Читать книгу Fruit Ranching in British Columbia - John Thomas Bealby - Страница 10

Although the winter in the Kootenays, mild when viewed with Canadian eyes, severe when regarded in the light of English experience, thus provides compensation, as it were, to the exhaustive output of the trees' summer activities, it befriends them in yet another way.

Winter lasts, I was told, as a rule, from the middle of December to the middle or end of March, and during all that time the ground is under snow. This protects the roots against the frost. Then, again, the snow, melting on the mountains through the spring and on into the early summer, sets up a subsoil irrigation, which goes on practically all through the hot weeks of the mid-summer season. In this way aqueous nutrition is supplied to the trees by a natural, and, indeed, automatic, process of filtration, and they receive the moisture, not at any one time in excess, but all the time in well-proportioned measure pretty much as they need it. And this process of natural root-watering is greatly facilitated by the situation of the orchards at the foot of the mountains and the more or less gentle angle at which they slope down to the lake. This purely mechanical and gradual distribution of the "seepage" water co-operates with the heavy evaporation and consequent foliage-watering of summer to explain the fact that irrigation is less needed in this part of British Columbia than in most other regions of the province except the coast.

But the fact is also, and principally, accounted for by the relatively heavier rainfall in the Kootenays. The total annual rainfall averages 28 inches. This figure includes the snowfall. The amount, when distributed by "seepage" in the manner I have described, through the summer months, is sufficient to enable the rancher to dispense with irrigation. All the same, if the fruit-grower is able to command a supply of water, and is able to distribute it to his crops during July and August—and he generally is able to do both—he will find it greatly to his advantage.

The prevalent soil throughout the Kootenays is a light sandy loam, generally of a reddish colour, with a clay subsoil. In places the surface consists of gritty sand of a light grey colour. Fruit trees grow equally well in both soils. The atmosphere of British Columbia is impregnated with a peculiar quality of dryness; in fact, it might almost be described as parching. Owing to this, and to its own inherent lightness, the soil is apt to dry quickly on the surface. But this evaporation can be in great part, if not entirely, overcome by inducing the formation of humus and by continuous and uninterrupted cultivation. The formation of humus is effected in one way by the working into the land of good manure. It must be farmyard manure, which will contribute vegetable matter as well as animal matter. Artificial or chemical manure will not serve the purpose. Another effectual means to secure the formation of humus is to sow clover, vetches, cow-peas, or some other leguminous crop and plough it under. Both these methods enable the surface soil to retain a larger proportion of moisture, and to that extent diminish the need for continuous and uninterrupted cultivation, which is the third expedient resorted to in orchard work to preserve the trees against the drying influences of the atmosphere. Continuous and uninterrupted cultivation preserves a fine tilth, and converts the topmost layer of the soil into a dust mulch, which tends to prevent excessive evaporation of the moisture stored underneath.

One word of warning is necessary. The English settler, accustomed to the trim and orderly aspect of an English ploughed field, with its unbroken and level expanse of brown soil and its neat hedges or straight lines of fences, must not look to find the same things in a new country such as British Columbia. I do not mean to say that nowhere will he find the counterpart of what he has left at home. Tracts of land, evincing the same advanced cultivation, are not, indeed, difficult to find; but by far the greater portion of the orchards presents, as yet, a much more unfinished appearance. It is not many years since the whole of British Columbia was covered with forest trees and scrub. The orchards have had to be carved out of the virgin forests. In many cases the work of eradicating all traces of the forest has been thoroughly and effectually performed; in many other cases it has been accomplished in a more or less incomplete fashion. The stumps of the big trees, cut off at the height of two or three feet from the ground, and blackened by the fires which burnt away the scrub and bush, attest impatience or want of thoroughness on the part of the first original settler.

Another eyesore to the English immigrant is the stones which in some places have been left littering the surface of the ground. These are of all sizes, from the bigness of a teacup to that of a boulder as bulky as a barn. It is, however, the most effective way, and in the long run the most economical, to eradicate every root and remove every stone that can be removed, at the time of clearing, before any attempt is made to cultivate the land or plant an orchard. Many of the early settlers did not act in that spirit, and the consequence is that, in some of the older orchards, the fruit-trees are to be seen growing—and growing splendidly notwithstanding—among the blackened stumps or amid the boulders which the destructive agents of Nature—denudation, aerial disintegration, and gravitation—have strewn over the lower slopes of the mountain.

The subjoined description is typical of the accounts which are circulated with regard to the district I am writing about, the Kootenays. It was penned by one of the pioneer fruit-growers of the Nelson country, an enthusiastic and public-spirited man, possessed of considerable experience as a grower of fruit:—

"I consider the conditions here (Kootenay Lake District) the most perfect for fruit-culture. I have been interested in fruit-growing in various parts of Canada and of the United States during the last twenty years, and until coming to Nelson, in 1901, I had found the climate of the Alleghany Mountains of West Virginia the most suitable for the production of small fruit. The shores of Lakes Erie and Ontario to Montreal I considered the best for the production of apples. The shores of Lake Ontario, from Niagara to Toronto, I believe to be the finest peach section in America. Within the past two years, however, we have shown that we can produce as fine apples here [Nelson] as in any part of Ontario or in the Northern States. Peaches are grown here to perfection, and I feel quite confident in asserting that the quality of the small fruit produced, such as raspberries, gooseberries, and black currants, is superior to any produced elsewhere on the continent; in fact, the Southern States, such as Virginia, Tennessee, and Georgia, will not compare with this section in the production of these fruits. The quality and size here are far superior, and the yield per acre is at least double that of anything I have ever seen or succeeded in producing during my ten years' residence in these States. One average gooseberry bush in my Nelson garden bears finer fruit, and as much of it, as six of my finest bushes did in West Virginia—and my Virginian garden excelled in the production of gooseberries in that country.

"I find that I can grow vegetables, such as sweet corn and tomatoes, just as well as I could in Virginia. We can grow potatoes to perfection, and the Champion of England and Ne Plus Ultra peas reach a height of eight feet in my garden.

"I have not found irrigation necessary, and this adds much to the superior quality of all our fruit.

"The fruit-grower will find here an ideal home. The climate is perfect; the soil is very rich and productive, and the market the best. He will be surrounded by beautiful scenery; and the shooting and fishing are the best to be found anywhere."

It was statements such as this—and if we tone down one or two of its superlatives, it will pass for a genuine and credible statement—coupled with facts published in Government handbooks, and information as to prices, markets, and the commercial aspects of fruit-growing in British Columbia gathered from private correspondents actually engaged in the business—that made me decide to pitch my tent beneath the apple-trees of this highly-favoured region.