198 
of European fruit-growing, will naturally ask what conveniences already 
exist in the way of supply of orchard stock. Every practical man would 
hesitate to bring out with him a lot of grafted trees, selected as best he 
could, for a country he had not even seen, and of whose climate and soil 
he had rienee, But very recently there have been introduced 
into the Colony large numbers of the very best modern fruit-sorts of all 
kinds, by men who have themselves comete learned - capacity and 
conditions of the Cape as a fruit-growing country, and it is not too much 
to say iret by their industrious máltiplication of these picked kinds, the 
mark st-class orchard stuff is now amply supplied. There is no 
reason now for continuing the old system of seedlings, unless out of 
pure wrong-headedness and refusal to take up with improved methods. 
So friendly is the climate here to the skilled manipulations of € 
nurserym ae that first-class grafted yearlings can be obtained at price 
not great *tha os those ruling in England, and thoroughly reliable " 
pengi ock. To import for oneself on coming out to the Ca 
would certainly Taveive the loss of a season, to say nothing of difficulties 
in the way of immediately finding ground wherein to set out the con- 
signment. Immigrants of the kind one would so gladly see spreading 
Uilbséon over the best districts of the Colony, each with his market- 
orchard grown and tended in the way that means business and sound 
profits, would be wise not to start at once, but to spy out the try 
first for m md and for themselves see what our grapes of Eshcol 
are like, take stock of us and our little old-fashioned ways and con- 
servative habits 0 - Perl gf and then only, when the land was no longer 
, and t ss climatic eonditi have become familiar, to 
éxpiott their ea ware some selected fertile piece of land, and add to 
the wealth of their pen country by successfully adding to their 
* A brief memorandum like the present cannot by any means give all 
the information that an English fruit-grower would find useful when he 
is thinking of looking out for fresh fields and pastures new. It would be 
well to note carefully the details to be found in the Z//ustrated Handbook 
of the Cape. But perhaps the best idea of the way cultural matters go 
on here, and the peculiar conditions of Cape rural life, would be obtained 
by consulting the issues of the Cape Agricultural Journal, now in its 
ninth volume, At the basis of all calculations lies the fact that the 
Government, unlike those of Australia and New Zealand, have no 
available acreage out of which they can make free grants to new-comers, 
and this is simply because the Colony dates back some two centuries 
before the time when the sister Colonies began to be exploited by the 
intrusive European. All available land, at least within colonial 
bou ida; has long ago been taken u and is in private possession. 
d r tenancy at a moderate rent is —— a prime factor in all 
recasts of: new cultural ventures. Suitable land, even such as has never 
felt the plough, but is simply sat upon by the proprietor, and goes with 
his ure area, would sell at about 107. per morgen of two acres, 
provided it were within easy reach of a market by railway. The ren 
would perhaps be 10s. to 12s. per morgen. Mere wheatlands would 
unlimited scope, but its market is yet to be made. Also it is only near 
the larger centres of population in the south-west that labourers can be 
found who have even a small degree of skill in the ruder operations of 
cultural work, Coloured men, the descendants of the old slave popula- 
tion, with a considerable amount of miscegenation, can be relied npon to - 
