New Modes of Disposing of Fruit and Vegetables. 593 
for imported bottled and dried fruits alone, on which a duty of 3s. 
per dozen of canned fruit, and 2d. per lb. of the dried was paid, 
sufficiently attests the thoroughness of the colonial appetite for pre- 
served fruits. Nothing is truer than this, however, that the demand 
for fruits — preserved and green — can be almost indefinitely increased. 
The appetite grows on what it feeds on. Make fruits cheap as they 
can be made in Queensland, and the present extraordinary con- 
sumption in the colony of meat, cheese, and tea, to say nothing of 
alcoholic beverages, will give place in great degree to the much more 
healthful and palatable products of orchard and garden.” This has 
been remarkably exemplified in Great Britain. With the extension 
of fruit cultivation in the country, there has been an astonishing 
increase in the appreciation of it and in the demand for it, par- 
ticularly in the form of jam, which has now become a feature of the 
“ breakfast- table,” and is rapidly becoming an indispensable adjunct 
to the homely fare of the working classes, who cannot afford good 
butter, and object, not unnaturally, to margarine. 
Mr. Shelton advises Queensland farmers to plant fruit trees and 
to grow vegetables. He remarks that the truth is, that an orchard, 
not necessarily set out on a commercial scale, is always profitable, 
and usually the most profitable part of the farm. “ The orchard adds 
to the value of every acre of the fann on which it is located. Let 
every colonial farmer plant fruit trees without delay to produce 
