May 18, 1893. ] 
JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 
387 
N OTWITHSTANDING- it has ever been the policy of this 
Journal to preserve for itself the character of being eminently 
practical, there have nevertheless been occasions when it has not 
hesitated to admit matter of a more general and descriptive nature 
did it appear likely that this might indirectly conduce to the 
welfare of its readers. Emigration is a question which nowadays 
touches the interests of persons of every class more nearly than it 
used. Partly on account of the increase of population in these 
Islands, partly on account of the greater facilities of travel, and 
chiefly, perhaps, on account of the wide-spread diffusion of infor¬ 
mation through the Press, the eyes of dwellers in even retired 
districts turn without any of the old-fashioned feeling of dread in 
the direction of regions half-way across the globe. 
When one thinks of the reluctance with which emigration was 
regarded until within the last thirty years by the mass of the 
inhabitants of Great Britain, it is difficult to understand how the 
British race has become so widely extended as we see it now. The 
Irish Potato famine certainly acted as a drastic measure for promoting 
emigration from the sister isle. Previously to that visitation the 
area of Greater Britain was extended mainly by haphazard recruit¬ 
ment from the country districts of England and Scotland. Rest¬ 
lessness or necessity drove individual units abroad, and these, by 
their private reports, drew their friends and relatives after them. 
For the last fifty years, however, the Press, either in the form 
of books of travel or of newspapers, has been the main instigator 
of emigration. A large accession to the ranks of American 
emigrants, too, may reasonably be attributed to the songs of Henry 
Russell and the novels of Mayne Reid. Now, as we may see in any 
perusal of a daily paper, the incitements to quit the home of one’s 
birth abound, and it is often a difficult matter for an intending 
emigrant to decide upon a destination in the face of the various 
and glowing pictures held out by competing syndicates and colonial 
governments. Inasmuch as there is a general conspiracy on the 
part of the promoters to procure population at all costs, successful 
speculation in sparsely peopled land being impossible, it often 
happens that emigrants are misled by unscrupulous misrepresenta¬ 
tions, to their disappointment or absolute undoing. 
It cannot be denied that, despite the prosperity of these islands, 
the conditions of life are rapidly altering and making the existence 
of a large rural population impossible. The industrial stage of 
social development is opposed to small holdings, and the more 
England becomes the industrial and commercial centre of the 
world, the more futile will the efforts to restore the class of small 
cultivators appear. Economical tendencies are all the other way. 
There are, however, two portions of the globe in which the small 
cultivator seems destined to enjoy an exceptional future, and these 
are New 2iealand and California. In some measure the same may 
be said of Tasmania and parts of Australia, though scarcely in so 
great a degree. As it is possible that there are among our readers 
many young men associated with gardening and fruit culture who 
are contemplating emigration, it has occurred to the writer that the 
experience of some twelve years spent in California and the 
Australasian colonies might not be unprofitably communicated. It 
must, however, be stated that in penning these notes the writer 
desires to repudiate all intention of exciting false hopes. 
Emigration is a lottery, and it is well to set out with moderate 
No. 673.—VoL. XXVI., Third Series. 
expectations, or even the mere expectation of earning a comfort¬ 
able subsistence in lands of genial climate and easy social condi¬ 
tions, than with visions of shaking the Pagoda Tree or “ striking ’* 
a Comstock lode. Now, as aforetimes, there are fortunate excep¬ 
tions in the ranks of emigrants whose luck is blazoned as a mis¬ 
leading beacon ; but these serve only to prove the rule that to the 
vast majority emigration means nothing miraculous in the way of 
success. To the unmoneyed man it means expatriation for life, as 
few persons going without capital become speedily rich ; and by 
the time competency has so crowned the settler’s efforts as t® 
enable him to revisit his native land the old folks have passed 
away, and a young generation has arisen to whom Joseph is un¬ 
known and not particularly interesting. But there is consolation; 
for as soon as the novelty of sightseeing here is exhausted the 
emigrant longs to be off to his new — his only home, again, 
where lie the true hearts , and the more congenial surroundings 
which, unbeknown to himself, have become essential to his happi¬ 
ness. The sentiment for “ Old England,” or “ Home ” as it is 
always called wherever the English Flag waves, is still very strong, 
and extends to colonists who long in vain from childhood to old 
age for a glimpse of the Mother of Nations ; but the conditions of 
life are too restrained here to be long palatable to any but those 
who have left England after their minds have been thoroughly 
moulded. 
The first effect of opening up the new lands of America and 
Australia was to show their enormous capacities for the prodiictiom 
of wheat and live stock, and there began the development of com¬ 
munities based upon pastoralism and a wasteful and primitive 
agriculture. Within the last twenty years, however, the capabili¬ 
ties of certain portions of these regions for the close cultivation of 
fruit have been becoming more apparent. There are signs, indeed, 
of the advent of a new era when the supply of temperate fruite 
will be perennial here, those of the southern hemisphere coming in 
at the close of the winter to continue the succession as the stock 
drawn from the northern hemisphere gives out. The time of itiB 
establishment depends merely upon the improvement in the speed 
of steamers and their adaptation to the safe carriage of such perish¬ 
able cargo as fresh fruit. Once it is realised in South Africa,, 
Australasia, and Argentina that there is an unlimited market for 
fresh and dried fruits in Europe, a renewed stimulus will be givea 
to production and exchange in those at present desponding and 
depressed lands. Even now a remarkable advance is noticeable 
upon the conditions prevailing in the fruit industry thirty years 
ago, the periods for subtropical and tropical fruits being much 
more prolonged than formerly. It is, therefore, not only possible 
but highly probable that before one generation has passed Londonere 
will be able to buy Grapes, stone fruits. Apples, and Pears in late 
winter and early summer at almost the same rates as they are sold 
in Spain and France during the height of the season. 
Southern Europe has no longer a monopoly of the trade ia 
those fruits of which it has hitherto been considered the seat. The 
culture of the Orange and the Lemon is now developing rapidly 
elsewhere. In California the Citrus zone is yearly extending frorm 
the centre of Los Angeles in the south, and were accessibility to ae 
inexhaustible a market as that possessed by California apparent to 
the people of New South Wales, Sydney would soon become the 
centre of as great an industry. Indeed, there is nothing in the way 
of sub-tropical fruits which Australia cannot grow with as great 
prodigality as California did she only enjoy the advantage of having 
as fine a market at her doors, while her extension for these pur¬ 
poses is three-fold that of California, or equal to the whole of 
Southern Europe. There are, however, four countries which offer 
exceptional advantages to an English emigrant who would combine 
the pleasures of life in Andalusia with those of his own home, who 
would in short enjoy what is best in the climates, the fruits, and 
the flowers of that portion of Europe extending from the south of 
England to Sicily. These four countries are New Zealand, Tas- 
No. 2329.—VoL. LXXXVIII., Old Series. 
