CHAPTER XL 



ENCOURAGING REFLECTIONS. 



IT may encourage the young outside cultivator of an 

 enterprising turn of mind, if he well considers the 

 striking fact that no branch of agriculture is, and has 

 been for years, so entirely neglected as fruit growing. 



It has become unfashionable and unpopular for farmers 

 and men of leisure to grow fruit for market, since live 

 stock and corn paid so well after the Corn Law Reforms, 

 and from the days of the wars of Napoleon I., even to 

 raise fruit at all extensively, except for cider and perry, 

 has been given up as the orchards died off gradually. 

 Upwards of three-fourths of our fruit-growing areas 

 are, therefore, now, in the West of England, occupied 

 with apples and pears only suited for producing these 

 intoxicating liquors ; and many of the cherry and other 

 orchards around London have died out completely. 



Again, the cultivation of our English orchards is 

 carried on in much the same primitive style as two or 

 three hundred years ago. There is, therefore, plenty of 

 scope for all who will " march with the times," and 

 cultivate with energy and skill every sort and descrip- 

 tion of fruit in suitable localities, especially all those 

 kinds that cannot be shipped from abroad to compete 



