1897] Fruit Growing in Canada. 75 



obstruct the beginnings of agriculture, explain why certain 

 regions have been for thousands of years peopled by husband- 

 men, while others are still inhabited by nomadic tribes." 

 Strenuous and perservering efforts, though probably not always 

 well directed, were made in prehistoric times — as in our own age 

 — to grow those plants which yielded in greatest abundance and 

 with least, outlay of labour (men like to live without working 

 when they can) products that supplied pressing wants. In this 

 way we find that maize, wheat, the sweet potato and tobacco were 

 widely diffused before the historical period. The Chinese Emperor 

 Ghcnming instituted a ceremony 2700 B.C. at which seed of five 

 useful plants were sown each year, viz., rice, sweet potato, wheat 

 and two kinds of millet. As those species which were cultivated 

 easiest, outstripped their fellows in the race, so in regard to- 

 localities, those sections or regions, which offered least resistance 

 to the rude efforts of the early cultivator became agricultural or 

 horticultural centres, from which after the advent of civilization, 

 seeds, plants and culture flowed out in diverging lines. With 

 the history, of the civilization of the old world is most intimately 

 wrapped up the progress of horticultural development. This is 

 absolutely true when applied to the colonization of the new 

 world. 



CLIMATE AS AFFECTING PLANT GROWTH. 



Among the factors bearing upon the horticulture of any 

 country it is readily seen that climate exercises the most potent 

 influence in determining the range and character of the fruits it 

 is possible to cultivate, and the fact that our fruit lists have 

 greatly changed during the last half century is no doubt owing 

 as much to modified climatic conditions, as to the difference in 

 methods of propagation and due also possibly to the fact that 

 among fruit growers there has been of late a keener discern- 

 ment in regard to quality in fruits. 



In the early history of the province, when the forest 

 primaeval covered our hills and valleys and shed abroad its bene- 



