EEPOET OF THE APPLE AND PEAR CONFERENCE. 



95 



abominable wSystem of distribution, whicli gives more profit to the 

 middleman for a day's, or sometimes for an hour's, work in hand- 

 ing fruit on to customers, than to the producer who spends a 

 year in growing it. 



Eeturning to the question, How is fruit-growing to be in- 

 creased? I must pass by, as beyond the range of my subject, all 

 details relating to such obstacles as high railway charges and the 

 middleman's undue share in the amount paid by consumers 

 for fruit. In considering how to answer the question asked, 

 another at once crops up— Who is to plant ? Now, our land laws 

 are directly opposed to planting, as far as they go. By encourag- 

 ing limited ownership through the settlement of estates they 

 render it disadvantageous to most landowners to plant, because 

 the limited owners, who form the great majority of the landlord 

 class, by sinking their capital in orchard planting, would reap 

 only a transitory benefit themselves, and that only if they lived 

 several years, while they would enrich the already too highly- 

 favoured heirs to their lands at the expense of their younger chil- 

 dren or other relatives. For reasons which it would take me very 

 wide of my mark to-day to state, I am not in favour of increasing 

 the powers and privileges of the owners of land by making 

 them absolute owners, and I allude to limited ownership merely 

 to show that under it there is no reason to expect extensive 

 orchard planting by landlords. We come now to the tenants, 

 and are thus brought within the precise confines of the subject 

 of this paper. 



Mr. Eivers appears to argue that the land laws have nothing 

 to do with the indisposition of cultivators to plant fruit, because 

 in suitable situations and under proper management fruit-plant- 

 ing will pay with laws and rents as they are. No doubt it will, 

 provided that the planter has a long lease and lives long enough 

 to reap the fruits of his enterprise, or if — and this is a very large 

 " if" — he can induce his landlord to consent to the planting, so 

 that he will be entitled to compensation under the Agricultural 

 Holdings Act, or to arrange otherwise to compensate him or his 

 heirs when he quits his holding or dies. These " ifs " and " ors," 

 however, are shadowy particles, and a substantial and disagree- 

 able "but" nearly always comes in to put them to flight. 

 Without the consent of the landlord in writing, the law fails to 

 afford the fruit-planter, whether he be a large farmer or an allot- 

 ment holder, a halfpenny of compensation for capital sunk in 

 the planting of fruit ; and I doubt whether that consent can be 

 obtained by one out of a hundred tenants. The tenant, then, has 

 no legal security for fruit-planting, and if he plants without 

 security, he incurs a very serious risk. It may be contended, 

 perhaps, that a long lease affords sufficient security ; but that I 

 entirely dispute, because a man may die before he has reaped any 

 benefit from his expenditure, and it may be inconvenient for his 



