History, Wonder Tales, Fairy Tales, Myths and Legends The Flemish | Page 256

later the Belgo-Canadian Fruit Lands Company, with headquarters in Antwerp, began
operations. By 1908 a number of its shareholders had formed their own Belgian
Orchard Syndicate, bought land from the parent company, planted seventeen
thousand apple trees, and built their own packing house. The syndicate was
reportedly selling 40,000 boxes of apples and considerable quantities of pears,
peaches, plums, onions, and tomatoes annually by 1936. Belgian immigrants had also
started to grow celery on a large scale around Enderby and Armstrong before World
War II.
No less successful although short-lived were other enterprises in British Columbia. In
1909 the Belgo-Canadian Land Company invested in undeveloped lands east of
Kelowna, imported Italian workers, and built up productive orchards under irrigation.
The following year, the Vernon Orchard Company, organized in Belgium, developed
orchards near Swan Lake. In 1912 the Antwerp-based Land and Agricultural Company
of Canada invested money from land sales in Saskatchewan in the irrigation of a vast
acreage and expanded operations around Vernon in apple orchards and sheep
grazing. These developments helped to turn the Okanagan into a prime fruit-producing
area and employed Belgian immigrants and their descendants in an area once
considered semi-desert.
Flemings first became established as dairy farmers around Montreal and Sherbrooke.
In southwestern Ontario, those who had first taken up mixed farming soon changed to
dairying or market gardening. In 1879 the Bossuyt brothers wer