LANDLORDS AND COTTAGERS 329 



trees, and they would know how to grow fruit, which they might 

 accordingly expect to have in due season. 



But then would come the question how they should dispose of 

 it to advantage. For this next step it would be essential for them 

 to have a system of collection and of combined sale. Assume 

 that a land-owner had divided 20 acres of ground among forty 

 cottagers, then the fruit grown by them should be grouped into one 

 lot and sent to market in the name of one sender, or of a small 

 co-operative society, the proceeds being distributed among the 

 cottagers according to the amount of fruit they had contributed to 

 the consignment. The fruit would have to be properly graded and 

 packed for those are essential conditions but inasmuch as it 

 would all be of the same variety, the cottager who had only a few 

 pounds ready on a certain day could send those in to the collecting 

 centre, and be paid for them accordingly, just as one of his neigh- 

 bours might be able to give in a substantially larger quantity. In 

 this way they should be able to make up, say, consignments of 

 20 bushels of apples, all of the same class, from week to week, and 

 find a ready market for them, while the forty cottagers, acting 

 independently, would be put to more trouble in disposing each of 

 his own particular lot than the business was worth. Still worse 

 would the position be if each cottager, more or less, grew a different 

 kind of apple. 



Under the scheme I suggest the cottagers would want some 

 kind of a shed in which to receive and pack the fruit, and such 

 shed, I think, the land-owner might provide. With a little co- 

 operative society to help they could easily divide between them the 

 work of attending at the shed, and so on, and I think the members 

 of their family, and especially their children, should assist in the 

 packing. The young people would soon be interested in the 

 packing of the fruit, and in the case of apples and pears the work 

 could be done in leisure moments during the week, as there would 

 be no need for immediate despatch. Gooseberries and currants 

 would, of course, require to be sent off the same day, but this 

 could easily be arranged. It might be necessary for one of the 

 forty to beg a day off from his ordinary work, but the thirty-nine 

 others could follow their ordinary employment, though still securing 

 their share from the sales. 



There are various advantages that would follow from the carry- 

 ing out of this system. Not only would it increase the supply of 

 English, as distinguished from imported, fruit, and not only would 

 business be developed under conditions deserving the attention of 

 wholesale traders, but the cottagers in the country would get 

 increased earnings, would be more satisfied with their lot, and 

 would take greater interest in country life. I can well imagine, too, 

 that when the boys left school, went into the gardens, and watched 

 there the horticultural instructor giving his very practical lessons, 

 they would regard fruit-growing as a much more attractive business 

 than the production of ordinary crops, and might eventually be led 

 to say : ' Father, I think that if only I had a quarter or half an 



