THIRTY-THIRD BIENNIAI, SESSION 
71 
ploughed in early the following spring. Where the climate is colder it has 
been found good practice to merely plough the orchard in the spring, harrow 
it a few times to get the weeds under control and then sow seed for a cover 
crop in the month of June. This system is desirable where there is danger 
of the trees growing too late and being injured by winter. In the Province 
of Quebec many growers prefer to leave their orchards in sod to insure 
thorough ripening of the wood before winter. In parts of British Columbia 
irrigation is practiced. 
Most of the grapes are grown in the Province of Ontario. The vines 
are usually planted 10 x 10 feet apart and trained to the Kniffen system and 
are usually tied to a trellis of from two to three wires. In many places in 
Canada, where the winter is cold but the summers very warm, grapes are 
grown for home use by covering the vines with soil during the winter. Ex- 
cept in British Columbia, strawberries are not grown to any extent in the 
hill system or as single plants in Canada, as they are in Great Britain and 
Europe, but in matted rows, the plants being six inches or less apart. By 
this method the plants protect each other and are not so subject to heaving 
when the ground freezes, nor is the crown exposed so much to the sun. 
Spraying: — Spraying is practiced by a large proportion of the fruit 
growers in Canada. The principal insecticide used for biting insects was 
Paris Green until quite recently, but Arsenate of Lead is fast taking its 
place. For San Jose scale the Lime-Sulphur wash is used when the trees are 
dormant. The Lime-Sulphur is now generally used for spraying to control 
certain diseases, such as Apple Scab and Peach Leaf Curl when the trees 
are dormant and also to some extent during the growing season, although 
Bordeaux Mixture is still commonly used as a summer spray. There is 
no good means for controlling aphis on tree fruits, although tobacco ex- 
tracts, soaps and kerosene emulsion are all partially effective. 
Transportation Facilities: — The distances to which fruit has to be trans- 
ported in Canada are in some cases very great, both for the home market 
and to reach the ports in order that it may be sent abroad, but within 
about two years there will be three trans-continental railways from the 
Atlantic to the Pacific oceans, and these, with the many branch lines already 
in operation, afford excellent means of distributing the fruit. Refrigerator 
cars are furnished by the railway companies when needed. 
Markets: — The home market for Canadian fruits is growing rapidly. 
There are now about 8,0-00,000 people in Canada who consume a very large 
quantity of fruit. In the prairie provinces where tree fruits do not succeed 
well and where the main crop is cereals it is estimated that there are 171,000 
square miles suitable for cultivation. This area is being rapidly populated 
and offers a splendid home market for fruit from the other provinces of 
Canada. Great Britain, the United States, and European countries take 
large quantities of Canadian fruits, as has been shown above. 
Profits in Fruit Growing: — Like most other kinds of business or profes- 
sional enterprises, the success of fruit growing in Canada depends on the 
individual man. Some men are becoming rich by growing fruit and some 
are not; but it is believed that the average fruit grower has a larger income 
than those engaged in other rural occupations. 
