74 THE ORCHARD IN ITS COMMERCIAL ASPECT. 



Crop ; but since all the hardy Orchard Fruits are embraced, it will 

 be better to limit the enquiry to Herefordshire, where the fruit 

 acreage is the highest, and where the only Orchard Fruits grown 

 are Apples and Pears. 



Herefordshire contains according to the latest Returns 27,081 

 acres of Orcharding. Of this amount, in these days of cheap and 

 rapid transit, when all apples with size and colour meet with a ready 

 sale as " Pot Fruit," as it is called, that is, fruit for edible or cuhnary 

 purposes, not less than one sixth must be allowed in this way : — 

 take the product in an average year of 4,514 acres of " Pot Fruit " 

 at the low estimate of 60 bushels to the acre, and at the equally 

 low price of 3s. per bushel, and the value would be ^35,626. 

 The remaining five sixths, or 22,567 for the production of Cider 

 and Perry would yield on a very low average two Hogsheads of 

 100 gallons each per acre ; and this at the low price of 3d. a gallon 

 would give ;^564 17s. lod., and thus at this computation purposely 

 made so low, the yield from fruit for this County would be at the 

 rate of ^3 per acre of Orcharding annually, and if the best fruit 

 was grown and the best Cider and Perry made, as a matter of 

 course, the profit would be much greater. 



It must also be remembered that "Pot Fruit" is grown in almost 

 every garden throughout the County, which is not included in the 

 Government Returns. Its amount could scarcely be estimated at 

 less than the Orchard " Pot Fruit," and so an additional sum of 

 ;^35,626 should be added to the fruit yield of the County, although 

 for the most part it is consumed at home. 



The total annual value of the Herefordshire Apple and Pear 

 Crop reaches, according to these estimates, the very large sum of 

 ;^i 27,669. As a matter of fact, however, it is not easy to 

 determine the actual produce of English Orchards ; for there are 

 no published records of the exact crops they yield year by year. As 

 a general rule the trees of " Pot Fruit," or "Table Fruit " as it is 

 better called, bear a full crop every alternate year, but this is not 

 the case, to the same extent, with the varieties grown for making 

 Cider and Perry. These trees will bear profusely for some two or 

 three years in succession, but after these great " hits " they seem to 



