Hints on Vegetable and Fruit Farming. 35 



Fine apples and pears should be stored and only sent to market 

 when they are ready for use, in order to make the best prices of 

 them. Above all, fruit-growers must combine and establish a 

 better mode of selling their fruit, in order to get a price more 

 approximate to its real value. Already in Kent some growers 

 have taken steps to form an Association to alter all this, while 

 others have commenced to make contracts with retail shops to 

 supply them directly. 



There is an enormous demand for fruit of all kinds, and 

 intending planters must not be frightened either by fear of the 

 foreigner or that the supply will be in excess. Jam-making 

 assumes larger proportions year by year, and, as has been sug- 

 gested, fruit is also used for flavouring drinks of all kinds, for 

 dyeing, and for making wines. Some idea of the extent of the 

 jam-making trade may be gained from the following, which 

 appeared as an advertisement in a newspaper in Kent, during 

 the whole fruit season : — 



" To Fruit-growers, Dealers, and Others. Wanted for Cash — 



5000 bushels Green gooseberries. 

 5000 „ Black currants. 

 8000 ,, Green gooseberries. 

 2000 „ Red currants. 

 500 „ Common apples. 



Address Covent Garden, London." 



It would be most desirable that fruit-growers should have 

 some conveniences for turning their fruit into jam or jelly, in 

 case of gluts in the market. The process of jam-making is 

 simple, and is understood by most housekeepers. It seems that 

 nothing but a good-sized copper would be required to convert 

 quantities of fruit into jam, which, from its bond fide character, 

 would certainly hold its own against the manufactured, strangely- 

 blended concoction of ordinary smashers, who use common 

 apples as a foundation. Indeed, it is alleged that marrows, 

 turnips, and other vegetables are used by some of the smashing 

 fraternity ; and flavoured, according to taste, with raspberries, 

 gooseberries, and currants. A landowner in the Midland counties 

 having planted hundreds of acres of land with fruit-trees has, 

 with admirable foresight, put up an apparatus for boiling down 

 fruit, if the prices offered for it, when raw, do not suit his ideas. 



Fruit-growing is a most interesting and engrossing occupa- 

 tion, and, taking an average of seasons, is also most profitable. 

 As has been shown, it may be commenced in a small way, — in 

 the garden of the farm, and gradually extended as circumstances 

 may warrant. The chief objection to its adoption hitherto by 



