488 



Competition in Apple Growing. [oct., 



apples and to all but the early dessert varieties. Such a limited 

 application of the advice mentioned above, however, would 

 not satisfy the fruit growers' critics> and it seems worth while 

 to consider whether its fuller adoption would be advisable. 



There are several reasons for the sale of apples direct from 

 the trees. In the first place, not one grower in twenty, and 

 probably not one in fifty, has a properly constructed fruit 

 chamber, and no one who understands the subject would 

 recommend storing for months in any other place. This 

 reason, however, would not prevent storing if it were likely 

 to prove remunerative, one year with another, as the expense 

 of erecting a fruit room proportionate in size to the apple 

 orchard is small. Secondly, there is much economy in 

 labour when fruit is marketed direct from the trees ; and, 

 thirdly, there is the still more important saving of losses 

 from shrinkage of weight and rotting. But the governing 

 reason for the practice of selling direct from the trees is 

 the impression that, except for choice dessert apples, it is 

 advisable for British growers to sell their fruit before the 

 supplies from the United States and Canada reach our markets 

 in considerable bulk. In other words, rightly or wrongly, the 

 great majority of our fruit growers are of opinion that it would 

 not pay them to incur the expense and loss of storing culinary 

 apples in order to compete with growers on the other side of 

 the Atlantic. There is other competition it is true, but the 

 supplies from the Continent of Europe are insignificant in com- 

 parison with the imports from the United States and Canada ; 

 and, as for the receipts from Australia and Tasmania, they do 

 not arrive until nearly all home-grown apples are out of season. 

 Our average annual imports in the last five years have been, 

 in round figures, 3,634,000 cwts ; and about eight-tenths of 

 this quantity have come from the United States and Canada, 

 one-tenth from Australasia, and the remaining tenth from the 

 Continent of Europe and the Channel Islands. Seeing that 

 the Australasian supply does not directly compete with home 

 produce, it is clear that the competition of American and 

 Canadian growers is the only consideration to be taken into 

 account. 



Now the prices of American and Canadian apples vary con- 

 siderably in different seasons ; but, except in years of very 



