94 



JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



tliat topic I have very decided views, and few persons, I believe, 

 have given more tlionglit to it. Still, as my object is to elicit 

 discussion rather than to air my own opinions, I shall be as brief 

 as possible in my remarks. 



Cultivators of the soil are constantly being told that they 

 should grow more fruit. Ordinary farming does not pay, and is 

 not likely to pay, it is contended, and farmers should turn their 

 attention to the production of vegetables and fruit. Now, there 

 is no reason to fear that too many farmers will take that advice, 

 the rank and file of the class being very slow to make any im- 

 portant changes in their routine. It is obvious that if even a 

 twentieth part of the land of the United Kingdom were devoted 

 to the growth of culinary vegetables and fruit, the market would 

 be glutted, unless the nation were converted to Vegetarianism. 

 But, as I have said, there is no reason to fear that too many 

 farmers will become market gardeners and fruit-growers, and 

 there will be all the less reason to expect this, as I believe a turn 

 in the tide of ordinary farming as a business has set in — whether 

 for a long or for a short period it would be rash to predict. The 

 fear is — to confine myself to fruit-growing — that, in spite of the 

 " boom " which appears to have been started in that industry, its 

 development will be slower than is desirable. There are many 

 reasons why it should be so. Enough has been said in recent 

 years, and said over and over again, to prove that it is desirable to 

 grow more fruit, and especially more choice apples and pears, in this 

 country. The question is. How to do it ? Now, in my opinion, 

 Mr. Elvers, in his speech as chairman of the Fruit Growers' 

 Conference held the other day in the Crystal Palace, went the 

 right way to w^ork to show how not to do it. Alluding to the 

 obstacles to fruit-growing, he is reported to have said that land- 

 lords, land laws, railway rates, and middlemen have nothing to 

 do with them. A more astounding assertion I have seldom read. 

 In my opinion, they have pretty well all to do with them. It is 

 our land laws which render fruit -planting an unsafe speculation, 

 and high railway rates and a bad system of distribution (the 

 middleman element) which render fruit-growing less profitable 

 than it should be. I think my friend Mr. Albert Bath was on 

 the right tack in the paper which he read at the first Crystal Palace 

 Conference, and not Mr. Elvers, who declared ignorance to be the 

 fundamental hindrance to extended fruit culture. No one is a 

 more earnest advocate of agricultural and horticultural education 

 than I am, and no one is less disposed to say anything to under- 

 rate the advantages of either branch of instruction. But, in my 

 opinion, for one cultivator of the soil prevented from growing 

 fruit by ignorance, there are twenty who are deterred from lack 

 of security to capital invested in planting, high railway rates, 

 which render it unprofitable to grow anything except high-priced 

 early produce if it has to go a long distance by rail, and our 



