74 JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



Third Day, October 12, 1905 (Afternoon Conference). 



Subject — 



" DISTRIBUTION OF INFORMATION IN CONNECTION WITH 

 THE PROPOSED ESTABLISHMENT OF AN EXPERI- 

 MENTAL FRUIT FARM BY THE BOARD OF AGRI- 

 CULTURE, AND ITS POSSIBLE EXTENSION FOR 

 DEMONSTRATION OF COMMERCIAL FRUIT GROWING." 



Chairman — Colonel Long, M.P., President of the National Fruit 

 Growers' Federation. 



The Chairman, in opening the proceedings, said : I think that those 

 who have studied the programme which has been proposed for this three 

 days' conference, will have grasped the fact that one of the objects in 

 s?lecting the subjects has been to bring the various recommendations of 

 the Fruit Culture Committee before the growers, and to get an expression 

 of the practical views of practical men actual engaged in the trade. Now 

 this morning there were several references by different speakers to the 

 recommendations of that Committee. It is a well-known subject — that 

 of railway grievances — to all growers. This afternoon we have rather 

 a new subject to consider, and therefore I am going to read to you the 

 recommendations in regard to it. The Committee put it first because 

 they believed that such knowledge spread amongst the public — and the 

 light thrown upon the trade would be very valuable. They therefore sug- 

 gested : " That a special sub- department of the Board of Agriculture and 

 Fisheries be established to deal with matters connected with the fruit 

 industry. That there be two branches of such sub-department ; (a) a 

 Bureau of Information ; (b) an experimental fruit farm." I would rather 

 draw your attention to " (a) a Bureau of Information," because it might 

 appear scarcely to come under the head of what we are going to discuss 

 this afternoon. I think, as a matter of fact, it is a department which 

 would form a connecting link between the theoretical and the practical 

 man who lives in the country and carries on business on commercial 

 principles. 



The definition of what the Bureau of Information is to be is laid 

 down in the Committee report as follows : " The functions of the 

 Department would be twofold. It would, first of all, be a Bureau of 

 Information and an Intelligence Department, collecting and tabulating 

 facts and statistics relating to fruit cultivation in various parts of this 

 country and abroad, keeping closely in touch with the County Council 

 and other fruit stations, sending experts to visit plantations in the cou ntry, 

 and ready at all times to render assistance and to tender advice to growers." 

 These travelling experts, going into all the districts of the country, would 

 be in absolute touch with the really practical men engaged in the trade. 

 They would listen to the statements as to difficulties experienced ; they 

 would communicate with the bureau or experimental department, and it 

 would be for that experimental department to try to work out answers 



