453 



Another Danger. 



There is another danger of the boom in prices, and 

 that is perhaps aggravated by the climate in which Ave have 

 to live. It is this — that men who find money coming in so 

 easily may be in danger of getting a little slack, and less 

 careful in their husbandry. If there is one industry more 

 than another which calls for continuous hard work, obser- 

 vation and application, and the best intelligence that men 

 can bring to bear upon it, it is the planting industry. A 

 man finds that the returns from his trees are so good that 

 if a tree drops out from some cause here or there he says 

 to himself that he will not bother about it — he is getting 

 eight shillings a pound, he has thousands more trees and 

 what does it matter? The difficulty is that the one tree may 

 matter a great deal. The destruction of that one may re- 

 veal, after careful observation, the causes at work that 

 would bring about the death of many more trees. The 

 Government has provided experts, but after all these gentle- 

 men are limited in their observations, because they are not 

 able to observe details of soils, situations, rainfalls, and 

 many other conditions which affect agricultural products. 



Grave Peril. 



If all this work is to be left to the Government's scien- 

 tific observers, I am afraid that the future of the industry 

 is really in grave peril, because the essence of the industry 

 is that it starts with a most violent interference with the 

 ordinary course of nature. It is the essence of the industry 

 that those engaged in it should be constantly watchful of 

 the health of the plants from which they expect to get their 

 returns. The opportunities which the Government obser- 

 vers have are limited in every direction, and unless those 

 who are in contact with the production throughout the 

 whole country are on the watch, and ready to call attention 

 to anything unusual, I am afraid that the little the Govern- 

 ment observers can do will not be of very much avail. I 

 think that not only should we expect, but we have right to 

 expect , that planters should themselves constantly observe 

 what is going on in their plantations. I think it is in the 

 interest of those on the other side, who are deriving hand- 

 some incomes from the produce, that they should devote 

 some part of these large dividends to safeguarding the 

 future of the industry. 



