December 17, 1891. ] 
JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 
509 
7. -- 
(4 (j) 
PLANTING AND THE APPLE 
\\ A 'AuM 
SUPPLY. 
O WING to the heavy and almost continuous rain, the planting of 
fruit trees has been checked considerably, especially in strong 
soils. Autumn planting is admittedly desirable ; but it is better to 
wait a little time than to force trees into the ground when it is in 
a very wet adhesive state. Still, when it is in suitable condition 
from now onwards, it is better to continue the work than to wait 
till next November. 
Since so much public attention has been directed to the pro¬ 
duction of hardy fruit and the shortcomings of our home supply 
a great extension in planting trees and shrubs has followed, and 
not before time. It would have been well if the work had 
begun sooner, and many persons who established young planta¬ 
tions in suitable soil a few years ago and tended them well have 
been so satisfied with the results that they have extended their 
operations, in some instances very considerably. Teaching in 
the form of practice such as that indicated is the most effective 
of all, and the most cogent reply to those who teach by their 
reasoning faculties alone that the planting of fruit trees is being 
overdone. 
If there is one thing more certain than another as bearing on 
the fruit of the future it is that the market supply will, in a very 
few years hence, be afforded almost exclusively by the produce of 
young trees growing healthfully in good soil. Why ? Because so 
many young trees ai'e now established, and affording fruit so much 
superior to orchard veterans, that it follows as the good increases 
in bulk there will be no demand for the inferior, and the time is 
not far distant when only the meritorious will be “ looked at ” 
by purchasers. It follows, therefore, that according to the law of 
competition those who desire to share in the production of fruit 
cannot possibly do so profitably in relying on trees that have had 
their day and done their duty. 
New generations of trees should and will be provided to meet 
the demands of new generations of consumers of fruit, and if the 
trees are not planted in this country they will be most assuredly 
planted in others. Time is almost vanquished by electricity, 
and distance is of little object in these days of express trains 
and fast steamers. The state of the markets of the world is 
flashed to those who can supply them, and all voids are quickly 
filled where even small profits can be made on transactions ; 
and small profits on hundredweights, or barrels of Apples for 
instance, sent in large consignments amount to substantial sums 
in the aggregate. 
How extensive these consignments are is shown incidentally 
in the report of an Arbitration trial which may be found on 
page 471, and in which it will be seen that one provincial 
fruit broker alone undertook to ship to one firm in London 
12,000 barrels of Apples in a fortnight. We may take that to be 
a mere item in the trade of the parties concerned, and they are 
only two out of many who are competing in the same way. The 
rivalry of brokers, merchants, and shipowners stimulates the pro¬ 
ducers to grow more and more fruit, and if home growers intend 
to hold their own in fruit production they must plant young 
trees in soil prepared as for high class garden culture, and keep it 
well charged with fertility. Nor is that all, for the trees must be 
rationally managed, so that the virtues of the soil are not only 
appropriated by the roots, but converted into sound wood and 
No. 599.— Yol. XXIII., Third Series. 
fruit-producing matter by the leaves for storing in the stems. 
If this is not accomplished soil fertility is wasted. For pre¬ 
venting this waste we must have clean growths so thinly disposed 
that every leaf can develop under the full, free and direct 
action of sun and air. There is no other way in which the 
virtues of the soil, the food of fruits, can be turned to profitable 
account. 
Every good leaf, or leaf perfect in structure, is a strengthener 
of the tree, and contributes to its fruit-produeing power ; every 
bad leaf is a weakener of the tree, and an exhauster of the soil. 
Leaves grown in the absence of light, in overcrowded trees, are 
exhausters, as are those on long, strong, and sappy growths, which 
are allowed to extend rampantly throughout the summer, as if for 
no other purpose than to enable a great show to be made by 
pruning in the winter. Young trees, therefore, must not only be 
well planted in a suitable medium, but the common evil of over¬ 
crowding them in summer by injudicious pruning must be avoided. 
Useless soil-exhausting growths must be prevented, and only those 
encouraged and retained that are essential to health, form, and 
fruitfulness. Far more good can be done by the thoughtful use of 
the fingers and thumb in disbudding in spring than by wholesale 
slashings away with the knife in winter of parts that ought never 
to have been permitted to grow. 
But to return to the supply of fruit. The inability of home 
cultivators to meet the home demand for Apples at the present 
is indicated by the circular of a fruit broker. It is there stated 
that the imports of Apples into Liverpool alone this autumn up to 
the 18th ult. amount to 331,646 barrels, or at 140 lbs. a barrel, no 
less than 3,616,460 stones (14 lbs.) of fruit. The prices quoted 
generally range from about 103. to 15s. a barrel, and it is stated 
the demand is active and prices firmer. This activity in the 
demand and firmness in price is attributed to the “ specially good 
quality of the fruit offering.” That ought to be specially noted, 
for it is one more example of the commercial fact, that the supply 
of anything distinctly good creates a demand. There can scarcely 
be a doubt that fruit would have a larger share in the diet of the 
nation it the produce generally was more tempting in appearance. 
Clean, bright, uniform samples are alluring, the trashy and 
unsightly repel the public, who readily purchase the more taste¬ 
fully displayed fruits sent from the Continent and elsewhere. 
It has been stated before, and will have to be stated again, that 
as the trashy crops, “ all rind and core,” deprive the soil of more of 
its fertility—mineral wealth—than do the largest and most coveted 
fruits, it follows that these can be grown and sold profitably at 
prices usually paid for the inferior. That should be the aim of 
cultivators, because it is the best possible way of making new 
customers for their wares. Raise the standard of fruit and 
purchasers will be bound to increase, the consumption of fruit 
will be greater year by year, and the general health of the 
nation be improved in consequence. The imports referred to 
show how great is the demand, and another fact shows that it 
is increasing—namely, that although our Apple crops were better 
this year than last, yet the increase in imports this year over 
last amounts to no less than 240,145 bushels, or more than 
2,000,000 stones of fruit. 
No doubt there are persons in this country who are honest in 
the belief that home-grown Apples cannot equal in public estima¬ 
tion the consignments referred to. Arguments are lost on 
persons holding those views, but facts cannot be ignored, and 
one of my friends has at the present time no difficulty in selling 
his Apples in a midland town at nearly or quite twice the current 
price of the best stocks that have had a journey across the 
ocean. They are uniform in size, speckless, and bright, and 
are preferred because of the greater briskness and piquancy 
inherent in British Apples than pertains to those grown under 
the more tropical sun in other lands, and so it will ever be. 
J. Wright. 
No. 2255.—Yol. LXXNV., Old Series. 
