328 POSSIBILITIES OF THE SITUATION 



creased. Worked in conjunction with the societies, they 

 would enable the allotment-holder or the small farmer 

 to surmount the difficulty of having to pay cash down 

 for what he wants, and, at the same time, to avoid 

 getting into debt with the traders, or, what is still 

 worse, into the clutches of the money-lender. On this 

 question of co-operative credit banks, however, so much 

 has been so ably written by Mr. Henry W. Wolff, 

 chairman of the International Co-operative Alliance 

 (which body has rendered great service to the move- 

 ment for agricultural combination), that I have not felt 

 it necessary to enter here in any detail on a subject that 

 Mr. Wolff has made essentially his own. 



Lest there may be any doubt as to the actual chances 

 open to a group of small producers in a country district, 

 I should like to place on record some very practical 

 remarks made to me by a gentleman of great experience 

 in the marketing of fruit, and I would venture to commend 

 these remarks to the special attention of the land-owners 

 of the country : 



Looking at the very large quantities of fruit imported from 

 abroad, and especially apples from Canada and the United States, 

 I have often asked myself whether a much larger proportion could 

 not be grown at home to the advantage of our own people, and 

 there is no doubt whatever that it could. One thing that should 

 be done is this : Large land-owners, instead of giving their cottagers 

 20 poles of land each, should let them have half an acre, one half, 

 at least, of which should be put down to permanent fruit apples 

 and pears as top fruit, and soft fruit underneath. The landlord 

 should arrange to supply the trees and plants, so as to insure 

 uniformity of variety and quality over a given area, and he should 

 also arrange for some horticultural teacher, not to give lectures in 

 the village schoolroom in the winter, but to go into the gardens 

 and give direct instruction to the cottagers and their families as to 

 the proper cultivation of the trees and plants. He would, for 

 instance, show them exactly how prunings should be done, putting 

 the knife into their hands, and standing alongside until he saw that 

 they understood exactly what he meant. One hour's practical 

 instruction of that kind would be worth all the schoolroom lectures 

 that he could possibly deliver. This would complete the first stage. 

 The cottagers would have the land, they would have the proper 



