APPENDIX 183 



orchards. The lecturer urged that landowners could do 

 nothing more profitable than plant fruit trees, for these 

 soon begin to pay a fair return upon the outlay, and 

 continue to increase in value until they attain a maxi- 

 mum, at which they will remain for many years. Fruit in 

 summer is at once wholesome and refreshing, and the 

 promotion of fruit culture would have a value even as 

 a temperance measure. The large sums paid for hardy 

 fruits, like those paid for foreign eggs and fowls, which 

 could be equally well and very profitably grown in this 

 country, are so much absolutely lost to the country. The 

 subject is one which we hope to see further ventilated 

 at agricultural and farmers' meetings, for it is one of 

 real and national importance.' 



SEEDLING PEAES 



I HAVE for many years consumed much fruitless time in 

 the painful and tedious process of watching and waiting 

 for the fruits of seedliag pears, whose fruition will con- 

 sume a good fifteen years of a man's life, hoping against 

 hope, as tree after tree was condemned to the axe ; but 

 that my reward would come in good time I never 

 doubted, and my perseverance has been rewarded by 

 the success of the ' Conference ' pear, which I submitted 

 to the severe and practical criticism of the Committee of 

 the National Pear Congress of October 1885, the name of 



