taken a barrel of this same sample 

 off a tree but seven years planted. And 

 the Davis has so out grown all other 

 trees in my orchard as to make the 

 casual visitor believe that it was 

 planted many years previously. It is 

 a grand grower here, and what is still 

 better, a grand bearer, neither lice nor 

 spot affect it at all ; as to the duration of 

 the tree itself, we will have to ask some 

 Ontario orchardist, who has the experi- 

 ence and a place for the Davis in his 



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