HOW TO GROW FRUIT. 
709 
When the soil and climate grow such fruit as prunes and apricots 
to perfection, grow prunes and apricots. Where late apples of fine 
quality and good keepers grow, by all means grow late apples ; and 
where citrus fruits grow to perfection, grow citrus fruits. Don’t try 
and grow oranges where you should grow apples, or prunes and 
apricots where you should grow oranges — it won’t pay; just stick to 
what your soil and climate will grow best. There is more money in 
that than in trying to grow fruits under unsuitable conditions. 
When planting an orchard, don’t plant fruit that is only valuable 
for consuming fresh, unless it possess special qualifications, such as 
earliness or good shipping qualities, as when the supply is in excess 
of the demaud the excess cannot be profitably absorbed by canning, 
drying, jam-making, or otherwise, and as a consequence the market 
becomes glutted and prices fall to such an extent that the fruit cannot 
be produced for the price it realises. 
Plant fruits that, in addition to being of first-class quality fresh, 
are also valuable for canning, drying, or jam-making, so that should 
one market fail there are others to fall back upon, and you will thus 
have several outlets for your fruit in the place of the one which is 
now so easily overdone. 
HOW TO LOOK AFTER AN ORCHARD. 
1 stated, when speaking about preparing the soil for an orchard, 
that it was far better to do one acre well than two acres badly, and in 
managing an orchard this is equally true. Never handle more than 
you can manage, but whatever quantity you work let it be done 
thoroughly. There is no branch of agronomy that requires more 
careful or thorough work than that of fruit-growing; neither is there 
any branch that will pay better for extra care and thorough attention. 
Rest assured that, if fruit-growing will not pay with thorough attention 
and cultivation, it most certainly will not pay with neglect. Therefore 
I say to all those who may think of going in for fruit-growing that, 
unless you make up your mind to go in for it thoroughly — which is 
the only way to grow high-class fruit, which alone will pay — you had 
better leave fruit-growing alone, and lake up some easier business. 
Don’t run away with the idea that all you have to do is to dig a hole 
in the ground, stick a tree in, and that it will want no further attention, 
or that when a tree has come into bearing all you have to do is to 
gather the fruit and send it to market. If you do you will, in the 
words of our American cousins, tc be badly left,” and will come to the 
conclusion that fruit-growing is not by any means the simple and easy 
business you thought it was. 
If an orchard is expected to pay it must be properly looked 
after, and to do this it is necessary in the first place to keep the 
land in the highest state of cultivation. The land must be well and 
deeply worked, not scratched, and every weed must be eradicated. 
No man can afford to grow weeds and fruit in the same ground, 
as every weed is robbing the trees either of moisture or plant food 
which are required by the trees to properly develop their crop. 
Thorough cultivation is also the best and only satisfactory method by 
which moisture may be retained in the soil ; therefore it is of the first 
importance in our drier districts. Plough the orchard during the 
2 x 
