excellence. Look at the original stock of our best European fruits, 
compare the sour crabapple with the Ribston pippin, the little wild 
cherries and pears, with the juicy white-hearts, and large luscious 
pears. How have these changes been brought about? Not by 
planting them in gardens and manuring them, but by the competi- 
tion of the consumer. For many centuries the natives of Europe 
have taken the trouble to get the best fruit in the market, and 
planted the seeds of the finest, taking a pride in having the best 
possible fruits on their tables, and by so doing making it worth 
while for the gardeners to spend much money in selecting improved 
varieties. But where as too often in the East the consumer thinks 
more of the little extra price he has to pay for good fruit, than of 
the importance of getting the best in the market to show on his 
table, it is not worth while for the fruit-grower to select his trees, 
as he gets just as much money for inferior fruit as for first class 
fruit The demand for instance for Mauritius pines as opposed to 
field pines by a few fruit eaters will not produce a large supply of 
these, as long as the greater part of the population demand a 
cheap and bad article. 
To develop a fruit by selection requires a very large demand for 
the fruit itself, as well as a large number of purchasers who will 
pay more for a good article. In countries where this occuis the 
development of the fruit is much marked, witness the evolution of 
the banana from the small stony fruit of the wild plantain of our 
forests. The potentiality for development of our tropical fruits 
is limitless, the original* wild fruits being far superior to anything 
in the temperate regions. There are numberless fruits in our 
forests far more worth eating than the crab-apple and the sloe, 
and which are hardly even eaten by the Sakais which in colder 
climates with fewer good fruits would have long ago been de- 
veloped into good eating fruits. 
There is another great difficulty in developing our fruits, which 
consists in the fact that they are mostly produced by large and 
slow growing trees. The European colonist who only lives a short 
time in the East, and would be the best selector of good fruit, 
holds the tenure of his land only for the few years he remains in the 
East, whereas in Europe the land would descend from generation 
to generation giving time for experiment and selection of the best 
kinds. What selection and improvement has been done in the 
east has been done by natives, and especially by the half castes 
who have resided for generations in the same spot. 1 h«- Bamana 
native of the East Indies, now cultivated all over the tropics of 
both hemispheres, being a quick growing plant, the fruit of which 
is in enormous demand has been almost entirely developed by 
natives, the result being the great variety of forms now known all 
over the world. The demand for the European and American 
markets is now increasing to such an extent that we niay expect 
to see concomitantly new developments in size, and flavour, due 
to selection for the European’s tastes. Although a great portion ot 
the Malay Peninsula has been opened up for sometime and occupied 
by planters and other Europeans, all or nearly all occupying or 
