94 CALSTOCK AND ST. DOMINICK 



morning to Covent Garden, where he was struck 

 with the high price asked for fruit. On his return 

 home he set to work on a small scale, and it was 

 not long before his fruit became the earliest on the 

 London and northern markets. He supplemented 

 his own growing by buying up the fruit in the 

 neighbourhood, and the higher prices he was able 

 to give soon encouraged a general cultivation of 

 fruit in the whole surrounding district. Owing to 

 the enterprise of one man, acres of fruit, giving 

 employment to hundreds of people, are now grown 

 on land which was giving indifferent returns both 

 to the owner and occupier, and the development of 

 local industries connected with the fruit trade has 

 added to the general prosperity of the place. 



Disposal of Produce. 



The fruit is despatched to Covent Garden to be 

 sold on commission, and to Manchester, Liverpool, 

 Edinburgh, Cardiff, and other northern markets. 

 It is packed in * punnets ' holding from f to 1 pound 

 of fruit, and the punnets are packed in cases. Jam 

 fruit is usually sold to a fruit-merchant and packed 

 in J-cwt. tubs, and resold by the merchant to the 

 jam-makers. The bulk of it going from Beers 

 Alton Station, on the London and South Western 

 Railway, has to be ferried across the river two miles 

 from the station, where it is loaded on to the 

 railway company's vans. 



A motor waggon has now been started by the 

 Great Western Railway, running daily between 



