414 FRUIT CULTURE FOR PROFIT. 



giving a good return to owners and occupiers, to form 

 them into orchards, even in questionable situations ; and, 

 on the other side, that England cannot compete with 

 foreigners in the open market on account of climate, 

 facilities of transport, and unlimited competition, seem 

 to me to be extreme views which will not bear the test 

 of sober investigation. 



For convenience in dealing with them, I will for the 

 moment call these extreme and opposing views optimistic 

 and pessimistic. The optimist is influenced in his opinions 

 by the fruitful orchards he meets with occasionally the 

 result of skilful culture ; the pessimist by the unfruitful 

 ones which unfortunately abound the result of ignorance 

 or neglect ; neither of them taking sufficient pains to 

 investigate the causes of these different aspects. The 

 " optimists " seem to think that fruit trees may be planted 

 with advantage almost indiscriminately throughout the 

 country ; the " pessimists " seem to think that it is of no 

 use for England to try to compete in the English market 

 with foreign countries. The " optimists," although skilful 

 dialectitians, seem to me to possess but a limited know- 

 ledge of the subject, so limited as not to know how much 

 remains beyond their ken, which if known would, I feel 

 sure, considerably modify their opinions. And further, 

 their knowledge seems to be derived more from books 

 than from the safer sources of observation and experience. 

 They perhaps read the gardening papers, and even write 

 for them occasionally, become members of some horti- 

 cultural society, and on the face of this announce them- 

 selves as experts when they are only novices. It is true 

 they offer some facts which have, at least in part, been 

 derived from the writings of experienced cultivators ; but 

 these facts are so skilfully incorporated with delusive 

 statements that their teaching is both misleading and 

 mischievous. Judging from the extraordinary gains which 

 they hold out as probable in the future, they do not seem 

 to know that there are already as keen, industrious, and 



