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the furrow, rai generally speaking, to constitute a Cape orchard. So 
long as the owner had fruit for his own table during the season he was 
setisfied. The idea of growing fine choice fruits of named pedigree Wes 
in order to send them to market, attractively packed, so as to suit t 
dessert tables of well-to-do townsfolk who hed no gardens, never entered ; 
his mind. Do you want fruit of him? Then you must buy it as 
favour, and he would ‘spare it to you,’ and you come could nit 
expect to get it twice, much less regular ly through the se Yet he 
would take the money, showing that the commercial enue! was not 
de he wonder is that so few ever turned to with a will, and put into 
fruit-culture the labour, energy, and forethought that go to make a 
successful business. Things are a little better now. ‘There are a few 
men, three times as many as there used to ke, who now grow fruit to the 
perfection possible in this perfect climate, and all they send to market is 
eagerly bought up either for local ccnsumption among the higher classes 
or for export to England. but they may be counted on one's fingers, in 
place of being numbered by hundreds, aud scattered all over the country. 
Then you will say, With what is the ordinary market supplied? "Truly 
with fruit of the poorest Lada PR produet of seedlings instead of 
grafted trees—bastard refuse, without a name and without a single quality 
to recommend it. It looks as if it had grown itself, and this it mostly 
has. The ruling condition of the fruit, such as it i is, is worsened by utter 
ignorance of proper packing and transit. Much of it is shaken down and 
tumbled into old paraffin cases and jolted to market in a springless 
‘start a feforis , but there are several causes operating. in the o 
direction. ‘There are the antiquated conservative ways of the small 
farmer at the Cape, arising out of the comparative isolation in which he 
lives, and which only bas been broken in upon this last year or two by 
the establishment of fruit-growers’ petrol in their very midst, 
through which an effective interchange of ideas has been brought about, 
these excellent associations sprang up, mainly through ru em 
activity and personal influence, it was difficult to find a market garden 
who took in a garden periodical, or cared to learn what was done d in 
other countries, Another cause materially checking the desire to im- 
prove the output is the immense demand that exists for cheap coarse 
fruit and windfall rubbish among the coloured populace of Cape Town. 
To them, so that the fruit is dirt cheap, it does not matter how dirty it 
is, nor are they disgusted at seeing the same baskets which brought the 
fruit to town piled i up among the stable manure the cart takes back in 
the afternoon. In no other publie of fruit consumers is quality so little 
thought of, and hence the producer has been satisfied to grow crops 
from seedling trees which are only fit for MERC They sell somehow, 
so why should he trouble himself to produce a better article? How- 
ever, things are on the mend. It may be a long time before really 
ood or even middling fruit reaches the level of the street hawker, but 
He knows good fruit at sight if anyone does, and his determination to | 
have it grown clean, ripened exactly to the export point, gathe 
UNE See As d cele LESE 
CU SORE CTS eas S eS (ie Mae ERE oP EMINUS ERROR AAE 
