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excellence. Look at the original stock of our best European fruits, 

 compare the sour crabapple with the Ribston pippin, the little wild 

 cherries and pears, with the juicy white-hearts, and large luscious 

 pears. How have these changes been brought about ? Not by 

 planting them in gardens and manuring them, but by the competi- 

 tion of the consumer. For many centuries the natives of Europe 

 have taken the trouble to s^et the best fruit in the market, and 

 planted the seeds of the finest, taking a pride in having the best 

 possible fruits on their tables, and by so doing making it worth 

 while for the gardeners to spend much money in selecting improved 

 varieties. But where as too often in the East the consumer thinks 

 more of the little extra price he has to pay for good fruit, than of 

 the importance of getting the best in the market to show on his 

 table, it is not worth while for the fruit-grower to select his trees, 

 as he gets just as much money for inferior lruit as for first class 

 fruit The demand for instance for Mauritius pines as opposed to 

 field pines by a few fruit eaters will not produce a large supply of 

 these, as long as the greater part of the population demand a 

 cheap and bad article. 



To develop a fruit by selection requires a very large demand for 

 the fruit itself, as well as a large number of purchasers who \vill 

 pay more for a good article. In countries where this occurs the 

 development of the fruit is much marked, witness the evolution of 

 the banana from the small stony fruit of the wild plantain of our 

 forests. The potentiality for development of our tropical fruits 

 is limitless, the original wild fruits being far superior to anything 

 in the temperate regions. There are numberless fruits in our 

 forests far more worth eating than the crab-apple and the sloe, 

 and which are hardly even eaten by the Sakais which in colder 

 climates with fewer good fruits would have long ago been de- 

 veloped into good eating fruits. 



There is another great difficulty in developing our fruits, which 

 consists in the fact that they are mostly produced by large and 

 slow growing trees. The European colonist who only lives a short 

 time in the East, and would be the best selector of good fruit, 

 holds the tenure of his land only for the few years he remains in the 

 East, whereas in Europe the land would descend from generation 

 to generation giving time for experiment and selection of the best 

 kinds. What selection and improvement has been done in the 

 east has been done by natives, and especially by the half castes 

 who have resided for generations in the same spot. The Banana 

 native of the East Indies, now cultivated all over the tropics of 

 both hemispheres, being a quick growing plant, the fruit of which 

 is in enormous demand has been almost entirely developed by 

 natives, the result being the great variety of forms now known all 

 over the world. The demand for the European and American 

 markets is now increasing to such an extent that we may expect 

 to see concomitantly new developments in size, and flavour, due 

 to selection for the European's tastes. Although a great portion of 

 the Malay Peninsula has been opened up for sometime and occupied 

 by planters and other Europeans, all or nearly all orcupying or 



