PRACTICAL ORCHARD-WORK AT THE CAPE. 



The Artificial Character of Modern Fruit Trees. 



1. Cultivation implies, first, a previous knowledge of the 

 nature and constitution of the living being we propose to 

 care for, and secondly, a previous knowledge of the soil and 

 atmosphere in which it holds its dual life. It is only by 

 such preknowledge that the cultivator can suit the condi- 

 tions of growth to the wants of the thing to be grown, and 

 thus place it in the best possible position for fulfilling the 

 history of its life. Nothing short of this work, done of set 

 purpose and as the outcome of exact knowledge, can be 

 called cultivation. 



2. But it is something more than this. It is not enough 

 to reproduce plants in the precise form in which they exist 

 in nature. Firstly, the cultivator, for his own benefit, 

 aims at guiding and controlling the growth of certain plants 

 so as to make them develop very differently from their 

 normal original condition. Thus in one plant he endeavours 

 to obtain seeds of large size and bland taste, in another the 

 effort is to do away with seeds as far as possible and pro- 

 duce a large succulent fruit, in others, shortening of the 

 axial growth, and great enlargement of the leaves is aimed 

 at, The plant then with certain limits is, like clay in the 

 hands of the potter, capable of being remodelled, by causing 

 this or that organ to take on an excessive and unusual 

 development, without at the same time interfering with the 

 balance of functions necessary for its general health. This 

 complex art is one great part of cultivation. To practice it 

 with success obviously demands something more than the 

 loose, popular notions of plant-life, which are picked up 

 without special study or thought, or come by imitating the 

 traditional methods of our neighbours. 



3: Secondly. For many hundreds of years a close watch 

 has been kept upon the seedlings arising in the reproduc- 

 tion of all cultivated plants. Whenever a sport or other 

 chance variation has ' appeared, presenting characters of a 



