Urban beautification On a grander scale, horticulture assumed
a central role in urban beautification efforts around 1900. Urban landscape conventions of grand, tree-lined boulevards and large- scale parks emulated the fashions of Eastern North America and Europe. They expressed the aspirations of
the Anglo-Canadian
business class to re-create an Anglo-Saxon imperial presence in the new capital cites of the west. Here again, Winnipeg, the prairies’ first major metropolis, led the way. Initial activity was confined to tree planting along the streets and private grounds of middle class neighbourhoods. Winnipeg’s early real estate developers dedicated some tracts for parks but these soon disappeared when the early 1880s boom made it more profitable to sub-divide and sell these lands for residential construction. Civic beautification became entrenched
in the 1890s when business leaders and urban reformers pressured city authorities to introduce urban parks and a coordinated approach to boulevard planting. Between 1893 and 1914, 27 civic and three private parks were established within the city of Win- nipeg. The prototypes for these parks and their counterparts in other prairie cities were usually a combination of English picturesque and formal Victorian landscaping conven- tions, and functioned to inculcate the British connection in the emerging prairie society.
Horticultural development The systematic horticultural develop- ment of rural areas was an ancillary goal of Dominion experimental farms in the settle- ment period. The Dominion government, whose National Policy initiated a coordinated program of immigration, railroad construc- tion, and settlement on the prairies, viewed forestry and horticulture, as well as field crops, as essential to sustained settlement. Accordingly, federal authorities established experimental farms at Brandon, Manitoba and Indian Head, Saskatchewan, in the late 1880s. In addition to cereal grain and live- stock trials, the farms tested a wide variety of tree and plant material originating in central Canada, the northern United States, and Eurasia.
In 1915 the Dominion government established the first prairie research station devoted primarily to horticulture, at Morden, Manitoba. Its staff carried out extensive trials in small fruits, trees, vegetables, and orna- mentals, and disseminated the results to the farm community.
An early role of the experimental farms was the promotion of tree shelterbelt plantations on farmsteads to create microclimates for garden and fruit culture. Between 1886 and 1890 the Central Experimental Farm in Ot- tawa shipped about 500,000 young trees to the prairies for distribution to farmers. While many of these trees did not survive, they provided an empirical basis for determining suitable varieties for prairie tree culture.
Provincial role
Provincial government agencies, too, contributed to horticultural development during the prairies’ settlement era. In the
10 • Fall 2016
The school garden program as it looked in 1916.
provincial sphere, horticultural activity was largely carried out under the auspices of the agricultural colleges in Winnipeg, Saskatoon and Edmonton.
When the Manitoba Agricultural College was founded in 1906, F. W. Brodrick, a graduate of the Ontario Agricultural Col- lege, was hired to teach horticulture and forestry. Brodrick was heavily involved in extension work, including the organizing of a travelling demonstration school and other short courses, and establishing several demonstration orchards.
The school gardening movement Another focus of government activity in
this period was the school gardening move- ment. Deriving from nature study programs of the late 19th century, school gardening was being actively promoted by horticultural societies in central Canada by 1900. With the passage of the federal Agricultural In- struction Act in 1913, grants were allotted to the provinces to promote school gardens and other activities. By 1915 more than 400 school gardens were reported in Manitoba alone.
By this time, government authorities be- gan to see in the school gardens the potential to use horticulture to build patriotism and strengthen national unity. During the First World War, school children were exhorted to grow vegetables to support the war effort. Concurrently, writers in the agricultural press promoted the use of school gardens as a means of “Canadianizing the foreign born”. Through these campaigns, the promoters of the school gardens demonstrated the power of such innocuous activities as gardening to support ideological or political objectives.
Railway gardens
The Canadian Pacific Railway (CPR) played a supporting role in promoting west- ern tree and flower culture in the settlement era. As the principal corporate agency of land disposal on the prairies, the CPR had a strong interest in promoting settlement through horticulture. By 1907 the company had established two early nurseries — one at Springfield, Manitoba devoted to ornamen- tal production, and another at Wolseley, Saskatchewan for the propagation of tree,
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shrub and perennial stock. In 1908 the company organized a forestry department to administer its parks and gardens and to advise officials in the planting of railway gardens and windbreaks along its rail lines.
The CPR also practised tree culture at ten experimental farms in its two major irriga- tion blocks in southern Alberta, particularly at Strathmore. Between 1912 and 1918 the company began propagating nursery stock at Brooks, Alberta, on the site of the present Provincial Horticultural Station. Willow stock was produced for ripraping the banks of irrigation ditches, and willow, poplar and box elder seedlings were distributed to farmers for shelterbelt use. The scope of horticultural work was greatly expanded after 1918 when Augustus (Gus) Griffin assumed the position of CPR superintendent of operations and maintenance for the Eastern Irrigation Dis-
Even in the early days, flowers decorated farm yards, often growing among the vegetables in the garden.
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