512 
JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 
[ December 22, 1832. 
supplies elsewhere ere long. The juveniles are not forgotten, for 
Christmas Trees are, as usual, sent by the thousands. Many of 
these are the tops of Abies, whilst not a few are grand young 
specimens torn apparently from the soil regardless of the roots. 
Such matters are of a trivial nature to the market man so long as 
he can realise good returns, and unconsciously perhaps assist his 
purchasers to spend a merry Christmas.—C. C. 
[We desire to give expression to our wish that all who engage 
in producing and all who encourage the production of the riches of 
the earth, with those who share in them, will enjoy to the fullest 
extent possible a truly happy Christmastide.] 
PRICES AND QUALITY OF APPLES. 
It has been my privilege more than once to stand by, an 
interested observer, when two giants of the chess arena have been 
locked in an absorbing struggle. As the pieces have been shifted 
on the board, attacking, defending, advancing, receding, I have seen 
how one master, his whole nervous system focussed as it were on 
an intricate interchange of positions, has overlooked some point, 
trifling in itself, but eventually developing into the key with which 
the whole structure that he has erected with such infinite pains and 
skill has been opened and exposed by his opponent. Pitted against 
the defeated champion my chance would be small, but when in a 
position to calmly survey both sides I am able to perceive the error 
which he has overlooked. No fruit grower, I imagine, would be 
more likely to appreciate the compliment of a comparison with the 
Gunsbergs, the Blackburnes, or the Laskers of the chess world 
than one who submits that his fruit is acknowledged to be “ the 
finest and best packed ” that ever goes into the markets ; I there¬ 
fore leave Mr. Walter Kruse to turn over this morsel and digest 
its moral, passing on to the salient points of his letter on 
page 530. 
In entering seriously upon this discussion—and the subject is of 
such far-reaching importance as to merit being thoroughly thrashed 
out—let us clear the ground and define the end in view. I deem it 
wise to suggest this course as an important preliminary step in 
order to guard against that introduction of side issues which 
inevitably occurs when a disputant finds he has placed himself in a 
false position. Fortunately Mr. Kruse supplies a definite ground¬ 
work in one sentence of his second communication. He says, 
“ My object in writing in the first place was simply in order that 
readers of your Journal should not be misled by seeing Gs. a bushel 
stated as the price of Apples when the average price of Apples 
home to the grower has been very much less.” I thought that he 
wished originally to limit his remarks to the one variety mentioned, 
but as in the quotation above he refers, not to Domino Apple, but 
twice to “ Apples,” it is clear that he desires his remarks to have 
a general application. I accept h/s amendment; indeed, if the 
general question of Apple-growing for profit is to be considered 
it would be absurd to limit its scope to one variety in face of the 
fact that so many are cultivated. 
Unfortunately, however, for Mr. Kruse, when I permit him to 
shift the ground of the debate on to the broader and admittedly 
more reasonable ground indicated, the weakness of his attitude only 
becomes more apparent. Of the Apples I have named Domino, 
growing in an exposed position and unfavourable soil, where few 
fruits would thrive at all, is the only one to have returned so low a 
price as 4s. Gd. per bushel, the average price of the others being 
6s. Now how are we to get an absolutely just and fair idea of the 
general return ? Admittedly there is but one way, and that is to 
strike an average. When out of six varieties five yield 6s. a bushel 
and the other one 4s. 6d. the average return for the fruit is 
exactly 5s. 9d. per bushel. I attempt no quibbles and try no 
sophistry in this matter. Mr. Kruse himself widens the discussion, 
and I show him by plain facts and plain figures that although the 
error (an error so frankly admitted as to show that no desire but 
to get at the true facts is entertained) at first sight appears serious, 
yet on being subjected to the only just test that can be supplied it 
is proved to be absolutely trivial. Here is the case plainly stated, 
and the result set forth. The average price is not 4s. Gd., not 6s. 
per bushel, but 5s. 9d., and after accepting Mr. Kruse’s own esti¬ 
mated deduction of Is. 3d. for carriage, &c., what do we get ? An 
actual return to the grower of 4s. 6d. per bushel, a very close 
approach to the 4s. 9d., which, in the case of his fruit (“ the finest 
and best packed ” that ever goes into the market) he admits to be 
“ very exceptional.” 
I have put this matter with the utmost fairness, accepting Mr. 
Kruse s own estimates and quotations without question. I leave 
him to make the best he can of the position, and, taking more of 
his own figures, I pass on to ask him a few pertinent questions. 
Your correspondent’s object in writing in the first place was to 
prevent the public being misled. He is consumed by a desire for 
the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth about the 
profits of fruit growing in England. This is a most laudable desire, 
and I share it to the full ; hence the questions I am about to put. 
Mr. Kruse cliims that his wages bill for men averages £500 a year, 
and for women £30 a week in the season—let us say another £500 
for the year. There is a third £500 a year for manure (truly this 
is not stinted since £500 a year is spent on forty acres of land !), 
making £1500 a year without taking into consideration the outlay 
for baskets or other matters, which must be considerable. What I 
want to ask is this : Whence comes this £1500 to £2000 a year 
simple expenditure ? The days of the goose which laid golden eggs 
are over. Has Mr. Kruse some great store from which he draws 
the means to run his farm, keeping it going as a philanthropic 
institution for the benefit of the industrious poor ? And if not, if 
what he puts into the laud is yielded up again with interest by the 
fruit that is sold, what is, what can be, his motive in circulating 
warnings the effect of which may deter others from entering on 
the field wherein his livelihood is earned ? 
In my former communication I quoted the experience of two 
growers, one of whom declared his inability to afford good cultiva¬ 
tion for Apples, because they only brought 2s. Gd. a bushel ; while 
the other, by finding that he could afford it, secured 6s. (really 
3d. less). Grower No. 1 blundered over cause and effect, and he 
pays the penalty accordingly ; but it is melancholy to find one who 
advances claims to be considered an enlightened fruit grower 
expressing pleasure that he has support from such a cultivator, 
and ignoring the true lesson of the parallel cases. It would be 
absurd to suppose so intelligent a man as Mr. Kruse is, incapable 
of comprehending the point (which Mr. Pearson has so strikingly 
emphasised) ; I ask him therefore, Does he really throw in his lot 
with the 2s. Gd. a bushel man who does not cultivate, in preference 
to taking sides with the 5s. 9 a bushel man, whose farm is the 
perfection of good management? Even if he does make this 
choice, he will find that he is leaning upon a false reed, for his 
supporter’s remedy for low prices is exactly the opposite of 
his own. He would have p’anting stopped, on the ground that the 
supply is already too large, instead of planting more. 
While ostensibly acquitting me of complicity in the ill-doing of 
those who hold out fruit growing as an Eldorado, Mr. Kruse 
endeavours, in an oblique kind of way, to connect me with them. 
He has not a shadow of justification for anything of the sort. I 
lose no opportunity of heaping ridicule upon the armchair fruit 
growers, whose profits are made with pea and ink by the fireside, 
and the suggestion that because I believe and state that there is a 
reasonable profit in fruit growing when carried out in the best 
manner, I am to be in any way linked with the stick-in-a-tree-and- 
sit-down-to-wait-for-the-money brigade is as preposterous as it is 
unjust. As well might I take Mr. Kruse’s admission that there is 
profit in fruit growing to be tantamount to saying that everyone 
who invests in it will realise 70 to 80 per cent, on his money. Far 
from exaggerating the returns I have kept many facts back solely 
because I have feared that inexperienced persons might found 
unsound expectations upon them. On my table now I have Apples 
of which a large bulk yielded a home return to the grower of 
6s. per bushel, and others forming part of a crop of Cox’s Orange 
Pippin, 1 acre of which has this season yielded the grower a home 
return of over £100. Even this high figure has been exceeded, but 
I have never quoted such a return to any inexperienced person 
without a strong intimation that it is only produced in a favourable 
season and by the most skilled culture. 
The truth of this matter must be apparent, and my position is 
strengthened by the testimony of such able growers as Mr. Pearson 
and Mr. Molyneux. There is a fair return for capital invested in 
fruit growing when well done, a good return when it is conducted 
with the utmost skill and intelligence. The spectacle of Mr. 
Kruse blowing hot and cold by turns, speaking of a profit one 
moment and hinting darkly at loss the next, is not instructive. 
Although practically he is on our side, yet theoretically he is sitting 
on the fence, struggling vainly to balance himself and to hold up 
the shapeless and inert bogey of large accumulations of capital at 
the same time. He should let it drop, and jump boldly down on 
the right side. America has lost her Gould, and there is no room 
for even his ghost here. Quality, not quantity, is the watchword 
of success.—"VV. P. W. 
Will your correspondent, “W. P. W.,” mention the cost per 
tree of “ a dressing of kainit and superphosphate, spread from the 
stem outward,” and the “light sprinkling of nitrate of soda to 
follow ? B. D K. 
The cost per tree must obviously depend on its size, and con¬ 
sequently the extent of ground occupied by its roots. If your 
