The Climate of the Chester District 
(including Denbighshire and Flintshire), consivered 
in relation to Fruit Growing. 
BY ALFRED 0. WALKER, FMS. 
Read before the Chester Society of Natural Science, April 7, 1881. 
ie question has frequently been asked why we in England 
import so much fruit and grow comparatively so little, and 
the problem at first sight appears the more difficult from the 
fact that most of the countries which send us at all events our 
Apples and Pears, have a severer climate in winter than ours. 
I propose in this paper to consider one at least of the causes 
that lead to this result, and at the same time to compare the 
climate of those parts of England where orchards abound with 
those where they are comparatively rare. Let me, however, say 
at the outset that climate is probably not the only cause of one 
district or county producing more fruit than another. It is 
always difficult to say whether it is the love of cider that causes 
the natives of Herefordshire, Worcester, Somerset, and Devon 
to grow Apples, or whether it is the suitability of the soil or 
climate for growing Apples that has caused this to become the 
favourite drink. No doubt cause and effect re-act upon each 
other. Cider is brewed because Apples are abundant, and the 
increasing taste for cider causes more Apples to be grown. At 
the same time a good deal must be allowed for that unaccount- 
able thing “custom” or ‘‘fashion.”’ On the whole, however, 
I incline to the belief that it is the suitability of the climate that 
has originally caused the trees to be grown, inasmuch as the 
natives are of the same stock as we are, and there is no reason 
to believe that cider was drunk in very ancient times ; * while as 
regards soil there are very great differences in the geological 
formations of the above-named counties (which with Middlesex 
are, as will be seen from the table, the five great orchard 
counties), and there is undoubtedly abundance of good soil in 
almost all English counties suitable for orchards. Possibly the 
system of land tenure may have something to do with the 
question, as orchard trees are many years before they become 
profitable, and are therefore likely to be planted only by free- 
* Although the counties where cider is drunk remained Celtic long after the occupation 
of the eastern side of the island by Teutonic races, yet there is no Welsh word for 
cider. As it is largely made in Normandy, it was probably introduced by the 
Normans. 
