Surveyors' Institution on " Fruit-giowing 

 as an Auxiliary to Agriculture," I said 

 that '■ fruit-growing requires a larger 

 working capital than ordinary agricul- 

 ture. If £10 per acre is needed for agri- 

 cultural land, probably £15 to £20 will be 

 required for fully-grown fruit trees and 

 bushes on arable land. For new land more 

 capital is necessary, first, to plant the 

 land, secondly, to maintain it till it yields 

 sufficient to pay expenditure. This latter 

 point is one of great importance, as while 

 in ordinary farming one gets payment 

 during each year for what is grown, in 

 the case of newly-planted fruit trees and 

 bushes one has to wait a considerable time 

 before a profitable return commences. 

 Strawberries and raspberries are the first 



lack of which was the great drawback to 

 all ventures, he thought I had somewhat 

 under-estimated this. He found that on 

 plantations in full bearing it took £20 to 

 £25 to cover labour, picking, manure, rent, 

 rates and taxes, marketing, interest on 

 capital, and a proportionate amount of 

 capital to be written off each year, and he 

 thought that at least £30 an acre was 

 required to take a fully-planted fruit farm 

 in full bearing, especially as there was 

 always a chance of one or two successive 

 bad seasons to start with. 



" He estimated the cost of planting a 

 mixed plantation (i.e., half standard or 

 standard trees, apples, plums, or cher- 

 ries, with bush fruit below) at £24 per 

 acre, provided the land was clean, and 



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crops that become remunerative, the 

 former in their second year after jlanting, 

 the latter in their third. Gooseberries, 

 black and red currants, require four or 

 five years before they yield satisfactorily. 

 Plums, nuts, apples, cherries and pears, 

 need longer still : for some of them as 

 much as ten years are required before 

 they can be really called profitable. 

 Hence it is necessary to have capital to 

 meet the expenses of rent, labour, 

 manure, taxes, rates, etc., until the crops 

 return a profit ; and it is therefore not 

 advisable to plant too large an area unless 

 there is ample capital." 



In the discussion that followed my 

 paper, Mr. C. D. Wise (who for twelve 

 years had managed the Toddington fruit 

 farm of about 1,000 acres established by 

 Lord Sudeley) made a number of interest- 

 ing remarks on the subject of fruit farm- 

 ing He said: " In reference to capital, 



exclusive of the cost of wire netting, which 

 was necessary where hares and rabbits 

 abounded, and also exclusive of anything 

 which might be due for cultivation, corn 

 and cake, etc., to an outgoing tenant. A 

 man who took bare land and planted it 

 with fruit would require at least £80 per 

 acre for caoital. 



" He would never advise persons, if 

 they could help it, to plant fruit with bor- 

 rowed capital ; the interest would hang 

 like a load round the neck of the business. 

 It was much better to begin by planting 

 a small area and to feel one's way 

 gradually. 



" Fruit srownig was a business and a 

 science, and it was only by experience, 

 and in many cases by loss of capital, that 

 men who embarked rashly in the business 

 found this out. As in the case of all trades 

 an apprenticeship must be gone through. 



"A tenant could only hope for success 



