32 THROUGH CANADA 



blasting, is dispensed with, and the harvest return is 

 not long deferred. A member of the Provincial 

 Parliament, and an expert in this department of agri- 

 culture, took me over a couple of these farms. He 

 had recently visited our own country, and was there- 

 fore in a position to make comparisons, and of quite 

 an unprejudiced nature. He had gone through Kent, 

 and was struck with the high rentals that obtained 

 there. They were prohibitive compared with Ontario. 

 A freehold farm of fifty acres was offered in Norfolk 

 County for ;!^200. One grower raised from an 

 orchard of eight acres £$18 worth of apples, giving a 

 profit of ^203 after paying all expenses. Another 

 realized a profit of ,^89 from three acres. Much, of 

 course^ depends on the age of the trees. Mr. E. D. 

 Smith, President of the Provincial Fruit Growers' 

 Association, states in the report of 1910 that in 

 Ontario there are 7,000,000 apple trees, which should, 

 at the lowest, yield 7,000,000 barrels of the best 

 quality of fruit in addition to inferior sorts. 



Large quantities of " culls " — apples too small to 

 peel — are dried and shipped to France and Germany 

 for jam and cider. 



Peaches are abundant throughout Ontario, parti- 

 cularly in the Niagara Valley, which is specially 

 adapted to their cultivation. They also flourish 

 north of Lake Erie, where I saw trees, laden with 

 them. An interesting experiment was successfully 

 carried through whilst I was in the Dominion. A 



