FEUIT-GROWING IN THE COLONIES. 



575 



about these "vagaries," but they know also something of how to 

 protect their orchards from them and how to minimize their evil effects. 



If soil and climate, then, have nothing, or sO' very little, to do 

 with the high state of efficiency to which frnit-growing as an industry 

 has been brought in overseas Britain, what are the main factors leading 

 to the achievement of such magnificent results ; what are the real 

 causes to which such signal success must be attributed? 



They are " The men and their methods." Man in community 

 has achieved these results; man collectively has done what man by 

 individual effort alone could not do. 



The inception, the advance, and the arrival to its present flourishing 

 condition of this colonial fruit industry is the outcome of combined 

 effort; of combination all along the Ime, from the orchards, thousands 

 of miles away from here, to the marketing of the crops of those orchards 

 here in our very midst. 



Community of interest has engendered community of action. Man, 

 the practical fruit-farmer, works in harmony with man, his practical 

 neighbour, knowing their interests to be identical ; man,_ the scientist, 

 is yoke-fellow with man, the practical; and man, the statesman and 

 official, sees to it that an industry which has such potentialities in the 

 scheme of the development of a young State, has every support which 

 wise protective legislation and official supervision can afford it. " Com- 

 munity of interest," then, is the motive power to this combined action, 

 and organization the means whereby this combined action achieves- its 

 ends. Out there, beyond seas, it is accepted without argument that 

 a man's interests are closely bound up with those of his fellow-men, 

 and that the prosperity of the individual is the only sure foundation for 

 the welfare of the State, and especially the prosperity of those who 

 spread themselves out upon the land and bring it under cultivation. 

 And upon these axioms they base their policy. 



No form of land cultivation lends itself more effectively to the 

 founding of the ** rural setlement " than fruit-farming. On a com- 

 paratively small holding the experienced fruit-farmer can make an 

 excellent livelihood. Thus many fruit- farmers are permitted to congre- 

 gate and carry on their business in close proximity, and that great bar 

 to effective combination, distance, is removed. Added to the business 

 advantage of this close settlement are the social advantages it affords — 

 a very important consideration indeed. The rural settlement is indeed 

 an all-powerful factor m the development of a young nation, as it is the 

 all-important — though not adequately acknowledged — factor in main- 

 taining racial vitality in older nations. Eecognizing this fact, the ad- 

 ministrators of the Governments of these young States — wise in their 

 \ political economy — encourage and foster the fruit industry in that it is 

 I so powerful a factor in the establishment of ' ' rural settlements " on a 

 \ firm basis. Fruit-growing is a craft which appeals to the intelligent 

 1 and industrious; intelligence and unflagging industry are essential to 

 I success in it, so the very class of settler most useful in nation- 

 I building is attracted to and kept upon the land. 



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