THE COMMERCIAL ASPECT OF HARDY FRUIT GROWING. 813 
strange that a practical and energetic nation like the British 
should have permitted foreigners to step in and to a great 
extent monopolise their own markets with produce that can 
be grown better in every respect (except, perhaps, as regards 
colour) at home ; grown also at a good profit when cultivated on 
a proper system. I am confident that there is really little to 
fear from the foreigner in hardy fruit growing ; every year fruit 
grown by myself realises a higher price in the market than the 
choicest samples received from abroad, and the demand is so 
great that I have been unable to meet it. When we can do this 
without having any particular advantages as to soil, situation, 
or markets which are not possessed by hundreds of people in 
various parts of the country, there is no reason why they also 
should not obtain similar results, and make hardy fruit culture 
the success it really ought to be in the future. At the same 
time, it should be fully understood that the cultivation must be 
thorough, not simply sticking a tree in the soil and expecting 
it to grow and produce full crops every year without any further 
attention, but giving the very best treatment possible in pruning, 
manuring, fighting insect foes, and also to all other details that 
may be necessary to the welfare of the trees. 
Fruit Growees of the Future. 
There have been many so-called friends of the farmers who 
have advised them as a class to go in for fruit culture instead 
of corn growing, dairy farming, &c. ; but it must be patent to 
all who are acquainted with farmers that as a body they are 
at present utterly unfit for the work, as they have neither the 
requisite technical knowledge nor the training necessary to make 
the undertaking succeed. And if they started fruit growing, the 
chances are that they would make a miserable failure of it, and 
lose more money by it than by following that occupation to 
which they have been trained from their youth. 
The fruit grower of the future must be a man who has had a 
proper education in the work, a man of untiring energy and per- 
severance, with good business habits, and sufficient capital both 
to purchase his stock and also to wait until the trees arrive at a 
bearing state. Or, failing such men, capitalists could step in, 
buying the land and the stock, and employing a competent 
man to manage the business at a fixed annual salary, plus 
