FOURTnnxTH annu.il meeting. 91 



Conditions and Methods in Nova Scotia Orchards. 



By KALi'H S. Eaton, Kentvillc. N. S.. President Nova Scotia Fruit 

 Growers" Association. 



"In the Acadian land, on the shores of the Basin of Minas, 

 Distant, secluded, still, the little village of Grand Pre 

 Lay in the fruitful valley. Vast meadows stretched to the eastward 

 Giving the village its name and food to flocks without number. 

 West and south there were fields of flax and orchards and corn- 

 fields. 

 There in the midst of its farms reposed the Acadian village, 

 There dwelt together in love the simple Acadian farmers; 

 Dwelt in the love of God and of man. 



;!: >ic * >tc * * * 



"Still stands the forest primeval; but under the shade of its branches 

 Dwells another race, with other customs and language." 



Thus sang- your sweetest New England poet in his Evan- 

 geline, which has rendered classic and almost world renowned 

 a most interesting portion of Nova Scotia, from an historical 

 as well as a horticultural standpoint. 



Just on the opposite side of the river from "these vast 

 meadows and dikes which the hands of the farmers raised 

 with lahor incessant to shut out the turbulent tide," is a 

 picturesque little cemetery where a stone marks the resting 

 place of Major Samuel Starr, who was born in Norwich of 

 this state, and the first of my mother's family to come to 

 Nova Scotia. This was in 1759. A farm of two hundred 

 acres, a mile west of the court house in that town, is said 

 to bear his name to this day. An Empire Loyalist, and 

 one of a committee from Connecticut to examine 

 the fertile lands vacated fifteen years before by the 

 French Acadians, he afterwards settled where is now in sight 

 of the Grand Pre village, one of the finest fruit districts of 

 Nova Scotia — Starr's Point, the early home of my mother 

 and within a few miles of my own home. 



In the little cemetery just referred to, alongside the grave 

 of Major Samuel Starr, are the graves of Starrs of six gen- 

 erations. But four miles distant, at Canard, close beside my 

 boyhood home, is another cemetery containing the graves of 



