CAMBRIDGESHIRE AND HOLT DISTRICTS 47 



(exclusive of smaller quantities carried by passenger 

 train) has been as follows for the years stated : 



Owing to the unfavourable season, there was, it will 

 be seen, a considerable decline in 1905 as compared 

 with 1904; but the great increase in 1904 over previous 

 years is sufficiently suggestive of the expansion that 

 has taken place in the fruit-producing possibilities of 

 the district. A fair quantity of the fruit included in 

 these figures comes to London, but the great bulk of it 

 goes, via March, to Sheffield, Manchester, and other 

 Midland and Northern towns. 



Of what is taking place at Evesham and on the 

 Toddington Estate, Gloucestershire, I shall speak in 

 detail later on. 



In the Holt district of Denbighshire (situated in the 

 Valley of the Dee, and possessing climatic conditions 

 directly influenced by the Gulf Stream) very little fruit, 

 with the exception, perhaps, of damsons, was produced 

 prior to 1861. There are now 800 acres devoted to 

 fruit, principally strawberries, the cultivation of which is 

 steadily increasing. For the last ten years the amount of 

 land in the locality, previously used for grazing or for the 

 growing of potatoes, grain, etc., that has been changed 

 each year to fruit production is about 40 acres, and 

 there is said to be plenty of other land higher up the 

 valley that could be similarly treated. Of the actual 

 cultivators at Holt, 80 per cent, occupy from i to 3 



