CHRISTMAS FRUIT IN LONDON, ENGLAND. 



INCE Ontario fruit growers' are 

 so deeply interested in the 

 export of their fruit to Great 

 Britain, and have reason to 

 hope that this trade will be successfully 

 opened during the coming season, by 

 means of improved cold storage pro- 

 visions, and the experimental shipments 

 carried on under the supervision of Prof. 

 Robertson, we give some extracts from 

 the Daily Standard, concerning the fruits 

 on the Christmas market. 



A stroll round the wholesale fruit markets 

 of the Metropolis, and a visit or two to the 

 Pudding-lane sale-rooms and the docks and 

 wharves, will satisfy anyone that the pro- 

 spects, as far as the Christmx^ supplies of 

 fruit are concerned, are better than they have 

 been for many a year. Naturally, the 

 question of Christmas fruits leads one, especi- 

 ally when experienced in the ins and outs of 

 the enormously expanding fruit trade, to state 

 a few facts, first of all with regard to the 

 apple — the king of fruits. At the present 

 time we are deriving our outside supplies from 

 Belgium, Canada, France, Holland, Italy, 

 Spain, and the United States. They are com- 

 ing in in fair (juantities. During one week 

 lately we received twenty thousand bushels 

 from Canada, thiiteen hundred from France, 

 two thousand five hundred from Italy, four 

 thousand three hundred and thirty from the 

 United States, and fourteen hundred and one 

 from Spain. These quantities, added to other 

 but insignificent supplies, and the receipts at 

 other ports outside L^ndon, bring up the 

 weekly total of apple imports to over fifty 

 thousand bushels. 



Oil the other hand, the hom? stocks are 

 short, and especially of choice samples, for 

 which an unlimited demand prevails at high 

 prices — at prices, it may surpise the general 

 pablic to know, higher than h-ive been known 

 in the history of the fruit trade. Whilst we 

 have a goodly display of grand Nova Scotian 

 Rlbstons on show, of deeper-colored Blen- 

 heim Orange, and of delicately-hued King 

 also of magnificently-colored American Ben 

 Davis, Baldwins, and the pale but g dden- 

 skinned Newtown Pippins, we have in 

 spite of the shortage in the home stocks, 

 English apples far superior to those named 

 above iu every point. We have some grandly- 

 colored Bienheim Orange of enormous pro- 

 partions, of perfectly-shaped King, big 

 mellow-looking Ribston Pippin, Giant Gol- 

 den Noble and Bismarks, the latter a splen- 

 did fruit, for sale. Line's Prince Albert, 

 and last, but not least, Bramley's Siedling, 



one of the finest cooking and heaviest croppers 

 known ; also Wheeler's Russet and Old Non- 

 pareil, that old-fashioned but exquisitely 

 flavoured apple, of which tradition has it that 

 it came from France, and was set by a Jesuit 

 in the days of good Queen Bess. These 

 English apples are referred to simply to show 

 that, in spite of the advances made by the 

 foreign producer, the British apple, as re- 

 gards size, color, lusciousness, flavour, and 

 value, stands without a rival, and in this year 

 of Jubilee holds its own — aye, and easily — 

 against all comers. What shall be said of 

 Bess Pool, that finely-striped red apple, the 

 best of which come from Herefordshire, and 

 which keep well from November till March, 

 and is such a pomological dainty that few 

 except the richer classes ever have the 

 pleasure of tasting it. The seedling tree of 

 this apple was said to have been found by a 

 country lass, in a wood. She, gathering 

 some of the fruits, carried them to her father, 

 the keeper of the village inn, from whim 

 grafts were in due course obtained, and the 

 variety handed down to posterity. The name 

 of the little lassie was Bessie Pool, hence the 

 name of the apple. 



Pears deserve more than a passing notice. 

 Fifteen and twenty years ago, enormous pears 

 from Paris used to be marked up in the Grand 

 Row at Covent-garden Marketatten, twenty, 

 and thirty shillings each, and they were even 

 lent out for table decoration at West-end par- 

 ties. They were immense fruits, and usually 

 created much astonishment when seen. So 

 with the large supplies of Autumn pears. 

 French fruits have monopolised the English 

 markets During the pist few months, how- 

 ever, they have been eclipsed by the superior 

 pears from California The Californiau Easter 

 Beurres are superior to the French ones. So 

 with the Beurre Diel, Glou Morceau, Winter 

 Neli-<, and Beurre Clargeau. A few pears are 

 now coming in from (Guernsey and Jersey, and 

 the Channel Island Chaumontelles, of course, 

 are always much sought after, when they are 

 large and well colored. The English supplies 

 are so short as to bs hardly worth a notice. 



And then what of the grape ? Only a day 

 or two ago, when passing through Covent- 

 garden market at five o'clock in the morning, 

 amidst a flare of gas-jets, the rush of the 

 loaded porters, the contin led hubbub of the 

 busy buyers and the shrewd salesmen, groVe- 

 ers, and commission salesmen, we were parti- 

 cuKrly struck with the suparior quility of 

 the fine punneted grapes especially, which 

 form one of the most attractive features of 

 the Christmas fruit trad^ at Covent-garden 

 niirket. Many of these hothouse grapes were 

 p icked in shallow, flit-shap^d handle baskets, 

 telling at a glance they came from Guernsey, 

 whilst the deeper grape baskets denoted their 

 arrival overnight from Worthing and kindred 

 cintrej. Iaalditi)n wer«3 to be seen mim- 

 moth-berried Gros Colmi.r grapes from Scot- 



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