330 
JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 
[ October 17,1SB9. 
accustomed to agricultural work could, if suitably circumstanced, profit 
by fruit culture ; but forty out of fifty mere townsmen would fail in 
the effort, just as they would fail in the occupation of other rural pur¬ 
suits, requiring less knowledge than fruit culture, in which they have 
had no experience. When agricultural labourers, who in too great 
numbers find their way into large cities, can be transformed into 
swallow-tailed and white-cravated waiters in hotels, and there gain a 
good livelihood, the much-to-be-pitied unemployed townsman will 
prosper on the land as a fruit grower, and not ti.l then. The great de¬ 
sire, as it seems to me, is to so conduct the operations on landed estates 
in the country that employment can be given to a greater number of 
workers, and so keep them out of the too thickly populated towns, where 
a life of misery is lived by thousands ; but the investment in labour to 
be satisfactory must leave a margin of profit to the employer. Only a 
very limited number can be engaged for contributing to the luxuries of 
life. The majority must work on commercial lines and earn a little 
more by their labour than is invested in it, or the connection cannot 
long be sustained. The introduction of machinery has lessened the de¬ 
mand for manual labour in agriculture. Fruit cannot be to the same 
extent grown by machinery, but it can be grown, and more profitably 
than ordinary farm crops, with the aid of intelligent workers, and far 
more of these might be kept in their parishes than is the case now, and 
the amount invested in their labour be remunerative to themselves, 
while at the same time all worthy, striving, and capable men should, I 
think, be encouraged to grow fruit also on plots that in many districts 
might be provided near their dwellings. 
Regard the matter from whatever point of view we may, it cannot 
be otherwise than desirable to find work for labourers on the land. A 
contented, industrious peasantry is an important factor in the wealth 
and strength of a nation. Depopulation is an indication of decay, and 
the dwindling away of the people has never made a country richer, but 
left it poorer. This must be so, because the strong and most enter¬ 
prising—the real creators of wealth—are the first to go and become in 
other lands competitors of their kinsmen at home, leaving the weak, 
lame, aud lazy behind them. These prey on the accumulations of others, 
hence impoverish instead of enrich the land in which they spend their 
profitless time and live their luckless lives. 
Many of the landowners of the kingdom have it in their power to 
improve their possessions by increasing the productiveness of the soil by 
the systematic cultivation of hardy fruit, and at the same time by the 
necessary employment of more labour do good to others as well as them¬ 
selves. It is not suggested that they will heap up riches in the work, but if 
they can add, as thousands may, an interesting and instructive feature 
to their estates and benefit others, at the same time realising even 5 per 
cent, on the outlay, is it not better than the 2 or 3 per cent, derived in 
the old way, with the attendant grumbling of men who can scarcely 
find sustenance for their families ? 
I am confident that if fruit gardens of two or three acres, more or 
less according to the extent of estates and the suitability of soil and 
position, were established on the residential property of the aristocracy 
and gentry, also on the glebes of certain of the clergy, that good would 
eventually result, in which all would share—owners, workers, and con¬ 
sumers of fruit, always provided the varieties of the different kinds of 
fruit were well chosen, and the best attention (which is the cheapest) be¬ 
stowed on them in the work of cultivation. I am not now considering 
tne interests of recognised fruit farmers. It is not necessary. They 
know what they are about, and I trust will increasingly prosper, and at 
the same time provide the great mass of consumers in large cities with 
a larger and better supply of wholesome fruit at a lower price than now 
rules for the best samples. Lower the price of these by increasing the 
supply, and the consumption would increase enormously, aud the 
aggregate profits of the cultivator would in all probability be greater 
too. 
A gentleman in the Westminster Drill Hall remarked on examining 
the fruit there last Tuesday, that he had ten children and would like to 
keep them well supplied with the best fruit; but to give 3d. each for 
Pears and 2d. for Apples was too much, even for him, and he is not a 
man of small possessions. If really good fruit could be had at half 
such fancy prices, he would no doubt buy four times more ; and he is 
but one example of thousands. The prices demonstrate the scarcity of 
high class fruit and the necessity for growing more, and trees that pro¬ 
duce it do not take up half the room that those do which produce the 
worst. 
“ Oh, say some, “ but if you go on planting, fruit-growing will be 
overdone. Who do you think preaches that doctrine ? Well, I have 
heard it preached by old fogies who a few years ago said a penny a mile 
express fares on railways could never pay, and I have heard it preached 
by men who have planted thousands of trees and are planting more, la 
not that a little significant ? They appear to want a monopoly of the 
industry, but they will not get it. Syndicates can be overdone, and my 
desire is not only to see the acreage under fruit increase, but the number 
of its cultivators. 
I am going to tell you that the average standard of merit of fruit, 
and especially of Apples and Pears, in these fertile islands of ours, is 
miserably, disgracefully low. After examining the magnificent display 
on the exhibition tables, you may think that a bold statement, but it is 
true. That splendid fruit, which proves what can be done in England, 
is no more representative of the real supply than the faultlessly made 
garments in the best West End shops are representative of the habili¬ 
ments of the multitude. We have to remember the tattered and torn 
in that line, and the specked and spotted juiceless trash in the fruit 
world in striking an average. How do I arrive at my average? I am 
one of a few individuals who have to handle and examine specimens of 
fruit sent to be named from gardens and orchards in all parts of the 
kingdom. Do you think the growers of the samples send the worst? 
I know that numbers of them say they send the best they could, and 
regret they could not send better. What, then, do we find ? I do not 
see why the truth should be withheld, but think from every point of 
view it is better it should come out. The truth is this—not one sample 
in twenty can, by any stretch of the imagination, be regarded as 
superior ; not half of what we receive is half so good as it should be, 
and ihe great bulk can only be properly described as “ rubbish.” I 
speak in the presence of others who also spend many weary hours in 
trying to name bad fruit ; and although I have friends on the press 
evidently generous enough to correct me when they can, they cannot 
make “ copy ” at the expense of my veracity in this matter ; and that 
being so, I shall submit with some 'confidence that the truth, the 
humiliating truth, of the above assertion, is proved to demonstration. 
We have, I am glad to say, fairly commenced a revolution in fruit¬ 
growing in this country, and not before time. Some time must elapse 
before the work is completed, and before the average yield approaches 
the standard that is set up in the show to-day. Knowledge, practical 1 
knowledge, is wanted on the subject. I have nothing to say against 
colleges to which the rich can send their sons to sit under learned pro¬ 
fessors, but I should like to see pomological schools, in the form of well 
managed fruit gardens, on estates in different parts of the country, with 
collections of the best varieties of fruit grown in them. The founders 
of such collections would stand to gain by their establishment, while 
the inhabitants surrounding would have opportunities for acquiring the 1 
best of information in the cheapest possible way that might be of sub¬ 
stantial value in the cultivation of fruit for their families, and the 
populations of adjacent towns. 
CAN PEACHES AND NECTARINES BE SUCCESSFULLY 
GROWN AGAINST OPEN WALLS? 
[A paper read by Mr. George Gordon] 
Although Peaches and Nectarines cannot in point of general 
utility be compared with Apples and Plums, they are of more than 
sufficient importance in the economy of the garden to justify our devot¬ 
ing a brief period to the consideration of the practicability of largely 
augumenting the supply of their distinctive and luscious fruits. As the 
question I have to submit to the Conference is “ Can Peaches and 
Nectarines be Successfully Grown Against Open Walls ? ” I shall not 
trouble you with the geographical details of their native country, or 
with the facts bearing upon their early history. Those matters would 
undoubtedly be full of interest, and enable me to present you with but 
little effort an attractive paper ; but my object is to promote a more 
extended and rational culture of these fruits in British gardens, and I 
am fully assured that I shall best serve that object by addressing myself 
as closely as possible to the question. 
It will not be impossible to avoid history altogether, but I shall not 
take you back to the sixteenth century, when these fruits were intro¬ 
duced to this country. I shall confine my historical details to the 
period over which my own observation and experience extend, and take 
you back some thirty years. In those days che production of Peaches 
and Nectarines out of doors was regarded as one of the ordinary phases 
of garden practice, and in consequence their cultivation was decidedly 
more successful than it is at the present time. We had not in those 
days discussions as to the relative advantages of growing these fruits 
out of doors and under glass. If fruit was wanted in advance of that 
produced by the trees against the open walls a glass structure was 
devoted to its production ; but the outdoors trees were depended upon 
