EXHIBITION OF COLONIAL-GKOWN FKUITS. 



ccvii 



I think it must be a very considerable advantage to the Colonies that 

 the friendly rivalry which is established here should continue. They 

 perceive what their neighbours are doing ; and we perceive what they are 

 doing. And altogether the standard of quality which fruit can possess is 

 growing gradually higher and higher. We in this country I believe, are 

 not altogether without ground of complaint about our climate. This year 

 beyond all recent years the climatic conditions have been most trying to 

 the ripening of outdoor fruits. Of course we know that the climate of 

 North America, although severe on the whole in winter, lends itself 

 admirably, on account of its brilliant and protracted fine-weather 

 summers, to the growth of fruit. The method of collecting, grading, and 

 picking fruit has been brought so much towards perfection that the fruit 

 arrives here as fresh as on the day when it left the orchard where it was 

 grown. 



The feeling that we have in the Royal Horticultural Society is that 

 whatever we can do — and after all it depends largely upon the efforts of 

 the Colonies themselves — to promote the advance of cultivation and the 

 methods of treatment in the Colonies is a work of love with us. We 

 have done all we can and we shall continue to do all we can. I am quite 

 certain that the feeling of love for our Colonies, which dwells I believe in 

 the hearts of all Englishmen, will, so far as the Society is concerned, find 

 an ample echo in the Colonies. We know how much we owe to the 

 Colonies ; and we shall be anxious, as far as our Society is concerned, to 

 do what little we can to repay them. With your permission, I will now 

 ask Her Royal Highness to honour us by declaring the show open. 



Her Royal Highness then declared the show open. 



The Duke of Argyll said : Ladies and Gentlemen, — Her Royal Highness 

 and I are much obliged to you for giving us an opportunity of seeing the 

 show before speaking of it on this platform. We shall all be agreed, I am 

 sure, that it is a great thing to have ample space for so many exhibits. 

 The last time we went to a show of Colonial Fruit it was held at the 

 Imperial Institute, where the space is hardly large enough and the exhibits 

 were necessarily rather crowded. Thanks to your Society, there is here 

 ample scope to see all the various exhibits at one's ease ; and those who 

 are in attendance upon them are able to explain all about them. Whether 

 they come from the old country, or from the other end of the world — 

 whether from Tiptree or Taranaki, they are equally useful and good. 



With regard to our Colonies in the Southern Hemisphere, of course cold 

 storage makes the transit of fruit a comparatively easy matter. I was 

 told by a friend yesterday, who was enthusiastic about Colonial fruit, that 

 one of the shippers had said to him : " If you will pay me 12s. 6d. or 13s. 

 a week, I will provide as much fruit as you can possibly want to 

 entertain your friends every week." So the old country must look to its 

 laurels. 



I am sure none of us regret the rivalry of our Colonies ; the more 

 they can send us in the way of food the better for both ; and that is what 

 we want to convince people of here, that the Colonies have plenty of food 

 to send us and are wanting to send it. 



With regard to the Northern Colonies, we see even in Manitoba, 



