October 6, 1894. 
THE GARDENING WORLD 
91 
overlooking the lighthouse, where the scene is of the 
wildest description. Here huge boulders lie about 
in the utmost confusion. Surely some infernal 
agency has been at work—the Titans themselves, 
perhaps, have been playing at bowls. Anyhow, the 
picture is of an extremely rugged character, in this 
wild North-west corner of the great Orme’s Head, 
and well worth a visit on that account. The view is 
sublime ! Before you there is a wide expanse of 
ocean, beneath you the everlasting cliffs, which are 
being perpetually triturated and worn away by the 
ceaseless action of the waves. Even on these 
apparently barren and precipitious rocks vegetation 
finds a footing, for besides the commoner limestone 
plants, which are here in plenty, such things as the 
mountain Cudweed, the alpine Hawk.weed, and the 
sea Plantain, nestle among and between the project¬ 
ing boulders, and craggy interstices.— C. B. G. Acton, 
W. 
-4.-— 
FRUIT FARMING IN 
CALIFORNIA. 
On Tuesday evening an interesting lecture on this 
subject was delivered at The Gallery, 9, Conduit 
Street, under the auspices of the Balloon Society, 
by Mr. Frank Karslake, of Placer County, California. 
The chair was taken by Mr. Everett Millais, and 
several experienced colonists were present. 
Mr. Karslake said that after twenty-five years of 
sedentary life in London, he had been ordered abroad 
for the sake of his health. He had now been in 
California with his family for many years, and had 
been deputed to come over here by the Directors of 
the English Colony to transact business in connection 
with an Agricultural Training College lately started 
there, which had for its object the education of 
young men, with energy and capital, who desired to 
take up fruit farming. It would be impossible, 
within the short time at his disposal, to speak about 
a stretch of country 770 miles long, and from 150 to 
330 miles wide, but he would try to deal with a 
section of the country with which he was thoroughly 
acquainted, namely, the Yosemite Valley. After 
describing the lovely scenery of the famous valley, 
which, he said, resembled that of Devonshire, Corn¬ 
wall, Derbyshire, and North Wales, Mr. Karslake 
remarked that though California had been discovered 
by the Spaniards in 1534, it was only in compara¬ 
tively recent years that emigrants had become aware 
of its value as a money-producing country. 
Among the lantern slides with which the lecturer 
aided his descriptions was one representing a fruit 
ranch in Placer County, where, said Mr. Karslake, 
the Oranges ripen earlier than in other citrus 
districts, and the grower is therefore able to sell his 
crops free from competition, The fruit was gathered 
in the winter, when the weather was even sufficiently 
warm to enable the colonists to work in their shirt 
sleeves. When rain fell it did so at distant intervals 
for perhaps six or seven days almost unceasingly, 
and then the weather again became fine and genial. 
Whilst dealing with the subject of the Agricul¬ 
tural Training College, which appears to be con¬ 
ducted upon lines similar to those adopted bj the 
Agricultural College at Cirencester—with this 
difference, that the College in Placer County has 
been organised for the benefit of colonists intending 
to grow fruit in California—Mr. Karslake made 
some straightforward and sensible remarks. " The 
boy," he said, “ has to learn, and he cannot learn in 
England, for if he attempts to do so his learning has 
to be unlearnt, and he has to begin again, and learn 
the methods in the new country, with the disadvan¬ 
tages of having acquired prejudices which it is hard 
to dismiss. So he goes, perhaps, to some farmer or 
rancher, who may or may not try to teach him in 
return for the premium he receives. In a private 
house it is impossible to provide or to enforce teach¬ 
ing by system, and the pupil more often than not has 
simply a twelvemonth's holiday, and leaves no wiser 
than he went. Or he goes, possibly, to some farmer, 
who takes him without a premium on the specious pre¬ 
tence that the pupil will be taught in return for his 
work. There are those in England who will assure one 
that this is possible, and that one can really learn 
under such a system. We who live in America know 
better. You can no more effectually and economi¬ 
cally do anything on the cheap in farm instruction 
than you can in anv thing else in life. In that more, 
perhaps, than in anything else, ‘ cheap 1 and * nasty ’ 
are synonymous terms. The pupil becomes the 
drudge of his master for the time being. I have 
known young Englishmen—sons of gentlemen—who 
have had to rise before daylight, clean out the 
stables, milk the cows, and perform the most menial 
work of the common labourer from dawn till dark, 
feed upon a diet of pork and beans, seated on bare 
forms, eating from bare tables, housed in shanties 
with bare wooden walls, under roofs through which 
the rain dropped on to their beds, pulling stumps out 
of the ground for three months at a time. This is 
the cheap and nasty way of acquiring experience. 
And at the end of their twelve months, what can 
these boys know of scientific farming, or of the 
higher forms of horticulture from which the larger 
profits are made ? Nothing—absolutely nothing. 
These two extremes were the chief features of the 
notorious ‘pupil system,’ and they are condemned in 
the report of the British Consul this year. And so, 
recognising the scandal, some of the most prominent 
English and American residents of Placer County 
devised a means by which it might be ended. The 
result has been the establishment of the Placer 
County Agricultural Training College. 
The lecturer then referred his audience to the 
Times of Friday, September 21, in which one of the 
leading fruit dealers in Covent Garden stated that 
"while English Pears were realising from two to 
four shillings a bushel, he was selling thousands of 
cases of Californian Pears per week at from ten 
to fourteen shillings a case. They prefer," Mr. 
Karslake continued, still quoting the dealer’s words, 
*• to pay this price for a first-class article rather than 
pay a low price for English Pears. He accounts for 
the superiority of Californian fruit partly by reason 
of climate, and partly from the care taken to keep 
insect pests in check.” 
Having drawn the attention of the audience to 
specimens of fruit received in Covent Garden during 
the past three weeks, Mr. Karslake said that " The 
profits of fruit-growing depend very much, as in 
every other calling, on the knowledge, skill,energy, and 
intelligence of the individual. In the case of young 
men, almost everything depends upon whether they 
take an interest in the work. Provided they do this, 
and are properly trained, failure is not possible. Life 
in California can be made very pleasant. There is 
plenty of time for diversion, but if a young fellow 
goes out thinking that he can occupy his time with 
doing nothing but amuse himself, and leaves his 
ranch to take care of itself, he will fail, and will 
probably return to England and seek to excuse his 
non-success by writing to the newspapers, and send¬ 
ing up the false cry that ‘ There is no money to be 
made by fruit-ranching.’ Those who have no 
capital at all, are strongly advised not to go to Cali¬ 
fornia.” What he maintained was that California 
is a new country, and consequently not over run, 
and that money can easily be made there by the 
application of capital, assisted with energy and deter¬ 
mination. 
Living was cheap in California, the mails reached 
England within eleven days, and a first-class return 
ticket from Chicago to England cost £50. Shooting 
and fishing might be obtained on Lake Tahoe, which 
could be reached by rail and stage from Placer 
County within two hours. At present the railway 
rates were high, but they were gradually being 
lowered. It was also hard to obtain good servants, 
though now that a Servants’ Agency had been 
opened in San Francisco, this difficulty would soon 
be overcome, and it would become possible to obtain 
trustworthy Swedish servants. Lastly, it was wrong 
to suppose that Englishmen, living in California, 
were obliged to be constantly armed. Young 
Englishmen invariably brought revolvers with them, 
as though they expected to become amateur police¬ 
men, but they soon found out that such weapons 
were not needed. 
Methods of fruit-farming were well illustrated by 
photographs and views, and samples of fruit kindly 
lent for the occasion .—Land and Water. 
—- 4 *- 
AGAPANTHUS UMBELLA- 
TUS. 
This old friend, which is better known perhaps as 
the blue African Water Lily, is in truth a noble and 
stately plant. Grown in pots, and placed outside 
during summer and autumn by the banks of streams, 
or round the margins of fountains and other pieces 
of ornamental water, it looks magnificent. The dark 
green glossy leaves, with the large many-flowered 
umbels standing well above them upon the vigorous 
erect growing scapes, produce an effect in such 
situations the beauty of which can be better 
imagined than described. Although it is said to be 
hardy in the more southern districts of this country, 
in most localities it will require protection during the 
winter. 
The bringing of the plants indoors is an operation 
that should not be deferred for too long. A place 
under the greenhouse stage will be quite good enough 
for them, and but little water should be given them, 
In some places they get no water at all from the 
time of bringing in in the autumn until they are sent 
out again in the spring. I do not agree, however, 
with letting them get in too dry a condition. True 
it is, they are very contented. Their wants are few, 
and easily satisfied, and they are very hard subjects 
indeed to kill. Following the principle, therefore, 
of the willing horse having to bear the heaviest 
burden, they are often sadly ill-treated. I have seen 
plants which have never been potted within the 
memory of man, some with pots and others with 
pieces (or none at all), bloom most profusely during 
summer or early autumn when they were stood in 
water about eight or ten inches deep. Such a 
beautiful plant is, I contend, well worthy of more 
kindly consideration. 
A. Umbellatus albidus. —This is a white 
flowered form of the afcre-mentioned species, and 
like it, is a native of the Cape of Good Hope. It is 
a vigorous grower and a profuse bloomer, although 
the individual flowers are somewhat smaller than 
those of the type. Still it is a showy and a useful 
plant, forms a pleasing variety when grown with the 
blue flowered kind, and should find a place in every 
garden. Like A. umbellatus it needs a plentiful 
supply of water during the growing period ; and 
occasional doses of liquid manure will prove of in¬ 
estimable service. Water must, however, be care¬ 
fully withheld from it during the winter to ensure 
success in its cultivation. 
UNFRUITFUL FRUIT 
TREES. 
This is a subject that requires the closest and most 
skilful observation and the calmest judgment. 
Whether it be only one or two or a few trees, or the 
general bulk of them, all must be taken into account, 
and the real reason in each individual case re¬ 
spectively noted and judged. A wide subject truly, 
necessitating much thought and patience in order to 
arrive at the proper treatment to be given at the 
proper time, and that no mistakes may be made if it 
is possible to avoid them. Errors of observation 
and judgment, of decision and practice, will occur, no 
man is perfect, but still, given the attentions which 
practical skill and experience dictate and healthy and 
substantial results will follow. 
The subject is so wide that I feel it will be best to 
narrow it down and bring it as near home as we can. 
I may as well, therefore, give one of my own life 
experiences. An ounce of practice is worth a ton of 
theory. Some sixteen years ago I came into the 
management of a fruit garden and orchard which 
had been treated partly in the “ let alone" way, and 
partly in a bad form of the once popular " restricted " 
way of management. The old trees in the orchard, 
some eighty years old or thereabouts, were choked 
into either partial barrenness or they produced fruit 
so small, colourless, and insignificant as to be, com¬ 
paratively speaking, almost worthless. After much 
study of them these were treated at the winter 
pruning to a strong dose of saw, to let in the light in 
the majority of instances, and some were marked for 
heading down, to be regrafted in the spring. Of 
these, I may say here and now that by this treatment 
they are producing as good crops as any orchard 
trees in the neighbourhood. The trees in the fruit 
garden were a greater difficulty. As to the wall 
trees they consisted of, first, a very mangy lot of 
Peaches and Nectarines. These were, after much 
deliberation and study of them and the elevation of 
the place and the climatical conditions surrounding, 
weeded out, and their places filled with chiefly 
Apricots, which were a fruit crop generally doing 
well, and much in request by the family I worked 
for. 
Second, the wall Pears had been for a long period 
pruned on the stag horn spur principle, most of the 
spurs standing out front the wall some 12 to iS in. 
or more. These were reduced by degrees until now, 
all the spurs lie close to the branches, and we 
