FRUIT BAT 



3362 



FRUIT FARMING 



The preparation of dried fruits is 

 an extensive business on the Con- 

 tinent, but English fruits do not 

 lend themselves to the process of 

 drying, as they contain insufficient 

 natural sugar. The industry has 

 reached the greatest excellence in 

 France, and French plums and 

 Normandy pippins are known and 

 highly appreciated all over the 

 world. The fruits are dried in much 

 the same way as vegetables. The 

 moisture is driven off in graduated 

 ovens, and the natural sugar acts 

 as a preservative. Sometimes the 

 fruit is soaked for a time in a light 

 syrup before being dried. 

 Dried Fruits 



Certain dried fruits form a very 

 important article of diet in many 

 parts of the world, chief among 

 them being the date, fig. raisin, and 

 currant. The date is to the Egypt- 

 ian what rice is to the Hindu. Such 

 foods have been used for thousands 

 of years, and drying is undoubtedly 

 the most ancient of all forms of 

 fruit preservation. In tropical and 

 semi-tropical countries no artificial 

 heat is required, the fruit being 

 dried in the sun, and in California 

 apricots are extensively treated in 

 this way. Dried figs form a very 

 valuable food, and Dr. Hutchinson, 

 the well-known authority on diet- 

 etics, says that, weight for weight, 



they are morenourishing than broad. 

 For all the forms of preserving 

 referred to, the fruit must be 

 gathered before it is fully ripe, and 

 while it is firm to the touch. 



O, Leighton, M.D. 



Fruit Bat. Family of bats 

 (Pteropodidae). Much larger than 

 the rest of the order, they are 

 characterised by feeding on fruits 

 instead of insects. The molar 

 teeth are modified in form to suit 

 the change of diet. The head is 

 somewhat fox-like, whence the 

 animals have derived their popular 

 name of flying foxes. Including 

 numerous species, they are found 

 in S. Asia, Australia, Madagascar, 

 and most of the islands of the 

 Pacific Ocean. See Flying Fox. 



Fruiterers' Company. Lon- 

 don city livery company. First 

 mentioned in 1515, and granted its 

 first charter in 

 1606, it took 

 part in the 

 colonisation of 

 Ulster in 1613, 

 and has done 

 much to en- 

 courage fruit 

 culture in Eng- 

 land, and to 



Fruiterers' Com- 

 pany arms 



promote the interests of the fruit 

 trade. Its offices are at 40, 

 Chancery Lane, W.C. 



FRUIT FARMING: EXTENSIVE & INTENSIVE 



R. Wellington, formerly of The Ministry of Food 

 This article belongs to the group that includes Agriculture ; Crops ; 

 Dairy Farming ; Market Gardening. See also the articles on the 

 ; Pl 



various fruits, e.g. Apple; Pear; Plum 

 of; Jam-making 



also Fruit, Preservation 



The growth of apples, pears, 

 plums, cherries, apricots, peaches, 

 grapes and figs, together with the 

 soft fruits, strawberries, rasp- 

 berries, gooseberries, and red and 

 black currants, has been carried on 

 in the chief European countries on 

 a fairly extensive scale for many 

 centuries ; but it is only since the 

 advent of rlys. and steamships that 

 an extensive international fresh, 

 fruit trade has come into existence. 



With perhaps the exception of 

 the U.S.A., no nation of an in- 

 dustrial character consumes more 

 fruit per head than Great Britain. 

 The supplies grown at home are 

 sufficient neither in bulk nor 

 variety to meet the demand, and 

 the British Isles at the present 

 tims is the largest fruit-importing 

 nation of the world. 



Source of Fruit Supplies 



Apples are obtained from the 

 U.S.A., Canada, Spain and Por- 

 tugal, France, Holland, Tasmania 

 and Australia ; oranges from Spain, 

 Portugal, Palestine*, Italy, Jamaica, 

 U.S.A., and South Africa; plums 

 from France, Spain, Belgium, Ger- 



many, America, and S.Africa; pears 

 from France, Holland, Belgium, the 

 U.S.A., and S. Africa ; grapes from 

 Spain, Portugal, Holland, and Bel- 

 gium; nuts from America (walnuts), 

 Spain (sweet chestnuts), Asia 

 Minor, and Brazil ; gooseberries, 

 cherries, black and red currants, 

 and strawberries from France, 

 Holland, and Belgium ; bananas 

 from Costa Rica, the West Indies, 

 and the Canary Isles. 



Seasons and Supplies 

 By drawing supplies from the 

 two hemispheres, the markets 

 throughout the world can be kept 

 continually supplisd. In Great 

 Britain home-grown apples come 

 into season during the last week 

 in July, and continue until the 

 middle or end of February. Earlier 

 s applies from the second week in 

 July are obtained from Spain 

 and Portugal. Towards the middle 

 of August native supplies are aug- 

 mented from France and Holland. 

 Then in the middle of September 

 the provinces and states of the 

 U.S.A. and Canada bordering the 

 Atlantic freeboard export large 



supplies. These are followed at 

 the beginning of December until 

 well into the spring by fruit from 

 the Pacific Coast, from Oregon, 

 Washington, and British Columbia. 

 Finally, in the beginning of May 

 and throughout summer, Tasmania 

 and Australia furnish supplies. 



In respect of attractiveness and 

 honesty in packing, the fruit which 

 comes from N. America and Aus- 

 tralasia ranks highest in the British 

 market. The quality of home- 

 grown apples and also those pro- 

 duced on the Continent is gener- 

 ally better, but, owing to faulty 

 methods of packing and distribu- 

 tion, the supplies from the former 

 countries have captured nearly the 

 whole of the high-quality trade, 

 not only in Britain, but in France, 

 Scandinavia, and other European 

 countries. 



Methods of Culture 



The methods of culture adopted 

 in the various countries are fairly 

 similar, but generally speaking 

 the individual holdings, and the 

 areas of the districts, are smaller 

 in the European countries than 

 in America, Australia, and S. 

 Africa, due chiefly to tb.3 fact that 

 the soils and the geological forma- 

 tions from which they are derived 

 are more mixed and diverse. In 

 Europe it is difficult to find large 

 tracts of land of a similar character 

 with a similar climate and situa- 

 tion. In America the reverse is 

 the case. As a result, the culture 

 on the European continent is 

 less centralized, and organization 

 less highly developed than in the 

 other countries. 



Fruit growing in Great Britain 

 may roughly be classified as exten- 

 sive and intensive. 



By the extensive method apples 

 and pears are grown in small grass 

 orchards of four to five acres at- 

 tached to purely agricultural hold- 

 ings, chiefly in the West of England. 

 This method, which is the oldest 

 form of fruit growing in the county, 

 is now disappearing. Originally the 

 orchards were planted partly to 

 furnish a supply of culinary and 

 dessert fruit for the farmer's own 

 household, but mainly to provide 

 cider for the farm-hands. This 

 custom of supplying cider to the 

 labourers as a perquisite in lieu of 

 wages, already declining, received 

 its deathblow by the orders pro- 

 hibiting the practice issued by the 

 Agricultural Wages Board which 

 was set up under the Corn Pro- 

 duction Act, 1917. 



Partly because the apples and 

 pear trees in the farm orchards 

 receive little, or no attention as 

 regards general cultivation and 

 tho control of insect and fungus 

 pests, but also because many of 



