901. Upper Canada is very fertile. At Toronto are extensive orchards. Here the sugar-maple is abundant, and pierced for sugar when the sap begins to rise. A tree twenty inches in diameter will yield five pounds of sugar annually, sometimes for thirty years. Pot and pearl ashes are made from the felled trees. Beech yields at the rate of 219 lbs. for 1000 lbs. of ashes, and most other trees less. Sunflowers are abundant; but oil is not extracted from them, as in the United States. A great variety of fruit trees may be had at the nursery gardens at Toronto. The apples grown there are considered superior to any other. The peach trees are introduced into the orchards from Toronto to Amherstburgh. Cherries, walnuts, chestnuts, hickory, hazel, and filbert nuts grow wild; as do gooseberries, strawberries, blueberries, cranberries, and black currants. In Picken's Canadas, &c., and Pickering's Emigrant's Guide, and other similar works, will be found some valuable information on the soil, native productions, and cultivated horticultural and agricultural plants of both Canadas, drawn from the most authentic sources.
