THE AGRICULTURAL JOURNAL. 



73 



Coast Fruit. 



AN INTErtVIEW WITH A GROWER. 



]?y "Er(; 



FROM Piiictown to Durban the rail- 

 way ])assengor &cos on either side 

 farm »fter farm of iiub-tropical fruit. 

 The farms are small, and possibly gardens 

 might be a more appropriate word. The 

 land is valuable, most of it with- 

 in a mile of the railway stations 

 being worth from £20 to £40 

 per acre. To get some information 

 about this important district, I made 

 emiuiries as to a good authority, and by 

 seveTal who should be competent to 

 judge, I was 7'ecommended to see Mr. 

 Vincent Seymour, of Malvern. Mr. Sey- 

 mour wrote, saying he would be pleased 

 to give me all the information I might 

 ask for. 



Mr. Sevmour comes from a family of 

 gardeners, one of his forbears having 

 devised the plan in the middle of the 

 eighteenth century of training fruit 

 trees on walls, and still known un- 

 der the name of " Seymour's 

 System of Wall Training": see 

 "Louden's Encyclopaedia of Garden- 

 ing." The land now occupied by Mr. 

 Vincent Seymour was purchased by his 

 father, the "late Mr. George Seymour, in 

 1881. Mr. George Seymour was one of 

 the very best gardeners who ever came 

 to Natal, and was seventy years of 

 age when he started at Malvern. 

 Mr. Seymour, sen., was head gar- 

 dener to the late Duke of St. Albans, 

 on his Lincolnshire estate. Ten years 

 before his father's death Mr. Vincent 

 Sevmour began fruit farming, under his 

 father's tuition ; prior to that he bad 

 been engaged mostly in mercantile pur- 

 suits. 



A few years ago Mr. Seymour pub- 

 lished a pamphlet, in which he showed 

 by actual experiment that, given reason- 

 able shipping facdities. a great trade 

 might be done in Goast fruits with Eng- 

 land. The facilities have not been con- 

 ceded, but what is perhaps full c<mipen^ 



TES." 



sation has come about. A trade of- great 

 proportions with the interior has been 

 established. 



" What are the fruits chiefly grown 

 here ? " 1 asked. 



"Pines and bananas. The growing of 

 these fruits is the most attractive to the 

 Indian, and the Indian is a large culfiva- 

 tor in these parts. For the most part 

 he is only a tenant ; he pays £1 or so per 

 acre per year, and tries to get the 

 quickest return possible. It is only the 

 white man who goes in for orchards, for 

 the rearing of trees means capital lying 

 dormant." 



"One pound per acre rent is ^appar- 

 ently tempting to landowners ? " 



"It is, but Avhether the policy is good 

 I doubt. The Indian takes all he can 

 out of the ground, growing altogether at 

 the same times bananas, ])eans, ground- 

 nuts, tobacco, round potatoes, mealies, 

 and so on. Rest is never given to the 

 soil, and nothing in the shape of manure 

 is ever returned to the land. Having 

 worn out one [dot of ground, he moves 

 on to pastures new, and continues his 

 former programme. As a reviver for ex- 

 hausted soils dholl is one of the most 

 effective things that can be grown on 

 the Coast lands. Some Indians are be- 

 ginning to buy outright. 'Bombay' mer- 

 chants' advance them the money. A 

 great many of the cottages dotted about 

 belong to' mechanics, and their owners 

 often do a little bit of fruit cultivation." 

 Bananas. 



"Bananas," said Mr. Seymour, 

 "require good soil; bush land if gettable. 

 In such soil they will last seven or eight 

 years with help, but in grass land they 

 will be of no use in three years. In 

 Durban County alone enough bananas 

 are grown to supply all South Africa, 

 but I doubt if vou wanted fifty cases 

 delivered to-dav ' von could get them, 

 owing to the last three vears of drought 



