192 FRUIT RANXIIING. 



most small fruits of first-class quality, quite equal, in 

 the opinion of experts who have investigated them, 

 to the best-known districts of British Columbia, 

 Washington, Oregon, and Idaho. I have visited 

 these districts, and find average prices to be: Good 

 land under cultivation, with water rights, exclusive 

 of improvements, $350 (£70) to $600 (£120) per acre; 

 five-vcar-old orchard, $800 (£160) to $1,000 (£200); 

 and 'full-matured orchard, $1,200 (£240) to $1,800 

 (£360) per acre. Fruit lands in Kootenay are selling 

 at less than in other districts, because they are not 

 so well known. From the foregoing estimates, which 

 I submit are correct, the difference in values of West 

 Kootenay lands and those of the same quality in 

 Okanagan and other districts should be sufficient in- 

 ducement to capitalists to invest in Kootenay lands. 

 It costs $35 (£7) to plant an acre with one-year-old 

 trees, and an average of $15 (£3) an acre to care for 

 them until they are five years old; after which they 

 ought to pay expenses. I am convinced that the 

 West Kootenay is equal, if not superior, to any other 

 known district for growing fancy fruit, first-class 

 apples, and their keeping qualities are unequalled. I 

 conclude that a first-class five-year-old orchard will 

 cost the owner $360 (£72) an acre, and is worth $550 

 (£110). After five years it will pay a profit, and at 

 ten years the owner will have received five years' 

 fruit, and the orchard will be worlh $1,200 (£240) per 

 acre." 



A striking proof of the value which is attached to 

 the fruit lands of the Kootenays was afTorded in the 

 summer of 1906, when Earl Grey bought fifty-four 

 acres on the main Kootenay Lake. He has since 



