1897] Fruit Growing in Canada. 83 



purpose of supplying an abundant annual supply of herbage, i» 

 addition to yielding an inexhaustible store of cheap natural 

 fertilizer used by fruit growers with great advantage upon the 

 upland orchard areas. The more favourable portions of the 

 province produce apples of the finest quality, plums, pears and 

 small fruits in fairquantity andof good quality. The early ripening 

 varieties of peaches may, and are being cultivated with success 

 in the open. This branch of the industry is developing rapidly. 

 Another branch of the industry unknown to commerce ten 

 years ago, is now rapidly assuming important proportions. I 

 refer to cranberry culture. In 1890 some 400 barrels were har- 

 vested. Last year the output reached 2,000 barrels The 

 total orchard area of the province is estimated at75,ooo acres. The 

 marketable crop of apples amounted last year to over 500,000 

 barrels,nearly all exported to Britain. The cultivated orchard area 

 was increased this year by 5,000 acres. The names of Col. John 

 Burbidge, — introducer of the well known Nonpariel Russet, — 

 Dr. Samuel Willoughby, Ezekiel Calkin, Dr. Tnglis — first Bishop 

 of Nova Scotia, who brought to the Valley Yellow Bellefleur, 

 where it was named Bishop's Pippin, in consequence, — Hon. 

 Charles Ramage Prescott — who imported Ribston Pippin and 

 the famous Gravenstein, which he fjuited in 1838, — Dr. C. C. 

 Hamilton — the founder and first President of the Provincial 

 Society — ^are all names that should be handed down to history, 

 and are those whose good deeds will live after them, for is it not 

 true that he who originates or introduces a new and valuable 

 fruit suited to general cultivation, is as much a benefactor to 

 mankind as he who discovers a new principle in science, which 

 increases the comfort and happiness of the race ? 



The fruit growers of the province are intelligent and ener- 

 getic. The establishment of a School of Horticulture at Wolf- 

 ville, the only one of its kind in America, is but an eyidence of 

 the progressive spirit of the people. There is still a large amount 

 of unoccupied fruit land in the province. 



