LESSONS FROM ABROAD 55 



of the value of 10,237,000, and of this sum 4,538,000 

 represented the value of fruit which could have been 

 grown in this country, the items being raw apples, 

 2,118,000 ; cherries, 319,000 ; currants, 143,000 ; 

 grapes, 827,000 ; pears, 503,000 ; plums, 526,000 ; 

 strawberries, peaches, apricots, 102,000. 



It will be seen that the largest item in this list is the 

 one referring to apples ; and here there can be no doubt 

 whatever that the neglect of the British grower always 

 to produce the right sort of apples, in sufficiently large 

 quantities, and to send them to market properly graded 

 and in attractive form, has been of immense advantage 

 to colonials and foreigners, who have seen the weakness 

 of the British growers, and hastened to take advan- 

 tage of our shortcomings. In fact, Mr. James Harper, 

 in a paper which he read at the same conference, said 

 ' it had come to this : that the home farmer, if he 

 would hope to hold his own against foreign competitors, 

 must copy their methods. They had taught him, if he 

 would but see, that attractiveness and evenness of 

 sample were two of the main factors to the successful 

 disposal of his produce.'* 



Concurrently, therefore, with the great expansion in 

 the fruit industry now proceeding in Great Britain, and 

 concurrently also with the improved outlook for soft 

 fruit, there would seem to be special need to place the 

 production and the sale, especially, of apples, on a 

 better footing, if English growers are to maintain their 

 own in regard to that particular class of fruit, now 



* To test this matter for myself, I sent, while writing this 

 chapter, to a farm in the country for a hamper of English Blenheims. 

 The hamper duly arrived, and I found on the top a fairly present- 

 able lot, but underneath, mixed up with a certain proportion of 

 good-sized specimens, were many that were miserably small/ with 

 a considerable number of windfalls and bruised or worm-eaten 

 apples that should have been kept back for the pigs. 



