CAPABILITIES OF THE KOOTENAYS. 19 



continuous and uninterrupted cultivation, which is the 

 third expedient resorted to in orchard work to preserve 

 the trees against the drying influences of the 

 atmosphere. Continuous and uninterrupted cuUiva- 

 tion preserves a fine tikh, and converts the topmost 

 layer of the soil into a dust mulch, which tends to 

 prevent excessive evaporation of the moisture stored 

 underneath. 



One word of warning is necessary. The English 

 settler, accustomed to the trim and orderly aspect of 

 an English ploughed field, with its unbroken and 

 level expanse of brown soil and its neat hedges or 

 straight lines of fences, must not look to find the same 

 things in a new country such as British Columbia. 

 I do not mean to say that nowhere will he find the 

 counterpart of what he has left at home. Tracts of 

 land, evincing the same advanced cultivation, are 

 not, indeed, difficult to find; but by far the greater 

 portion of the orchards presents, as yet, a much more 

 unfinished appearance. It is not many years since 

 the whole of British Columbia was covered with forest 

 trees and scrub. The orchards have had to be carved 

 out of the virgin forests. In many cases the work of 

 eradicating all traces of the forest has been thoroughly 

 and effectually performed; in many other cases it has 

 been accomplished in a more or less incomplete 

 fashion. The stumps of the big trees, cut off at the 

 height of two or three feet from the ground, and 

 blackened by the fires which burnt away the scrub 

 and bush, attest impatience or want of thoroughness 

 on the part of the first original settler. 



Another eyesore to the English immigrant is the 

 stones which in some places have been left littering 



c2 



