VI. PKKFACB. 



The phrase, "Profitable Fruit Growing," is understood to 

 mean (I suppose) a mode of cultivating fruit that will be likely 

 to pay for the capital and labour expended, when tho produce 

 is fairly well realized at market rates. 



Guided by such a definition, one would naturally assume that 

 the fruits that might be best raised to-day for profit on small 

 holdings were those that are described as hardy orchard and bush 

 fruits, judging from the varieties of which the cultivation is ex- 

 cellently described in the Fruiterers' Company's Prize Essay. 

 As a matter of fact, however, there can be no doubt in the minds 

 of those conversant with the fruit supply at our leading markets, 

 that there are scarcely any cottagers who are able to supply 

 such hardy fruits, partly because they cannot command a suffi- 

 cient acreage of land, or because they are unable to secure safe 

 terms of holding. On the other hand there is every year a large 

 increase in the supply of grapes, melons, wall fruit, and figs, 

 which are all grown under glass, and of which a good proportion 

 is actually produced by small growers, who have worked them- 

 selves up from a very humble beginning, raising first probably 

 a few bedding plants, ferns, cucumbers, or tomatoes for sale, and 

 investing the proceeds on more materials for extending 

 their greenhouses, but many of them commencing merely as 

 cottagers. 



Looking at the question of fruit culture then, broadly, as an 

 important personal and national concern, it must be seen that 

 the selection of the kind of fruit to grow, will depend entirely 

 upon circumstances. There are certain counties, for instance, 

 like Cambridgeshire, Oxfordshire (parts of), Worcestershire, 

 and parts of Cheshire, where plums and gages are found to 

 be especially prolific and safe crops, and certain parts of Notts. 

 are equally favourably situated for apples. In such exceptional 

 cases the small cultivator would do well to take advantage of 

 "his environments." He will shrewdly follow the guidance of 

 any such local indications, as well as in the selection of special 

 varieties. The case of the " Bramley's Seedling " apple, which 

 appears to be giving splendid returns in Notts, and other 

 Midland counties, just as the "Forge" apple is taking a lead, 

 as a most successful local sort in some districts of Sussex, 

 may be mentioned as examples. 



