CONFERENCE ON FRUIT GROWING. 



95 



land would be a small item of the general expenditure. Experiments, 

 to be reliable, should not be on too small a scale. Trees or plants of one 

 variety have their individual differences. Again, if trees, bushes, or plants 

 are not given plenty of room, their roots are likely to intermingle and 

 experiments with manures at once upset. It would be of great advantage 

 if another fifty acres were taken and planted as a demonstration fruit 

 plantation, everything being worked on the most approved and up-to-date 

 principles. After a few years it would pay all expenses and might be 

 made an educational centre, and in any case would be of immense educa- 

 tional value. 



Experiments should not be too numerous, but should rather be as few 

 as practicable, and very carefully selected. Experiments with manures 

 and washes, and in planting, pruning, &c, would no doubt be leading ones. 

 Without attempting to indicate what experiments should be carried out, 

 I would suggest that the following might be considered : 



1. Different methods of cultivation, so as to arrive at the best and 

 most economic ones (manure trials are likely to be misleading if soil is 

 not properly worked). Implements, not only British, but foreign, should 

 be tested. I notice the disc harrow or cultivator is largely used in 

 American orchards, I believe it is hardly known in this country. 



2. Different types of spraying maehines should be carefully tested ; 

 many of those used are of too small capacity and power. 



3. Improvement of the best and most marketable existing varieties 

 of fruit, rather than adding to their numbers. I do not mean that this 

 should debar the testing of foreign varieties which have proved of excep- 

 tional merit. 



4. Testing stocks and varieties of trees, &c, not only as regards fruit- 

 bearing, but also as regards hardiness and power to resist disease. 



5. Testing of methods in general use. These tests should be as much 

 in accord with the general practices as possible. For example, in testing 

 apples grown with grass underneath against apples in cultivated land, 

 to my mind, to make the test complete, the grass should be grazed with 

 cake-fed sheep. 



6. Trials with different cover crops for green manuring or feeding off. 

 Cover crops are greatly in vogue in American orchards. 



7. Storage experiments and trials. We are very badly off in England 

 as regards really well-arranged stores ; and as regards cold storage of home- 

 grown fruit, practically nothing is done. Look at the advantages which 

 might be secured, in case of a period of glut, by the extension of the period 

 for selling some of the best varieties. Now we do not benefit from an 

 abundant harvest. 



We are recommended to grow larger quantities of a variety — though 

 some of us do grow more than ten bushels of a variety, the quantity 

 Mr. George Monro stated before the Departmental Committee he could 

 hardly get. If we grow a quantity of a variety, how are we to keep 

 the same on the market for weeks without cold storage ? 



If America had remained asleep on these questions, how could she 

 have developed her immense foreign fruit trade ? And they are still 

 experimenting, even now not content with the extent of our market which 

 they have already 4 "captured. 



