186 IHE CANADIAN HORTICULTURIST. 



to our very doors, so that every producer might be interested and 

 "benefitted. This of course is the work more particularly of county 

 and township associations, which I hope will never be supplanted by 

 the huge gatherings that now take place in all our large cities. Im- 

 pressed, therefore, with this. idea, I wish to suggest a plan of localizing- 

 them to some extent even here, and I will indicate two methods by 

 which my views could be carried out. 



First, I would offer prizes to be competed for by each of the 

 agricultural districts, and let the fruit from each district be shown 

 separately, according to the plan above suggested. This would make 

 thirteen different collections of fruit — thirteen distinct exhibitions — 

 which would show the fruit growing capacity of each district in the 

 most satisfactory manner. 



Or, secondly, I would have an exhibition held in each of those 

 agricultural districts prior to the provincial exhibition, and let the 

 first prize fruits only be sent from each to the provincial. The same 

 amount in prizes might be given in either case, but in the latter these 

 prizes would be paid out by district committees, but not placed in 

 their hands until the first prize fruit had been placed on exhibition at 

 the provincial. 



This would give a stimulus to fruit growing in every district,, 

 instead of being confined too much to more favored localities as is now 

 the case, and the amount in prizes offered in each might be proportioned 

 to the number of members of the Fruit Growers' Association, and this 

 would furnish a stimulus to each district to increase its membership. 



SOME NOTES 0^ FEUIT AND THE FEUIT GROWEES' 



ASSOCIATION. 



BY P. E. BUCKE, OTTAWA, ONT. 



In the earlier days of western Canada the first settlers had so hard 

 a battle to reclaim the land from the forest trees, that the planting of 

 anything larger than a cabbage never entered the head of anyone. It 

 is true the inhosjDitable climate of Lower Canada had given birth to 

 some of our present most favored apples, but beside these our Dominion 

 Avas destitute of fruit, and probably we should have remained so for 

 a nnich longer period, had not the nurserymen on our southern border 



