CONFERENCE ON FRUIT GROWING. 



91 



thus devoting all their knowledge, experience, and energy, in spite of the 

 fatigue of travel, late hours and long drives, to the one object of assisting 

 their less well-informed fellow-workers. 



One or two more or less exceptional, new, or temporary phases of the 

 work may be mentioned in conclusion. The Horticulturist at Ottawa, for 

 example, has made some experimental shipments of "Wealthy" apples, 

 grown on trees ten feet apart, to the British market. Other varieties 

 were also shipped, some being wrapped in tissue paper, others unwrapped, 

 and much valuable information was thus obtained and published for the 

 benefit of growers without experience in the export trade. 



The Fruit Experiment Stations of Ontario show annually at the 

 Toronto Exhibition (which has, I believe, a record of over 100,000 visitors 

 in one day) fine collections of all sorts of fruits, correctly named as to 

 variety. This information alone is of the greatest value to growers, who 

 too often find nursery stock very different from the " nursery tales " on the 

 strength of which they had purchased trees. And there is always an expert 

 in charge of such exhibits, to answer inquiries and give advice to all who 

 ask it. 



And here it may be stated that very many fruits are sent annually 

 through the mails (postage free) to Ottawa for identification ; also 

 promising seedlings to be tested for quality, and a great variety of blighted 

 leaves, berry-canes, fungus-spotted fruit, scale-infested bark and damaged 

 twigs, with letters asking the cause of the injury, and what remedies or 

 preventives should be used. The value of such work will be fully appre- 

 ciated by your Society, and indeed it could not well be overestimated. 

 Were there nothing to consider but the cost of the necessary microscopic 

 equipment, it would be utterly impossible for individual growers to make 

 these investigations for themselves. 



Finally, we have to glance again at the so-called "Model Orchards," 

 say in Nova Scotia. They are scattered pretty well over the province so 

 as to form a test of the apple-growing possibilities of the various districts, 

 the sites being carefully chosen as to soil, exposure, and drainage. The 

 varieties are selected from amongst those which have been found com- 

 mercially successful with a view to " covering the season," as it is called 

 — that is, having apples ready for market, one variety following another, 

 from August till March or April. The growing of too many varieties is 

 discouraged. In all operations the goal of commercial success is kept in 

 mind, so that these blocks of thriving, well-cared-for trees are what their 

 name implies, " Model Orchards," which growers in the district may 

 safely strive to duplicate. The minimum of experiment is, in this case, 

 combined with the concrete illustration of sound, proved, business 

 methods. At the other farms experiment predominates, and the learner 

 must inquire what he is to copy, and what avoid ; here he has a safe 

 object lesson in all respects, so that he need only make sure that the con- 

 ditions at his own farm are similar to those of the "Model Orchard." 

 It is the variations in local conditions that make it so necessary to have 

 many models scattered over the country, though the same plan would be 

 dictated by reasons of convenience to enable growers easily to visit and 

 inspect them. 



It will be seen from the above outline that our experimental farms 



