By peymhsion of] 



ROADSIIIE FrI'IT Cl LTIRE IN CiERMANV. 



Strong-growing Standanl Apple Trees bordering the puljlic 1 



[The Department oj Agiicultuie. 



ighw: 



Roadside Fruit Culture in Germany. 



THE current number of the Journal of the Depart- 

 ment of Agriculture has a most interesting 

 article on the above subject. It says: — The 

 practice of growing fruit beside the public highway, 

 though it has never been seriously taken up in the 

 United Kingdom, is very general in many Continental 

 countries, and nothing-, perhaps, strikes the traveller 

 more than the pleasant sight of a public thoroughfare 

 bordered on either side with well-kept fruit trees, laden 

 with their tempting burden and alTording a grateful 

 shade to the tired way-farer. There is indeed some- 

 thing particularly attractive in the notion of roadside 

 fruit culture, which seems to present an almost ideal 

 combination of beauty and utility, and it is easy to 

 understand the enthusiasm of the traveller who beholds 

 for the first time the wealth of fruit ripening in these 

 wayside orchards. So far as our climate, at least, 

 is concerned, there is probably no reason why 

 excellent fruit should not be successfully grown along 

 many of our Irish highways, but many other important 

 factors would have to be taken into consideration. 

 These matters are outside the scope of the present 

 article, which merely aims at giving some account of 

 the work that has been done in this direction in the 

 German Empire, where it is estimated that the number 

 of roadside fruit trees is now upwards of two millions. 

 The article then proceeds to give an historical account 



of roadside fruit culture within the German Empire, fol- 

 lowed with astonishing figures as to the amounts of money 

 realised by the sale of such fruit. In Hanover, for ex- 

 ample, the net profit to the State in one year was £6,837. 

 Application to Ireland.— We are not a fruit-growing 

 people ; we even neglect to utilise the blackberry crop 

 which, out of sheer good will, flourishes in our hedges 

 and is left to rot in tons every autumn. The case would, 

 no doubt, be different if lucious plums and glossy 

 cherries were dangling within our reach, and it might 

 be argued that these would receive a good deal too 

 much attention from the passer-by. No doubt they 

 would; at any rate at first, for here again we have not 

 the fruit-growing tradition to helps us. In Wurtemberg 

 or Saxony, where every cottager has his own little fruit 

 garden, there is not much temptation to steal a public 

 plum or a county council apple, and besides, in many 

 places, certain roadside trees are set apart and labelled 

 as for general use. Custom and education have made 

 roadside fruit-culture a possibility in Germany, and 

 custom and education may do the same for us. The 

 appeal to our pockets, at any rate, is a strong one, and 

 the reduction of rates is a matter which no public body 

 can afford to neglect. If such a reduction can be effected 

 by the cultivation of fruit on roadsides and on waste 

 strips of publicland, of which there is no lack in Ireland, 

 the subject is one which at least merits careful attention. 



