88 JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



Mr. W. A. MacKinnon (late Chief of the Canadian Government Fruit 

 Division) : I have to thank you for the courtesy you have extended in 

 inviting me to throw some little light on the Canadian phase of this 

 subject. This is but one more of the long list of similar courtesies which 

 you have extended to us in Canada. We producers of apples have been 

 very keenly interested in our connection with Great Britain and the 

 British market ; and it has come to my knowledge that one of your 

 members is at present doing his share in developing the latest phase of 

 the Canadian horticultural industry, viz. the co-operative movement, 

 which is the key to the future of the Canadian fruit industry, and your 

 members who assist us in that movement will have cause some day to be 

 proud. We do not pretend that Great Britain needs our assistance and 

 advice, but we do believe that interchange of knowledge is extremely 

 useful. 



Our legislators and growers will be interested in what has recently been 

 planned for the future of the industry in Great Britain. It has been said 

 that agriculturists, as a class, are the slowest to combine, and are most 

 suspicious of each other — slow to offer to each other the results of their 

 investigations, or their successes. It has even been said that in horti- 

 cultural work — and in many other industries — to assist your neighbour 

 is to betray and injure your own prospects. We think decidedly other- 

 wise. We think we cannot do too much to assist our neighbours. We 

 have come to the belief that to establish a reputation, not by one man's 

 production, but by the production of an entire district, is the right and 

 only way to improve the future of every man in that district. 



It may be that the few remarks I have prepared on the subject will 

 not be found sufficiently exhaustive for you. In that case I hope you 

 will communicate with the Canadian Government, when any information 

 they can give will be at your disposal. 



In introducing so broad a subject to an audience so thoroughly at 

 home in all matters of horticulture, and already so well informed on the 

 essential principles of experimental effort, it becomes me to avoid 

 generalities, and to deal only with the actual facts of present-day 

 experimental farms in Canada. 



It might be best at the outset to explain the official status of this 

 work, and my not too intimate association with it, lest it be assumed 

 that I speak with more authority than is the case. The Fruit Division at 

 Ottawa, of which I was privileged to have charge from its inception till 

 last year, deals primarily with the commercial aspects of the fruit trade. 

 These are of course necessarily and inseparably allied with the earlier 

 phases of the industry, which may be broadly summed up in the expres- 

 sion "orchard management," but the Government work in connection 

 with these two branches has been assigned to separate staffs — those of 

 the Fruit Division, and of the Experimental Farms respectively. Active 

 co-operation is the watchword governing the relations of the two branches, 

 which are both under the immediate direction of the Hon. Sydney Fisher, 

 Minister of Agriculture. As chief of the Fruit Division, therefore, it was 

 from my colleagues of the Experimental Farms, and from occasional visits, 

 that my information concerning those institutions was obtained, and not 

 from any personal experience in their management. 



