412 FRUIT GROWING. 



in the first rank, and are less particular as to climate and 

 soil than Pears and Cherries. Of the smaller fruits. 

 Strawberries, Raspberries, Gooseberries, and Currants 

 are the most important. Of fruits requiring glass, 

 Grapes and Peaches are likely to pay best. Supposing 

 young trees to be planted, which, looking to the future, 

 I should recommend, it will be five years at the least 

 with the larger fruits, and two years with the smaller fruits 

 before a profit on the undertaking can be looked for. 

 If the labourer is induced to engage in this work, how is 

 he to live during these five or even two years ? He 

 could not, I apprehend, borrow money from any existing 

 institution on such an investment as this, although I can 

 conceive it possible to found an institution that might 

 safely occupy this new ground, and I commend the 

 thought to the consideration of capitalists who may be 

 willing to help the labourer in this way. But to make 

 the enterprise a success, they ought also to choose his 

 ground, choose his sorts, and instruct him in the details 

 of cultivation, gathering, and marketing. Without this 

 additional aid he would probably fail. There is no 

 greater fallacy than to suppose that anyone could make 

 a fruit farm pay ; there are as good grounds for sup- 

 posing that anyone could make an hotel or a place of 

 amusement pay. Special knowledge is as necessary in 

 the one case as in the other. It has always appeared to 

 me that our landowners should be our fruit growers, as 

 far at least as regards the making of fruit farms, which 

 must be afterwards let on terms that would bring them 

 a fair return for outlay of capital, &c., and find profitable 

 occupation to both farmer and labourer. 



I will not occupy your valuable space with further 

 details, as the paper I recently read " On Fruit Growing 

 for Profit" at the Fruit Conference of the Royal Horti- 

 cultural Society was noticed in "The Times," and printed 

 almost verbatim in "The Journal of Horticulture" and other 

 gardening papers. 



