March 7, 188 f. ] 
JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 
187 
M R. WALTER KRUSE truly says, in his interesting article 
. on page 156, that it is easy to make fruit-growing “ appear 
profitable on paper.” Given an abnormally productive tree, 
grown under specially favourable circumstances, anybody could do 
that with the aid of the multiplication table ; but he would know 
that he could not impose his deductions on us as representing the 
facts derivable from actual practice in the garden or orchard. Yet 
this writer, if he were apt in compilation and dexterous in the use 
of phrases, might, absurd as it seems, even become an authority 
on fruit culture, on the strength of his communications to 
editors, who, unaware of his ignorance as a cultivator, might 
publish his sensational productions. Than the editors of leading 
newspapers and magazines there are no abler men, but they 
-cannot be sufficiently expert in all the technical matters that 
come before them to at once detect their real nature, hence they 
must, to a large extent, rely on the position and integrity of 
correspondents. The connection of a clerk with the Journal 
of Horticulture or any other gardening paper, with an adroit 
reference to his fruit farm, might be accepted as evidence of his 
•competency to teach sound doctrine, though his farm might 
be a myth. Thus fortified he might compile a sensational story 
that would be accepted as truth founded on experience as a 
cultivator, by readers who have no more experience on the subject 
than he has himself. It is not necessary to suggest that he advances 
doctrines he knows to be false, relating to the extraordinary profits 
derivable from fruit culture ; but, on the contrary, he may be con¬ 
vinced of their accuracy. He may really believe he has made a 
-discovery of new methods of cultivation, which, if adopted by 
everybody, from gardeners who have practised them for a generation, 
to town loungers who have never used a spade, would bring wealth to 
all alike. Thus the cleric becomes an oracle. He first deludes 
himself, then deludes others in advancing propositions which his 
inexperience induces him to believe are sound, though in reality 
they are preposterous. 
Fruit culture appears as if it were being made a hobby-horse on 
•which book-hunting statisticians and plausible theorists are endea¬ 
vouring to ride themselves into popularity. The newspaper 
nonsense that is circulated on this subject, if pursued, will create 
a revulsion against what it is so desirable to promote—the extended 
planting of fruit trees by owners and occupiers of land, not in the 
■expectation of making fortunes in two or three years, or as a 
substitute for corn-growing, but rather as an adjunct which, in 
suitable positions, and under good management, will give a good 
return on the outlay invested, and enhance the marketable value 
of British fruit. It is from every point of view most desirable 
that the average quality of home-grown Apples should be raised, 
for at present it is miserably low, and it is because of this that 
foreign produce has the command of our markets. Consumers 
purchase this because it is good in appearance, uniform iu grade, 
and cheap, and it is not until British fruit rises to the same 
level in these respects that it will be extensively purchased. That 
it can be greatly raised admits of no doubt, but it is impossible for 
cultivators of experience to give an assurance that full crops can 
be relied on every year, and ear-tickling announcements of that 
kind, and paper profits founded on them, must be left to irrespon- 
No. 454. —Yol. XVIII., Third Series, 
sible doctrinaires. Unfortunately the exaggerated statements 
of writers who have not been taught in the school of practice, are 
causing persons who have land at disposal for fruit culture, and 
who are able and willing to place at the disposal of others, to 
turn with something like disgust from the whole subject, the 
claptrap thereupon in newspapers and magazines being repulsive 
to many. Moreover, extravagant utterances on one side are 
almost certain to be met by counter-statements of an extreme 
character on the other, and the public become bewildered, if not 
nauseated. 
Mr. Kruse in the article referred to combats some statements 
that appeared in the Nineteenth Century Magazine, notably one of 
them to the effect that Apple trees in the third year from plant¬ 
ing will yield 4s. a tree, or £60 an acre of 300 trees. We have 
already offered a medal to the writer if he can prove that he has 
planted 300 Apple trees, such as are regularly sold by nurserymen, 
and in three years derived an average profit of £20 a year from 
the enterprise. He is challenged to prove that he has done any¬ 
thing of the kind—that he has realised even half of such profit. 
The profit suggested is, as we have said, such as our clerk 
would arrive at on the basis of a few solitary trees abnormally 
productive and four or five years old when planted, not by him¬ 
self but about which he has read. He could show the 4s. a tree 
yield on paper with the greatest ease, but would forget all about 
the outlay incurred in planting and cultivation, hence his igno¬ 
rance on the subject of fruit culture would not be the less apparent. 
The only reference we have previously made to the magazine pro¬ 
duction was in directing attention to the palpable absurdity of the 
writer of it describing Nicotiana affinis as producing the tobacco of 
commerce, and it is noticed now to enable its author to substan¬ 
tiate his statement of the profits of fruit culture from his own 
practice and claim the offered reward ; also for directing attention 
to a rejoinder in the February issue of the National Review. 
Though we do not agree with all that is contained in the article, 
it is most ably written and contains important truths. Its tone 
is calculated to discourage fruit cultivation in this country, thus 
proving what we have said must be the effect of sensational state¬ 
ments, which in the end hinder rather than help the progress of 
any good work. Much of the article is a scathing critique, and 
some parts of it satirical, but it lays bare the fallacy that has 
too long been paraded and made the text of articles that present 
the whole “ fruit question ” as it affects British cultivators on a 
false basis. 
The stock theme of the theorists is the £8,000,000 paid by this 
country for imported fruit, with the obvious object of inducing 
the populace to believe if they could have land, this fruit, or most 
of it, could be grown at home. It is an utter delusion. The 
way in which this £8,000,000 is advised to be saved is mainly by 
growing Apples, the growing of soft fruit for jam being de¬ 
nounced by the paper-profit brigade. What proportion of the 
celebrated and oft-reiterated £8,000,000 do the readers of news¬ 
papers imagine is paid for imported Apples ? Some, perhaps, 
nearly the whole of it; others half ; others a quarter ; but the 
truth is less than half of a quarter, being only three-quarters of 
a million on the average of the last six years. We were pre¬ 
paring facts for publication when the National Review came to 
hand, and it is convenient to cite from it. Mr. A. J. Mott, the 
author of the article says :—• 
“ The reader is repeatedly told that we pay £8,000,000 a year 
for imported fruit. What is the object of this statement ? The 
object is, of course, to magnify the importance of the trade in fruit. 
But it would be as much to the purpose to say that we pay 
£15,000,000 a year for imported timber, as a reason for covering 
England with Pine-forests. We may pass over an exaggeration in 
the figures themselves, but what are the real items of the fruit 
importation ? 
“ The official returns given in the annual statement of the trade 
No. 2110.— VOL. LXXX,, Old Series. 
