Fruit Growing in Ireland 43 



in this country will not exceed 40 per acre per annum, and it will 

 probably be nearer 30, which cannot be regarded otherwise than as a 

 handsome profit from land, though far removed from the Eldorado many 

 intending growers have been led to expect. One writer of repute states: 

 ' The fruit grower's life is an ideal one '. I can only stigmatize this as a 

 travesty of the facts. The fruit grower's life is a strenuous one and a 

 laborious one, and, to the intelligent and industrious worker, an enjoyable 

 and profitable one. 



" The man who plants tall standards in a grass orchard, and then wants 

 to make a decent living out of it, will have a long time to wait. It is 

 often pointed out that in Canada standard trees planted in grass pay well, 

 and that the system, instead of being curtailed, is being extended. In this 

 respect there can be no comparison between Canada and Ireland. The 

 land tenure is different, the climate is different, the market is different, 

 the labour question is different. If fruit farming is to be made to pay 

 in Ireland, the grower must look beyond his apples, pears, plums, and 

 damsons for results. There can now hardly be any two opinions that 

 the only method of fruit farming which pays well is the cultivation of 

 mixed fruits, and even vegetables (in tilled land, not only tilled, but 

 thoroughly tilled and intensely cultivated land, land of which the 

 greatest possible use is made, and none of which is allowed to be unpro- 

 ductive). The weight of fruit got from a given area under this system is 

 not only far in excess of that obtained under older systems, but the quality 

 is infinitely better; and in the fruit markets of to-day, and of the future, 

 quality is the ruling factor. Good varieties must be grown, they must 

 be well grown, the produce must be clean, it must be well packed, and 

 the fruit must be graded. 



"The method of cultivation naturally influences the type of fruit 

 tree to be planted and the distance at which the trees are to be planted. 

 In a grass orchard full standards are planted and they must not be nearer 

 than 30 ft. apart. Such standards have no place in a cultivated orchard. 

 Half-standards on crab stock planted 24 ft. apart every way, with a dwarf 

 bush tree on the Paradise stock between each half-standard every way, 

 is the now recognized system of planting. The dwarf or bush trees can 

 be moved away at the end of ten or more years, when the half-standards 

 are getting crowded, and so leave them full room. The object of planting 

 the bushes is to tide over the hungry time, the first six years, and this 

 they certainly do. They come early into bearing, the fruit borne by 

 them is first rate, and they are prolific. There is a general impression 

 that these dwarf bushes on Paradise stock soon wear out, and the quality 

 of the fruit produced by them deteriorates. This is a fallacy. I can 

 point to healthy bushes of such apples as Beauty of Bath, Bramley's 

 Seedling, and Stirling Castle twelve and fifteen years old, which are 

 healthy and vigorous and which bear good crops each year of first-rate 

 fruit. In the spaces between the fruit trees, bush fruit and strawberries 

 must be grown. Gooseberries, currants, raspberries, strawberries, or good 



