INTRODUCTION 3 



confidence ; we are not pursuing a chimera, but a commercially 

 sound proposition. 



It is open to us to believe that our Industry is now passing 

 through its most critical stage, and that soon some of the most 

 difficult of its problems will be solved. The scientific breeding 

 and selection of stocks ; the raising and introduction of yet further 

 improved varieties of our standard fruits ; the successful, because 

 unceasing, attacks by Science upon sundry diseases are already 

 showing good results and will tend to the alleviation of our diffi- 

 culties more and more. And, perhaps, we shall find that the careful 

 raising of young, vigorous stock, under well-considered conditions, 

 will not be among the least of those factors telling for progress ; 

 and if an undue proportion of the following pages are devoted to 

 this subject it is because it is the department on which our long 

 experience may be most profitably utilized. It is also a phase, a 

 very important phase, of the subject, less generally dealt with at 

 the numerous conferences that are held from time to time, as 

 though it was more fittingly conserved for the use and practice of 

 the nursery, rather than as a subject for elucidation and discussion 

 round the conference table. Not that we have any reason for 

 supposing that it is so of set purpose, but it happens that the other 

 end of the business is one which, very naturally, is the more 

 attractive and appeals to a far greater number of people. 



Let us admit that the raising and growing of young trees is a 

 matter more for the schoolroom and the student rather than for 

 the man who is interested in market growing, that does not detract 

 from its value and place in the complete scheme, and it would 

 perhaps be an all-round gain to the profession if every fruit-grower 

 knew all that it is possible to know about his trees, from the time 

 they were planted as stocks, on through their budding, their maiden- 

 hood, their making, up till the time when they had reached their 

 highest perfections and were heavily laden with golden fruit. 



Is it unreasonable to suggest that this closer and more intimate 

 knowledge of the life history of his trees, this more complete 

 experience, might prove of great practical value in their after cultiva- 

 tion, and that its possessor would, other things being equal, be the 

 more enlightened grower ? And is there any reason why a fruit- 

 grower, with his eye to extension, should be dependent upon others 



