98 Commercial Gardening 



years old, if proper care has been taken with the picking, grading, and 

 marketing. 



The cost of picking will be found the same for Apples and Pears on 

 dwarf trees, with fair crop on, from I^d. to 2d. per bushel; on half-standard 

 trees, from 2^d. to 4>d. per bushel, according to denseness or otherwise of 

 the under crop and the consequent difficulty of working the ladders. Of 

 course no hard-arid-fast rule can be laid down; the prices are as variable 

 as the amount of the crops. In mixed plantations of Apples, Pears, and 

 Plums, with average crop and conditions, the usual price is Qd. per bushel 

 all round, including " running " the plums where necessary. 



In Mr. Theobald's work on Insect Pests of Fruit the list of those 

 injurious to the Pear extends to twenty-eight, some of them with names 

 more terrifying than the Greek deities, and it is no wonder if the prospec- 

 tive planter pauses when he finds that he must fight such a phalanx of 

 foes. He may, however, be reassured, for from many of them he will 

 receive little injury, unless he attempts to pronounce their names! 



By far the most serious of them is the Pear Midge. Its presence 

 will be readily detected by the abnormal swelling of the fruitlets a week 

 or two after the blossom has fallen. One knows that those which are 

 fertilized and are making a bid for life quickly stand out from the others 

 and commence growing, but the effect of the Pear Midge cannot be con- 

 founded with this natural swelling. The fruitlets affected rapidly take 

 on an appearance of swelled head, becoming enlarged at the blossom end 

 and shrinking at the stalk end. If they are cut open, a little brown speck 

 is seen just below the top, in a week or two longer the fruitlets fall off', and 

 then, if they are opened, they will be found to be rotten inside, and to 

 contain several small white grubs. The more choice the Pear the greater 

 the mark it seems to be for this pest. No remedy appears yet to have 

 been discovered that can be called in any sense effectual. In the case 

 of dwarf trees the affected fruitlets can be picked off and burnt with the 

 grub in them; but this is impossible where large trees are concerned, and 

 until all growers agree to take measures alike, it is difficult to say of 

 what use it is one grower here and there even picking off the infested 

 fruitlets, if the majority are content to leave the matter to nature, as 

 their fathers did before them. 



A Plea for Co-operation. This introduces one of the most difficult 

 questions of market-garden politics, indeed of agriculture generally. The 

 old race of farmers, from which the ranks of market gardeners have 

 hitherto been principally recruited, is so splendidly independent, and so 

 inveterately individualistic, that combination among them is almost im- 

 possible to attain. They will readily follow a lead when once there has 

 been proof positive that it is a lead to advantage; but to meet together 

 and submit plans and business arrangements to the dictation of others is 

 an interference with individual liberty of action which they cannot brook. 

 It is true that some method of compulsion like that in force for sheep 

 dipping might be adopted. The only justification for such action, how- 



