140 EVESHAM AND ITS STORY 



Taking the entire production of fruit and vegetables 

 throughout the county of Worcester, I have good 

 authority for the statement that the quantities de- 

 spatched throughout the United Kingdom from this one 

 county alone, on an ordinary busy day in the height of 

 the season, would be equal to a total of 1,000 tons. On 

 the face of it, there might seem to be the danger of over- 

 production, and true it is that during 1905 there were 

 complaints in various quarters of falling prices and 

 diminishing profits. But one of the largest and most 

 experienced growers whom I consulted on this question 

 at Evesham scouted the idea of over-production, and 

 declared that, in spite of all the growers had done 

 hitherto, they were * still in the first quarter.' 



His view, I found, was shared by others. What the 

 industry is suffering from if it is really suffering at all 

 is not over-production, but a still incomplete system 

 of distribution. The progress already made at Evesham 

 in opening up fresh markets throughout the British 

 Isles has been most substantial ; but there are possi- 

 bilities of considerable further improvements in market- 

 ing, and it is in this direction, rather than in that of a 

 restriction of output, that action needs to be taken. 



The further question is being seriously discussed at 

 Evesham whether the ordinary markets of the country, 

 as an outlet for fresh fruit and vegetables, could not be 

 supplemented by the organization of a substantial 

 canning business, which would not only utilize any 

 possible surplus, but also substitute an important 

 British industry for a large proportion of those canned 

 fruits and vegetables now coming into the United 

 Kingdom in such large quantities from other countries. 

 It is especially pointed out that since the imposition 

 of a duty on tinned fruit, equal to about 2s. per dozen 

 3-pound tins, English fruit-growers have been placed in a 



