2 



JOUKNAL OF THE ROYAL HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



3. Beware of land subject to floods — looking and enquiring for the 

 highest point ever reached by river or lake. 



4. In buying, keep the price low, and remember what the land 

 will cost by the time it is cleaned and ploughed. The higher price is no 

 criterion of quality, but rather of fashion in land, where living is more 

 expensive. 



5. See outlying districts, rather than buy land which has been 

 picked over by many before you came. 



6. Kemember that land fit to plant must be such as may be 

 ploughed in any direction. Do not plant in an excess of potash, and 

 when planted keep your ranche properly cultivated. 



7. Plant only the best varieties of apples. 



Dry months occur all over British Columbia, and it will be found that 

 July and August are times when a lack of moisture will check the growth 

 of the trees in their early stages, and in some orchards bad results from 

 insufficient moisture are even now apparent. To avoid this some system 

 on the lines given below will have to be adopted : — 



1. Irrigation. 



2. Dry cultivation. 



3. Relying on "seepage." 



Irrigation is a troublesome system in an orchard, for while land is 

 being irrigated it needs constant attention, and even then more or less 

 bad "wash-outs " will take place. 



In the opinion of many it detracts from the flavour of the fruit 

 grown, and it stands to reason that by this system much plant food 

 must be washed out of the ground. Irrigation must tend to bring the 

 roots of the trees along the line followed by the water, rather than equally 

 distributing them around the stem, and thus less plant food is available, 

 by limiting the area from which the tree derives its nutriment. 



Water in British Columbia always costs money in some way or other, 

 and dependence on irrigation must be counted as an extra expense ; it is 

 either put on to the price of the land, when bought, or it is collected 

 yearly as a rent, or you find your own water supply when you "stake " 

 out your land and convey it to your orchard. It also costs money in the 

 labour necessary while irrigation is being carried out. 



Dry farming necessitates the constant stirring of the earth, and 

 keeping the surface of the soil dustlike in fineness, and this condition 

 can only be arrived at by constant cultivation, which therefore means 

 constant labour. 'The summer heat tends, in a climate where dry 

 farming obtains, to the premature ripening of the fruit, and greater risks 

 have to be incurred when an orchard is first planted. 



In these regions the hot summer climate is as a rule followed by a 

 severe winter, and so there is a limitation of the varieties which can be 

 successfully grown, and this means the elimination of the finest varieties 

 of dessert fruit. 



Natural moisture, or " seepage," can only be found in sufficient quantity 

 to be serviceable at the foot of very high hills, thus limiting the area of 

 cultivation and affording only small fruit-land areas near rivers and lakes. 



