Canada and the British immigrantWeaver, Emily P. (Emily Poynton)
History
Canada and the British immigrant
Weaver, Emily P. (Emily Poynton)
Canada -- Description and travel; Canada -- Economic conditions
The province produces also three-fourths of the fruit grown in
Canada—chiefly in its southern counties bordering on the Great
Lakes—and is almost equally famous for its apples and its peaches, its
berries and its grapes. Hundreds of thousands of acres in Southern
Ontario are planted with fruit trees and small fruit bushes; and immense
areas of land equally suitable for fruit-culture remain to be
planted—in the Niagara district, along the shores of Lakes Erie and
Ontario, and in other districts.
From the point of view of opportunity for newcomers, the interesting
feature of the situation is not what has been, but what may be done. The
fact is, even in the older portions of the province, only the fringe of
possible productivity has been touched, and here in Ontario we are still
in the region where the country districts have suffered in the last few
decades by the exodus of the young—at first largely to the United
States, later to the West and to the cities. The result is that there
are plenty of good farms for sale at prices ranging from $25 (£5) to
$100 (£20) the acre—the latter price including the cost of
buildings—and a list of these can be obtained from the “Director of
Colonization” at Toronto.
The prices, by the way, of apple and peach orchards and of vineyards in
good bearing go up far beyond the prices of ordinary farm lands. As much
as from $400 (£80) to $1,200 (£240) an acre is asked in the Niagara
district for peach orchards, according to age, while apple orchards may
fetch from $300 (£60) to $500 (£100) an acre. Even unplanted lands good
for fruit culture range high—$400 (£80) the acre being asked for land
especially suitable for peach-growing.
There are many districts of Ontario where capable British farmers with
some little capital would have every prospect of doing well, for markets
for all produce are good. Conditions of life in the settled farming
districts of this province are usually found pleasant by those who like
a country life, and many things are working together to render these
even better than they were a few years ago. I will, however, return to
this matter a little later.
One of the great difficulties that Ontario farmers have to contend with
is that of obtaining sufficiency of help in the busy seasons. The best
remedy for this is to so manage the farm—by keeping a considerable
number of live stock—that help can profitably be employed all the year
round, and to have houses in which married men can live with their
families.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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