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nection -witli forest covei- is the influence it exerts in preventing the injury which 

 arises from constant wind drying the moisture out of the ground and evaporating 

 what is necessary for the successful growth of the trees. 



Perhaps I may be allowed a moment or two, if there is no discussion on this 

 paper, to make an explanation. "When I was addressing the Convention yesterday, and 

 giving a rapid review of horticultural progress in different parts of the Dominion, I 

 omitted an important point with respect to Manitoba. 1 began to describe the con- 

 dition of things on the Eed Eiver belt, which is about 50 miles wide at its widest 

 part, and I left out in my statement the more important considerations involved in 

 the country outside of that belt. One thing I omitted to do which, in justice, I 

 want to do now — that is, to refer to the collection of fruit trees made by Mr. 

 Frankland at Stonewall, which I lately had the pleasure of inspecting. This gentle- 

 man is representing Manitoba on this occasion. Mr. Frankland's plantation is on a 

 gravelly soil, and I found everywhere in Manitoba that plantations on gravelly soil 

 succeeded better than those on the rich heavy prairie loam, which seems to stimulate 

 proti-acted and late growth, and does not give the trees time to ripen up their wood 

 before winter. I saw at Mr. Frankland's place enough to encourage me a very great 

 deal with respect to the future of fruit-growing in Manitoba. He has a number of 

 varieties of apples, plums and cherries, which are young yet, but which were endur- 

 ing the winters and promising to eventually become good trees. 



Mr. Starr. — I would like to say a word with regard to shelter belts. My own 

 ■experience in orchard-growing is that they are of great value ; and if they are so in 

 lN"ova Scotia, where we have a range of mountains, would they not be very much 

 more so in the open plain, where no such natural protection exists. In an orchard of 

 my own, some eighteen or nineteen years _old, I have on the north side a belt of trees 

 running 40 or 50 feet high. It is quite a narrow belt. A young orchard has been 

 placed on the north side of that belt, and yet I have found that the protection on 

 the north side is almost equal to that on the south side. It acts as a wind-break, 

 and the heavy winds pass over the tops of the trees. This is particularly noticeable 

 when the fruit is about half grown and would be injured by the wind 



The President. — Perhaps it might be well to defer the discussion of this paper 

 until we have another, which is practically on the same subject, from Mr. Phipps, 

 who is the Commissioner of Forestry in Ontario. Ttien we can discuss the two 

 together. 



"Wind Breaks : By E. "W. Phipps, Commissioner of Forests, Toronto. 



Mr. Phipps. — I am most happy to be able to address you on this occasion, know- 

 ing that I have before me some of the most prominent men in the fruit-growing line 

 to be found in the country, and perhaps I may be permitted at the outset to say a 

 word or two respecting the paper which has just been read. I wish to say a word 

 first on the spongy floor of the forest. When you get into an old country forest it 

 is ten to one that you will find that floor of grass. I did not finfL one that was other- 

 wise. Now, if the rain descends on that it is not at all so much like a sponge as a 

 forest in its natural condition. As we find the floor here, it is deeply covered with a 

 mass of deciduous leaves. That is the condition our forests will be in if cattle be 

 kept out. In its natural condition the forest will be filled with a beautiful young 

 undei-growth, which will also assist very largely to hold the water. I will give you 

 an instance. I knew a forest — in fact I owned — it on the summit of a hill in this 

 country, which stood for thirty years to my knowledge. The rains descended and the 

 floods came, but the forest floor never changed. The forest was as good when the 

 axe was laid to it, as I had known it thirty years previously ; but after this forest was 

 gone and there was a wheat field where it stood, then when the rain fell you could 

 see that a great change had come about. The soil was washed away until I knew it 

 to be banked up 2 feet deep against the fences. That is to show the character of 

 the forest floor. As soon as the forest was cleared the soil was washed away, and 

 washed away so dreadfully that those fields are not worth much now. I have been 

 through hundreds of forests, but I have never yet seen the water run when the rain 



