The Canadian Horticulturist. 



225 



TENDER FRUITS IN ENGLAND. 



^EACHES and nectarines grown in England, if of good quality, 

 find a ready sale, and suflFer nothing from the competition of 

 foreign supplies, which are either of inferior sorts, unripe, or 

 too much damaged to find much favor. Expert growers of 

 these fruits contrive to maintain a supply from April to No- 

 vember by cultivating a variety of sorts under different tem- 

 peratures. Mr. Munro says there were often a thousand 

 boxes of English-grown peaches and nectarines disposed of 

 daily last year in Covent Garden. I have tasted here peaches 

 from California which compared favorably with the English 

 grown fruit. 



Grapes are in greater demand than ever. Enormous 

 quantities are imported from the Cape, Spain, etc., yet culti- 

 vators in this country find this fruit a profitable investment, 

 the acreage of glass devoted to it being largely increased every 

 year. I am told that good giapes grown under glass in England pay at one 

 shilling per pound. The varieties cultivated are chiefly Alicante, Black Ham- 

 burg and Gros Colman. About one thousand tons of English-grown grapes are 

 now annually marketed in this country, and nearly twice that quantity are re- 

 ceived from the Channel Islands, where grape culture has become a staple in- 

 dustry. Even Belgium sends forced grapes to the English market, about two 

 hundred tons being received from that country last year, a prohibitive duty 

 practically closing the Paris market to them. 



Cucumbers at one time were largely imported from the Continent, but now 

 English growers supply the Continental markets as well as their own. Mr. 

 Munro estimates the supply of this fruit from March to the end of July at about 

 fifty thousand per day. 



The increase in the consumption of tomatoes in England within the last 

 ten years has been phenomenal. They are a certain source of profit to the 

 beginner with limited capital, being easily grown and marketed and readily sold. 

 The quantity of house-grown fruit that passed through Covent Garden market 

 alone from March to November is estimated at two thousand tons, and this is 

 probably only a tithe of what is marketed throughout the country. I know a 

 market grower in the provinces who cannot sell apples and pears at any price, 

 while his tomatoes offered direct to the same consumers sold readily at sixpence 

 per pound, the price asked for six pounds of apples. My friend proposes to 

 leave the supply of apples and pears to the foreigners, and to devote himself 

 entirely to tomatoes and cucumbers. — W. Watson, Garden and Forest. 



