384 
JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 
[ October 25, 1888. 
one occasion, had asked me to come forward, I should have declined. 
For should anyone ask me what I know about orchard planting, I should 
have to reply, Next to nothing. When I took a farm some years ago I 
planted some fruit trees, and had them in fine bearing condition by the 
time that I quitted the holding, to the advantage of my successor. More 
recently I have planted some Apples and Pears in a suburban garden, 
and have scarcely seen a blossom on any of them for the last three 
years. However, my subject is not planting, but compensation for 
planting, and upon that topic I have very decided views, and few persons, 
I believe, have given more thought to it. Still, as my object is to elicit 
discussion rather than to air my own opinions, I shall be as brief as 
possible in my remarks. 
Cultivators of the soil are constantly being told that they should 
grow more fruit. Ordinary farming does not pay and is not likely to 
pay, it is contended, and farmers should turn their attention to the pro¬ 
duction of vegetables and fruit. Now there is no reason to fear that 
too many farmers will take that advice, the rank and file of the class 
being very slow to make any important changes in their routine. It is 
obvious that if even a twentieth part of the land of the United King¬ 
dom were devoted to the growth of culinary vegetables and fruit, the 
market would be glutted unless the nation were converted to vege¬ 
tarianism. But, as I have said, there is no reason to fear that too many 
farmers will become market gardeners and fruit growers, and there will 
be all the less reason to expect this if, as I believe, a turn in the tide of 
ordinary farming as a business has set in—whether for a long or for a 
short period it would be rash to predict. The fear is—to confine myself 
to fruit-growing—that, in spite of the “ boom ” which appears to have 
been started in that industry, its development will be slower than is 
desirable. There are many reasons why it should be so. Enough has 
been said in recent years, and said over and over again, to prove that it 
is desirable to grow more fruit, and especially more choice Apples and 
Pears, in this country. The question is, how to do it 1 Now, in my 
opinion, Mr. Rivers, in his speech as chairman of the Fruit Growers’ 
Conference held the other day in the Crystal Palace, went the right way 
to work to show how not to do it. Alluding to the obstacles of fruit¬ 
growing, he is reported to have said that landlords, land laws, railway 
rates, and middlemen have nothing to do with them. A more astounding 
assertion I have seldom read. In my opinion they have pretty well all 
to do with them. It is our land laws which render fruit-planting an 
unsafe speculation, and high railway rates and a bad system of distribu¬ 
tion (the middleman element) which render fruit-growing less profitable 
than it should be. I think my friend, Mr. Albert Bath, was on the 
right tack in the paper which he read at the first Crystal Palace Confer¬ 
ence, and not Mr. Rivers, who declared ignorance to be the fundamental 
hindrance to extended fruit culture. No one is a more earnest advocate 
of agricultural and horticultural education than I am, and no one is less 
disposed to say anything to underrate the advantages of either branch of 
instruction. But, in my opinion, for one cultivator of the soil pre¬ 
vented from growing fruit by ignorance, there are twenty who are 
deterred from lack of security to capital invested in planting, high rail¬ 
way rates, which render it unprofitable to grow anything except high- 
priced early produce if it has to go a long distance by rail, and our 
abominable system of distribution, which gives more profit to the 
middleman for a day’s, or sometimes for an hour’s work, in handing fruit 
on to customers, than to the producer who spends a year in growing it. 
Returning to the question, How is fruit-growing to be increased 1 I 
must pass by, as beyond the range of my subject, all details relating to 
such obstacles as high railway charges and the middleman’s undue share 
in the amount paid by consumers for fruit. In considering how to answer 
the question asked, another at once crops up—Who is to plant ? Now 
our land laws are directly opposed to planting, as far as they go. By 
encouraging limited ownership through the settlement of estates they 
render it disadvantageous to most landowners to plant, because the 
limited owners, who form the great majority of the landlord class, by 
sinking their capital in orchard planting, would reap only a transitory 
benefit themselves, and that only if they lived several years, while they 
would enrich the already too highly favoured heirs to their land at the 
expense of their younger children or other relatives. For reasons which 
it would take me very wide of my mark to-day to state, I am not in 
favour of increasing the powers and privileges of the owners of land 
by making them absolute owners, and I allude to limited ownership 
merely to show that under it there is no reason to expect extensive 
orchard planting by landlords. We come now to the tenants, and are 
thus brought within the precise confines of the subject of this paper. 
Mr. Rivers appears to argue that the land laws have nothing to do 
with the indisposition of cultivators to plant fruit, because in suitable 
situations and under proper management fruit-planting will pay with 
laws and rents as they are. No doubt it will, provided that the planter 
has a long lease and lives long enough tp reap the fruits of his enter¬ 
prise, or if—and this is a very large “ if ”—he can induce his landlord 
to consent to the planting, so that he will be entitled to compensation 
under the Agricultural Holdings Act, or to arrange otherwise to com¬ 
pensate him or his heirs when he quits his holding or dies. These “ ifs r 
and “ors,” however, are shadowy particles, and a substantial and 
disagreeable “ but ” nearly always comes in to put them to flight. 
Without the consent of the landlord in writing the law fails to afford 
the fruit planter, whether he be a large farmer or an allotment holder, 
a halfpenny of compensation for capital sunk in the planting of fruit j 
and I doubt whether that consent can be obtained by one out of a 
hundred tenants. The Itenant, then, has no legal security for fruit¬ 
planting, and if he plants without security he incurs a very serious risk. 
It may be contended, perhaps, that a long lease affords sufficient 
security, but that I entirely dispute, because a man may die before he 
has reaped any benefit from his expenditure, and it may be inconvenient 
for his executors to carry on his business, or he may be obliged to 
remove, either from getting into difficulties or from some less disagreeable 
cause. Therefore a lease is but a delusion as security unless it contains 
compensation clauses or embodies a right of assignment. Moreover, a 
lease never affords adequte security unless it is a very long one, even if 
the holder of it farms it out. Even then, at the end of the lease, the 
improving tenant—or rather, the law—hands over to the landlord pro¬ 
perty which rightly belongs to himself. 
It is not necessary to say before my present audience that the ex¬ 
pense of orchard planting is no light one, or to point out that some years 
must elapse before the planter can hope to obtain a satisfactory return 
on his outlay. Probably there is no gentleman here who could not 
tell me a great deal more about the cost of planting than I can tell 
him. But as there may be readers of this paper who are not experts, 
and who may like to have the estimates of experts on the cost of planting 
different kinds of fruit, I submit such estimates. There is no lack of 
them in print, but most of those in my possession are two, three, or more 
years old, and expenses vary with the times. I therefore asked Mr- 
Charles Whitehead to give me his estimates for the present time, and I 
have to thank him, a busy man—though for that matter, busy men are 
generally the most obliging in affording information—for kindly comply¬ 
ing with my request. In giving Mr. Whitehead’s estimates, I must 
point out that they do not include the cost of preparing the land, or 
any portion of the rent, tithe, rates, and labour expenses after planting 
which fall due before the trees come into profit. 
Cost of Planting One Acre of fruit. 
Standard Apple trees, 22 feet apart (90 trees) 
Planting and staking.. 
Plums or Damsons, 18 feet apart (134 trees). 
Planting and staking . . 
Apples and Plums mixed, 20 feet apart (108 trees)... 
Planting and staking. 
Bush fruit trees under Apples, 1440 to the acre, 
feet apart, at 13s. per 100 
Planting bush trees . 
90 Apples and planting and staking. 
Bush fruit with i Plums or Damsons—1440 bush 
fruit trees . 
Planting ditto . 
134 Plum or Damson trees, and planting and staking 11 15 0 
Strawberries 30 in. x 18 = 11,010 plants, say 12s. Gd. 
per 1000 . 
Planting. 
Planting. 
Raspberries, in rows 4 feet apart, three plants to a 
hill or centre = 10,890 plants . 
Planting. 
& 
s. 
d. 
& 
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d. 
6 
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2 
17 
6 
8 
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7 
15 
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3 
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11 
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9 
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20 
12 
6 
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& 
Mr. Whitehead adds : “ All these rates are according to present cost 
of fruit trees and present labour wages. The land, of course, must be 
deeply ploughed, and in many cases a subsoil plough should follow 
the ordinary plough. Harrowing also is necessary to get a level 
surface. Upon land in cultivation a good dressing of manure would 
I be necessary, say 20 tons per acre. Some land would require trenching. 1 ’ 
