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' during the winter, and cracks to let the draught through in the summer. Of 
course, in pruning, the object is to keep the branches growing outwards from a 
stem about 5ft. high. 
‘Some farmers, who are convinced of the profit of growing fruit, are so par- 
ticular on these points that they get slightly eccentric, to say the least, and dis- 
charge their men for the slightest infringement of their rules. An apple-tree can 
hardly become very profitable under fifteen years’ growth at least, and it certainly 
is most aggravating to have a tree, or perhaps an orchardful, seriously damaged by 
purely avoidable causes, after, perhaps, a most careful watch has been kept on them 
for ten or twelve years. After an orchard is once well started, the only expense 
connected with it is the pruning, and that is about covered by the sale of the 
‘brash.’ Apple-trees in Worcestershire often attain the size of an ordinary oak, 
and a tree of good sort will bear 25 bushels of apples. One pear-tree will often 
make as much as 200 gallons of perry. 
**Tt is very dangerous to lay down to grass an orchard that has hitherto been 
in tillage. It often causes all the trees to die. The ordinary one year’s course of 
seeds does not seem to hurt them, but a two years’ lea undoubtedly does. The 
decrease in the extent of orcharding and the inattention to fruit cultivation is very 
sad to see, and. it will not be amiss for us to look into the reasons for it. 
“‘ First of all we have the enormous and grossly unfair profits taken by the 
‘middle-man.’ <A pot (5 pecks or 80 Ib.) of fruit bought from a farmer for, say 
10s., is not sold to the public under 20s. or 25s. The usual system is for the farmer 
to take his fruit to one of the merchants in, Worcester, who sells it for him on com- 
mission, in reality to middle-men in large towns ; so—at least so he is told—the 
merchant in paying the farmer always professes to be getting only 6d. or so per 
pot out of the matter. 
“* At the same time they carry on the business in other ways, buying fruit in 
large quantities on the trees or after being picked, and keeping it themselves as a 
speculation. A large farmer, with much business to transact, cannot be always 
personally looking after the sale of every load of fruit, and most of them usually 
sell it in this way. All that the farmer does not want to keep for the winter he 
sends in as fast as it is picked, and notes the quantity in a book, which is taken to 
the merchant, who signs it and adds the price he means to give for it, or sometimes 
the price he will give for the previous lot, this being still uncertain. The farmer 
can, if he is at any time dissatisfied, close up accounts; or, if he goes on all the 
year, can draw money as he wants it, sometimes drawing more than is due. At 
Christmas the book will be squared for the season. Sometimes the fruit is sold by 
auction on the trees, orchard by orchard. In the former way, of course, each indi- 
vidual lot of fruit is quite at the mercy of the merchant, and the farmer loses the 
full advantage of sudden and spasmodic rises in the market. On the other hand, 
he never has his fruit refused ina great flush. It is the profit made after the fruit 
has left the merchant and before it reaches the public that is so unfair. For 
instance, in one abundant year, when a pot of good fruit did not fetch more than 
2s. in Worcester, enough to make an apple-tart cost 1s. 8d. at Malvern. A com- 
modious fruit market has been built at Worcester, but it does not seem to work in 
