164 
PROCEEDINGS OF THE PERTHSHIRE SOCIETY OF NATURAL SCIENCE. 
hence the difficulty of makiDg a selection of really good 
apples. It was also much required to enable us to know 
the kinds that are really worth cultivating, and the kinds 
that, as regards size and quality, are not worth a place 
in either orchard or garden. Something of the kind was 
also greatly needed in order to show the general com¬ 
munity that really good fruit can be grown in this country, 
if it only gets the attention it deserves. 
The cultivation of fruit in this country, especially in 
Scotland, has been sadly neglected of late. In the Carse 
of Gowrie, as well as elsewhere, many good orchards have 
been allowed to run to waste. There has been a great out¬ 
cry as to bad seasons, and not without good cause, but bad 
culture has, I fear, as much to do with it as bad seasons, or, 
I should rather say, the want of culture. Many of the 
Carse orchards had no digging, no pruning, and no manur¬ 
ing, and yet, under such treatment, fruit was expected. 
In many of the largest orchards in the Carse, all the trees 
were completely covered with moss, and the soil exhausted 
by wild grass and weeds. In October last, I had good 
opportunities of seeing many of the Carse orchards, as I 
was asked by the Secretary of the Dundee Horticultural 
Society to gather all the specimens of apples I could find, 
for the Apple Congress at Chiswick. I also visited many 
of the gardens, and most of the good specimens I got 
were from these, clearly proving what I have always 
advocated, that good culture is the great secret of suc¬ 
cessful fruit-growing. The duty of collecting so many 
different specimens in so many gardens and orchards en¬ 
tailed on me a good deal of labour, but I sometimes managed 
to “kill two dogs with one stone,” by visiting a patient or 
two at the same time. It was, however, very interesting 
and pleasant work, as it gave me an opportunity of seeing 
many orchards and gardens, and that at the most interest¬ 
ing season of the year. I must say that all with whom 
I came in contact—even those who had rented orchards 
—gave me freely all the specimens I wanted, and all the 
information in their power, when I told them the purpose 
for which I wanted them. I think I sent to the Congress 
the largest collection that was sent from Perthshire. I 
had over sixty varieties, some of which were very beauti¬ 
ful, and large in size. Some of them were from my own 
gardens, but by far the greater number were collected 
as already stated. One or two of the finest specimens 
which were specially noticed for their beauty were from 
A. Lacaille, Esq., Gourdiehill. The “Lass o’ Gowrie” 
was particularly fine. One thing I particularly noticed 
in going through many of the orchards was the enormous 
number of apples of small size, which were quite unfit 
for market, and had no names, or merely local names. 
Many of these were just crabs or wild apples, not even 
having colour, as many of the American crabs have, to 
recommend them. The only crab apple I saw with any 
pretensions to beauty or symmetry of form was in the 
U.P. Manse garden, Pitrodie—a beautiful little round one 
of a fine golden colour, tinted with red. I was truly sorry 
to see so many large orchards in the Carse with so very few 
of the large kinds,—apples that are really worth being 
sent to market, and likely to be able to compete with 
those brought from the Continent and from America. On 
the Continent, as well as in America, a great deal more 
attention is paid to fruit culture. The apples from 
Germany, as a rule, are of a larger kind, and higher in 
colour, than what we grow in Scotland, or even Great 
Britain, and hence the price they command in our markets. 
To remedy these defects as far as possible, and having the 
writing of this paper in view, I sent out a schedule of four 
questions to almost all the head-gardeners in the Carse, and 
some of the most experienced market - gardeners and 
orchard-keepers, asking what apples and pears grown at 
present in the Carse orchards are unworthy of being 
cultivated on account of smallness, bad quality, or bad 
bearing. Also, what kinds they would substitute in the 
place of the bad ones, as more suitable for market and 
home consumption,—at the same time asking them to 
make wbat remarks they thought proper on the subject. 
I did this with the view of laying before the members of 
this Society, and the general public, a synopsis of the 
pomological lore of the Carse in the shape of a list of the 
apples and pears that are really worth cultivating, as being 
fit either for market or home consumption, and able to cope 
with foreign importations. Almost all my horticultural 
friends duly returned the schedules filled up to the best of 
their knowledge, and some of them with very extensive re¬ 
marks, and I take this opportunity of heartily thanking 
one and all who did so. From the returns sent me, I 
learn that a great many apples and pears in the Carse 
that are not worth cultivating have only local names, aDd 
many of them no names at all; and the kinds that are 
really worth cultivating are not very numerous, not¬ 
withstanding the vast number of varieties that are grown 
throughout the length and breadth of the land. At 
the Apple Congress there were about 1800 varieties ex¬ 
hibited, of every size, colour, and form, all of which were 
very pretty, though some were more objects of curiosity 
than of commercial and domestic value. 
Some faint-hearted fruit-growers are afraid that fruit 
cultivation is being overdone, and that, by and bye, prices 
will not be got sufficient to pay the growing; but let me 
tell such that, year after year, the demand in this country 
