6 CHOOSING THE LAND 
Autitupe.—lIf your situation is favourable in other 
respects, you may carry your orchard to very much 
greater altitudes than is generally supposed. On the 
northern side of the Rossland Valley, in the south-east 
of British Columbia—that is, on a good southern slope— 
orchards thrive quite successfully at altitudes of 3,500 to 
3,600 feet; and in the neighbouring State of Montana 
(U.S.A.) apples grow with perfect satisfaction up to the 
altitude of 4,500 feet above sea-level. In Colorado apple 
orchards are eminently successful at much higher alti- 
tudes—namely, 6,000 feet and more. As a rule, the 
altitudes best suited for orchards in British Columbia are 
those which range between 1,000 feet and 3,500 feet, the 
lower levels being generally the more suitable. 
CommunicaTions.—Growing the fruit, however im- 
portant, is only one part of the business. An equally 
important, and in the majority of cases a much more 
difficult, part is that of selling the produce, the finished 
and ripened fruit. There is one thing which every ranch 
must possess if this difficulty is to be successfully over- 
come : it must be within fairly easy and fairly reasonable 
reach of a railway or a steamboat landing, or there must 
exist a tolerable certainty that such access will exist 
before the orchard reaches the bearing stage. It is also 
very desirable that the ranch should be within touch of 
a good driving or waggon road. Without it the cost of 
getting in domestic and other supplies is greatly increased, 
and the rancher is painfully hampered in his movements, 
and consequently to all intents and purposes is as though 
he were almost isolated. Men have made fortunes by 
settling in a remote valley, and after waiting years have 
