FRUIT CULTURE. 



altered conditions of tenancy, and matters of this kind 

 have caused the farmer to stand still in this matter of 

 fruit culture; and Avhile he has been hesitating, a few 

 of the more adventurous ones,- with better opportunities, 

 have been going ahead. 



With the large increase of population and the pros- 

 perity of the people, the demand for fruit has enormously 

 increased, and how has it been met ? A comparatively 

 few keen, far-sighted cultivators have certainly risen to 

 the occasion, and have been providing for this demand by 

 planting and cultivating quantities of high-class fruit ; 

 but the supply has been altogether inadequate to the 

 demand. This has opened the way to our cousins across 

 the water ; and the American growers, and our own 

 colonists in Canada, have not been slow to seize the 

 opportunity of supplying our wants. 



Our own cultivators, or rather possessors of orchards 

 which have to a great extent been uncultivated, are in 

 the meantime crying out that they cannot sell the apples 

 that they already grow ; but the reason of this is not far 

 to seek. The apples sent to market from these orchards 

 will be found in most cases to be such a mixture that the 

 housewife can find amongst them any sort except the 

 ones she needs, and they appear to have had in gather- 

 ing the treatment by the farmer that Talpa recommended 

 him to give to his clods, in the old book " The Chronicles 

 of a Clay Farm " : 



" Mingle, mingle, mingle, all ye who mingle may, 

 Blue spirits and white, black spirits and grey." 



This treatment is all right for the clods, but all wrong 

 for the apples. 



The American orchardists have seen their opportunity, 

 and taken it. They have noted the requirements of our 



