1 86 



The Canadian Horticulturist. 



peaches, i cent per pound (formerly free) ; 

 grapes, i cent per pound ; dried apples, 2 

 cents a pound ; other dried fruits, i cent 

 per pound. On fruit trees and plants as 

 follows : Apple, 2 cents each ; peach trees, 



4 cents ; pear trees, 4 cents ; plum trees, 



5 cents ; cherry trees, 4 cents ; quince 

 trees, 3J cents ; seedling stock for grafting. 

 10 per cent.; grape vines costing ten cents 

 and less, 3 cents each ; raspberry and black- 

 berry bushes, I cent each ; rose bushes. 

 5 cents each. Some modifications in the 

 above, especially the nursery stock, are 

 being made, but as yet no authorized list of 

 them has come to hand. It is to be hoped 

 that these regulations in our interest may 

 contribute to the wealth of our fruitgrowers, 

 who are surely as deserving of consideration 

 as any class of the community. 



The Imperial Produce Company.— We 

 are hoping for some good results to come to 

 fruit growers from the operations of this 

 company, whose circular and advertisement 

 appears in this number. We are informed 

 that cheesemen, throughout the country are 

 well pleased with the sales made for them 

 so far in the British market, and are sending 

 in regular contracts for the whole output of 

 the season. Mr. A. McD. Allan, who is out- 

 side manager, writes, "Our British arrange- 

 ments are becoming more and more com- 

 plete all the time, and we desire every one 

 to know distinctly that we handle nothing 

 but Canadian goods ; and already we are 

 being known in England as the Canadian 

 house. We will give Mr. Britisher to know 

 all the time that there is an important 

 difference between American and Canadian. 

 We are going to supply the great civil service 

 stores of London with special lines of apples 

 in small packages, and in order to do so will 

 have to re-pack. You and all fruit growers 

 can rely upon it that my efforts will be un- 

 ceasing to build up a very high reputation 

 for our fruits in the markets of the world, 



and am convinced that if we do not make 

 any money for growers, then it can't be 

 made." 



Hop-growing for prolit is the chief agri- 

 cultural industry engaged in by farmers in 

 Central New York, south of Utica, in the 

 Chenango Valley, and especially about 

 Waterville. During a recent trip east the 

 writer was much interested in the extreme 

 contrast which a country devoted to hop- 

 growing presents when compared with a 

 fruit country. Leaving the Niagara district, 

 descending the mountain at Lewiston via the 

 New York, Ontario . & Western, where the 

 whole landscape is full of fruit trees, laden 

 deeply with bloom, and awaking in the above 

 mentioned region, one is surprised to find a 

 country utterly devoid of fruit trees, and in 

 their place a forest of poles for hop vines ; 

 and in place of fruit packing houses, hop- 

 houses, for drying and packing hops, sur- 

 mounted by peculiar ventilators. 



A friend there who has one hundred acres 

 in hops, stated that it was the only branch of 

 agriculture which really paid in that section. 

 Although the expense of growing and har- 

 vesting hops is very heavy, amounting to 

 about f 100 per acre, or about ten cents per 

 pound, and in some seasons the selling price 

 is not over that amount ; yet for a period of 

 twenty years the average has been twenty 

 cents per pound, and on one occassion 

 reached the enormous price of #1.00 per 

 pound, giving fortunes to growers in a 

 single season. There are three kinds of 

 hops grown ; the Canadian, the Humph. 

 rey, and the Early Cluster, the latter of 

 which is the most generally grown. In 

 hop-picking season everybody turns out 

 and all seem to enjoy the fun, if one may 

 judge by the songs which enliven the hop 

 yard ; while the men cut the vines and pull 

 the heavily laden poles, laying them across 

 the end of the boxes to be stripped by the 

 women and girls, who thus earn a good deal 

 of money for their own private use. 



