12 FRUIT RANCHING. 



Kootenays. These conclusions I will endeavour to 

 summarise. 



The industry, viewed as professional fruit-growing, 

 was in its infancy, not more than two or three years 

 old. At the same time, there were just a few orchards 

 containing trees old enough to produce crops which 

 showed what the capabilities of the district were. 

 The fruit which was produced took high rank — excep- 

 tionally high rank — not only by virtue of its size, its 

 shape, its colour, its quality, but also by virtue of the 

 consistency and the abundance of its yield. This was 

 demonstrated by the way in which it held its own on 

 the show boards both in America and at the Royal 

 Horticultural Society's exhibitions of Colonial fruit 

 at Westminster and other places in the British Isles. 

 And it was also testified to by the opinions of men 

 whose judgment was not lightly to be set aside — 

 namely, professors of horticulture at U.S. univer- 

 sities and colleges, professors from agricultural and 

 fruit-experimental farms in Eastern Canada — and 

 opinions vouched for by visitors who were more or less 

 practical fruit-growers, if not experts in their several 

 lines of orchard work. 



For instance. Professor Shutt, Chemist at the 

 Central Experimental Farm at Ottawa, lecturing on 

 the " Sources of Fertility in Fruit and Vegetable 

 Culture other than Soil," said — and the Professor 

 invariably spoke with professorial carefulness and 

 with almost minute exactness in all his deliverances — 

 that *' there was a great future for vegetable and fruit 

 culture in the Kootenays, especially for several species 

 of apples, pears, plums, and cherries. The success of 

 the district here as a fruit-growing one had fairly 



