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any beneticial way to the large growers. Farmers give up the business in disgust 
at the unfairly low prices they get for their fruit. 
““When a Herefordshire or Worcestershire farmer travels to Manchester or 
London in the vain hope of selling his large stock of splendid fruit, he is told that 
foreign fruit can be got so cheaply that he cannot be offered anything worth his 
acceptance. What is the consequence? The farmer goes home disgusted ; five or 
six extra men hand-picking at 2s. 6d. a day are dismissed; and the fruit is either 
made into cider, or devoured by the sheep and pigs. At rent-day, when the far- 
mer meets his landlord, he cannot pay all his rent, his farm being valued at per- 
haps 10s. per acre all round over its corn-growing value for the fruit that is 
supposed to be sold off it. 
‘*Then as to labour, A few years ago there seemed no certainty at all as to 
where the demands of the agricultural labourer would stop, and the farmers all 
turned their attention to methods of making money without the need of labourers. 
Of course, to market a crop of fruit takes labour, and that of an expensive kind. 
Had the movement continued, the English labourer might soon have found him- 
self out of employment altogether. And although wages were raised to the 
highest pitch five or six years ago, Worcestershire farmers have never since 
reduced them; still the attitude of the labourers caused terrible: mischief, and 
has in these counties conduced to the present lamentable state of agricultural 
affairs. 
“No greater mistake is being made than that of landowners in discouraging 
fruit cultivation, or perhaps, rather, not exerting themselves to extend and im- 
prove it. Every farm should be well inspected with regard to its fruit-growing 
capabilities. Orchards that are half-stocked with trees should be planted up, 
and kept planted up. Tenants should be bound to plant a new tree for each one 
that comes to an end. The green orchards—which are almost worn out—should 
be either entirely planted up, or entirely rooted out. A farmer is often losing 
weekly five pounds’ worth of dairy or other produce for the sake of a pound’s 
worth or so of fruit that is not fit to be gathered. An orchard should be well 
worth shutting up altogether when necessary, and by taking care no inconvenience 
will be occasioned. It is easy to eat down the orchards bare and let the open 
land grow up till the middle or end of August. 
“‘Strageling trees all over the farm are a great nuisance on this account also. 
Cattle thus get a chance of tasting the fruit, and they often, especially in a dry 
season, get such a ‘‘hankering” after it that they cannot be safely confined in 
any field by any fence. A dairy of cows turned into a field of splendid keep, 
after being brought back from their ‘“‘ fruiting,” will not put their heads down to 
eat for hours together. 
“Tt is satisfactory to turn for a moment from the apple and pear cultivation 
of this district, which is certainly either at a standstill or going down hill, to that 
of plums, gooseberries, and currants, carried on so extensively in the neighbour- 
hood of Pershore. Enormous plantations of the White Magnum Bonum, com- 
monly called the Pershore or Egg plum, are there to be seen, and it is difficult to 
know where market-gardening ends and farming begins. One holding of 200 acres 
