38 COMMERCIAL BOTANY. 



but the excellence of their quality has won for them a place 

 at the present time amongst the more costly fruits on the 

 tables of the upper classes. 



For some years past we have received consignments of 

 tinned fruits, such as apples, pears, peaches, &c., from 

 America and Australia, but it is not till within the last five 

 or six yeai'S that anything like a real and earnest attention 

 has been given to the subject of the general exportation from 

 our colonies into the mother country of preserved and fresh 

 fruits. A great impetus was given in this direction by the 

 Colonial and Indian Exhibition of 1886, not only by the 

 extensive and various exhibits of colonial fruits, but by the 

 establishing of a market for the sale of the fresh produce 

 brought from America, the West Indies, and even Australia, 

 by faskgoing steamers ; by this means, though the supply 

 was intermittent, some of the fruits both of tropical and 

 sub-tropical countries were brought under the notice, and 

 within the reach of many who had never probably even 

 seen them before. As this question of the development of 

 the trade in colonial fruits formed the subject of a special 

 report in connection with the Exhibition, by Mr. D. Morris,* 

 it will suffice to give a few notes from that report, and to 

 point out that the entire subject therein dealt with is one 

 that has originated and grown to its present proportions 

 within the last twenty years. Regarding Canadian fruits, 

 Mr. Morris draws attention to the enormous proportion 

 which the apple trade has assumed ; and states that the 

 province of Ontario alone exported half a million barrels, all 

 of which, however, did not come to England, a considerable 

 quantity going direct to Norway and Denmark. In the 

 matter of packing, always a difficulty with fresh fruits, it is 

 stated that " nothing was, on the whole, so satisfactory as a 



* Fruits, by D. Morris, M.A., F.L.S., Colonial aud Indian 

 Exhibition, 1886. Reports on the Colonial Sections of the Exhibition. 

 Edited by H. Trueman Wood, M.A. London : Clowes and Son. 



