Science transforms Soviet orchards as LONG a Urals road which i is canopied by a bright north- ern sky and dotted here and there with trucks, passen- ger cars and blue busses, there stretches a white fence, Behind that fence lies the center of Soviet horticulture in the Urals—the Michurin Fruit and Berry Nursery. Orchardists in British Colum- _bia’s great Okanagan Valley would find the nursery a fascin- ating place, for here some of the Soviet Union’s foremost scientists are engaged in experimental work that is changing the face of entire areas, For years it was thought that the climate in the Urals made the growing of fruit and berries im- possible. Here and there, it’s true, amateurs had cultivated apple and chery trees in their gardens, But before the Revolution no organ- ized effort had been made to spur the development of this work. And Urals fruit remained as rare as ever, ‘ Conditions have changed radi- cally during the last 30 years. With the support of the Soviet authorities, a great body of young Soviet horticulturists have begun to remake nature. One of these horticulturists is a short, thickset man named Peter Gelfendbain who received his first lessons in horticulture from the brilliant horticulturist, Ivan Michurin, in whose nursery he worked for a long time as an ordinary laborer and later as a Scientific worker. About 12 years ago, Gelfendbain went to the Urals to’join a fruit- and berry nursery which was just being organized in the city of Sverdlovsk. The staff of the nur- Sery was beginning its activities — with a tour through the Urals in an attempt to locate the old Urals _ fruit growers and study their local varieties of fruits, A study had to be made of these finds, and they had to be distri- buted among the Urals experi- Mental gardens with a view to de- termining the best reproduction. e Everything in the Michurin Fruit and Berry Nursery is modest 4nd strictly functional. Here new varieties of fruits are born—frost- Proof, hardy fruits that yield big crops. Since its opening, scores of _ thousands of trees have been ' reared for Urals orchards in this nursery, | ; Young horticulturists come to the nursery to learn. And Gelfend- bain’s greatest reward is the realization of his desire to witness the gradual disappearance of the - Old prejudice that fruit growing is impossible in the Urals. The hundreds of acres of collective farm lands which, under the nur- Sery’s guidance, are being trans- formed into thriving orchards of frostproof currant, cherry and apple trees mrepresent the sum- mation of his life’s work and am- bitions. e@ One morning; far from the Urals, Ivan Michurin, accompan- ied by his students, made his cus- tomary rounds of his experi- mental gardens. “Look,” he said, addressing his youngest pupil, Peter Gelfend- bain, “here’s quite a young little apple tree and yet there’s already fruit on it. Examine it well and try to find the reason for that.” A little while afterwards, alone, Peter opened the earth around the tree and noticed that the neck (that part of a tree where the root passes into the trunk) was bent into a spiral. “Maybe this is the cause of the early fruiting,’ Gelfendbain thought. Saying nothing to his teacher, he decided to verify his idea by experimenting with to- matoes, Still later, he took Mich- urin to the tomato beds. On one of them 15 plants pate in full blossom. “Ts this a new variety?” Mich- urin asked. “No, I simply pent them into a spiral—and, you see, the others I didn’t treat aren't blossoming yet.” When the young horticulturist told Michurin about his observa- tions of the apple tree and the idea that occurred to him as a result, Michurin’s face lit up warmly and he exclaimed, “Fine lad! You’ve eyes to see and a mind to think.” _ ; When he began his work in the! Urals Gelfendbain recalled this episode. It would be an achieve- ment, he thought, to force the apple trees in the north orchard to bear fruit, not in the seventh or tenth year, but in the second or third. But how was it to be done? It had long been known that NANAIMO DIRECTORY dwarfish plans give fruit earlier than the normal ones and that the fruit of dwarfish plants is larger and more luscious. Why? Because plant life flows rhythmic- ally. Under the action of solar energy, the green leaves form sugar and the roots take moisture’ and salts from the earth. Then man comes to interfere with this rhythmical process, say- ing: “There must be surplus sugar in the crown of the tree, so that its fruit may ripen more quickly. and so that they may be more luscious.” Lying awake at night, listening . to the whistling and howling of the wind outside, Peter Gelfend- bain remembered the spiral of the apple tree in Michurinsk. The Chinese Sanina tree was chosen for an experiment. The grassy shoot grafted on the bud was twisted around a wild plant; after some time the shoot turned into wood and the wild Plant was removed. The Chinese Sanina usually bears fruit in the seventh year; on these spirally bent trees, fruit buds appeared in the first year. Another two years passed, and the first crop of purple-lilac’ as ae was harvested, To produce such trees Peter Gelfendbain elaborated a new system of forming the crown of fruit trees. When he reported on it to the Lenin Academy of Agri- cultural Sciences, the new system amazed the scientists by its mar- ._velous simplicity, clarity and, as the Academy noted, its profound understanding of the biological essence of plans, So it happened that the new Gelfendbain system, created by an . hitherto unknown Urals horticul- turist, made the previously used German and American systems obsolete, and it has now been adopted in all Soviet agriculture. And Peter Gelfendbain is happy, for are not new orchards blos- soming where once it was said that fruit trees could never be grown? GREETINGS LABOR DAY 1948 Harvey Murphy “SMART WEARING APPAREL FOR MEN” : Nanaimo, B.C, Telephone: 318 =U SAUTE TO LABOR FROM LOTUS HOTEL 3 cea B.C, : ANIA A Pay and Pack Grocery FREE DELIVERY | Phone 84 Nanaimo, B.C. 126 Haliburton Street LABOR DAY GREETINGS FROM BALMORAL HOTEL & BEER PARLOUR Nanaimo, B.C. 525 Haliburton Street SALUTE TO LABOR Ee FROM THE PATRICIA HOTEL & BEER PARLOUR Nanaimo, B.C. 19 Commercial] St. “ BAPCO PURE PAINTS NASH’S HARDWARE W. W. Nash Dealer in Paints — Wall Paper — Sporting Goods NANAIMO, B.C. GREETINGS TO LABOR Phone: 497 2 GREETINGS TO ALL WORKERS EAGLE’S HOTEL AND BEER PARLOUR 63 Victoria Crescent Steve Perak — George Bodovinac Nanaimo, B.C. [EL . Weight: 28 Ibs. Power Chain Saws “Pioneer” one man saw cutting up to 30” IRA BECKER & SON VANCOUVER ISLAND & B.C. COAST DISTRICT | 4.1 HLP. 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