138 



IRISH GARDENING. 



SEPTEMHER 



■ Current Topics. 



By E. Knowldin, F.R.H.S. 



PLOUGH ! brothers, plough ! — in your strawberries. 

 Burn ! brothers, burn ! — your gooseberry bushes, 

 and hide your heads, ye apostles of fruit farming, 

 for are ye not a vain and foolish generation? "Jam! 

 the strawberries," says many a grower, barring the J, 

 for which we substitute their big D's, but, as a literal 

 fact, some fruit farmers escaped by signing contracts 

 sufficiently early with the jam-maker to save " sich 

 langwidge," and some who did not have received 

 pretty much the same sort of pity as that bestowed by 

 the good little girl when viewing the celebrated painting 

 after somebody — the lions after the Christians: "One 

 poor lion hasn't got a Christian," but there was more 

 than one poor fruit farmer without a jam jobber. 



However, one of the biggest growers found another 

 way to dispose o{ /it's 250 tons of strawberries, which 

 did not pay for the picking let alone anything else. 

 This was Wood of Crockenhill, Swanley, Kent, and let 

 his name be preserved, if his berries were not, for 

 generations of juveniles to rise up and bless it. He sent 

 for the boys of Barnardo's Homes, for the little boys 

 from the Farningham Hoine, and the little " orfin " 

 girls from some other home, gave each a pack to carry 

 back outside, after their iiniiiigs on his broad acres, 

 and the intake of the human boy, to the best of our 

 recollection, far exceeds his rotundity', and— good Mr. 

 Wood! And, poor Mr. Wood ! whose 1909 profits 

 must have been pretty well on a par with his namesake 

 of Dorking, in the adjoining county, who arose one 

 morning to find a widowed gander weeping for his 

 harem, whose disappearance was accounted for by the 

 lines (historic in the locality) pencilled on paper 

 enclosing a sixpence tied to the old sultan's neck, 

 informing Mr. Wood his geese were good, further 

 stating — " We come from neither here nor yonder, and 

 have brought six geese at a penny apiece, and left the 

 money with the gander." 



But, seriously, apart from King apple, is this gospel of 

 the extension of fruit culture a true one V Gluts, of 

 course, are spasmodic, but is there not another factor 

 to come into the calculation —viz., the yearly increase 

 of foreign fruit? Bananas three a penny at Nelson's 

 Pillar, pine apples for a song in Cottonopolis, water- 

 melons everywhere for less, and other things for next 

 to nothing. We were told when modestly discussing 

 the question that such foreign fruits do not affect it, 

 especially the first named, on account of which one old 

 lady has made herself immortal by preferring the old- 

 fashioned night gear ; we were told that pyj we mean 



bananas — do not compete with our produce, but were 

 not convinced, and perhaps our controversialist felt a 

 bit shaky as he ambled off on to the farm proper, and 

 spoke of the fine prices for prime hay ; and here, truly, 

 our farming friends show their astuteness by not 

 glutting the market with it to run prices down, for we 

 see excellent hay in the fields undergoing the process of 

 conversion into second grade, third grade, and even 

 fourth grade food, where a good deal of it will stand 

 out until it is no grade at all. Unselfish souls ! Surely 

 the reward shall be great (for a few) hereafter — when 



the hunters get their breakfast. But a truce to this 

 rambling away to the farm where, by the same token, 

 everyone — every little farm — should have its little apple 

 orchard, and there would be nothing new or novel 

 about that, for it is an old English custom, and our 

 friends need not fear being " Englified " by its adoption. 



It is not, perhaps, so much what we have to fear at 

 the immediate present, as it is in the near future, from 

 foreign competition. All seem on the watch for some- 

 thing to tickle our palates and ease our pockets with 

 some pretty flavoured thing we never knew we wanted 

 till it came. Now, naartjes from Natal have established 

 their superiority over the juicy Javas, and one never 

 knows what some pregnant steamer is going to deliver 

 herself of at our market doors. .And the consignors arc 

 aided and abetted in their invasive policy by all their 

 carrying companies that be, although we cannot say that 

 our own transit rulers are guilty of such weakness, and 

 if they were they are putting on the muzzle. As an 

 instance of this we cannot fail to note that the G. S. & 

 W. Ry. have limited their rail vouchers for reduced 

 fares to exhibitors of fruit and flowers at the Dublin 

 shows to one for each exhibitor ; therefore the nurserj'- 

 man who requires an assistant or two to cope with a 

 big exhibit has the optional pleasure of paying full fares 

 for his imderstrappers or staying at home. Then, again, 

 to help the foreigner, some scientific pomologist is 

 always dangling some possibility before their eyes which 

 they are not slow to grasp. Now it is Actinidea chinen- 

 sis which has flowered in Europe for the first time this 

 year, a handsome hardy climber which we are told 

 would in all probability be hardy In Ireland. However, 

 we need not bother about that ; the}- can do that for us 

 on the Riviera, where it. has flowered but not fruited for 

 simple reason <>( being as yet in single blessedness for 

 want of the male sex, which, we believe, will shortly be 

 trotted over from China. When happily married the 

 Actinidea bears fruit, lashins of it, resembling a small 

 plum, but with (saving your presence !) the guts of a 

 gooseberry, and that it is highK relished by the Chinese 

 seems its chief recommendation as yet. After all, per- 

 haps we need not add this to our worries yet, for John 

 Chinaman's tastes are peculiar to us " barbarians, " as 

 yet not educated up to infant mice dipped in honey and 

 swallowed holus bolus, or hen fruit not esteemed by the 

 Celestial palate till it is dead ripe, when it would eng,ige 

 all hands to negotiate a sample — one to grip the 

 olfactory organ, whilst the other conveyed it to the 

 facial orifice. 



Third!}', or rather fifthly, with apologies, fruit — 

 with more apologies, for although sweet pea prattle 

 still pervades the aerial currents, with the passing of 

 the shows, that topic is now elevated above the com- 

 mon garden writer, as pea-men worry over Mendel's 

 theories — fruit of high quality must ever be the con- 

 sideration, especially under its commercial aspect, and 

 Boskoop black currant, which is in everybody's mouth 

 verbally, must be mentioned as a reminder to planters. 

 Nothing better ever came to us from the land of bulbs, 

 butter, and bounteous breeks, and no bigger jump was 

 ever made in currant culture since Hans Breitman's 

 memorable "barty," when a young vrow who weighed 

 but two hundred pound gave that record jump 

 which shook the windows round. Well, Boskoop is a 



