PREFACE. 



New occasions teach new duties; 



Time makes ancen" good uncouth; 

 They must upward still, and onward, 

 Who would keep abreast of truth. 



Lowell. 



When originally invited by the Editor of the Fruit, Flower and Vegetable 

 Trades' Journal, to write a series of arti'-les on Fruit Farming for that publication, 

 to be subsequently supplemented and issued in book-form as a reliable text-book for 

 the industry, I felt it would be somewhat too heavy a responsibility for my individual 

 ertbrt. However, talking the matter over with a friend (one of the best cultivators 

 and most successful fruit growers in Kent), he said : " We fruit growers are too 

 busy with raising and selling our produce to write books, but if I can help you 

 l)y telling you anything I will at any time gladly do so." Encouraged by this 

 offer of assistance, I entered upon the task, and with the help of gentlemen 

 recognised as authorities in the practice and in the science of the industry, I 

 have endeavoured to give details of the best methods of management and 

 practice, together with advice based on some ten years' personal experience of 

 the pleasures, difficulties and anxieties of fruit farming at Highlands, Swanley, 

 Kent. Various work and visits had taken me into most of the fruit-growing 

 districts of Kent and other counties, and again I have to thank many growers for 

 so kindly showing me their plantations and patiently answering my numerous 

 questions. Previously, in delivering courses of lectures on " Fruit Growing and 

 Insect Pests '' for the Worcestershire Chamber of Agriculture at eleven diiTerent 

 centres, I had taken the opportunity of visiting the principal fruit-growing districts 

 in that beautiful county. A year spent among the fruit growe s of the Cornwallis 

 Valley, in Nova Scotia, Canada, enabled me to observe the good woik of the Nova 

 Scotian Fruit Growers' Association, its conferences, its fruit growing school for 

 i-tude-'its and farmers (which I attended during the winter), its public demonstrations 

 in pruning and spraying, and the spirit of co-operation which inspires the fruit 

 groweis of the province to vvork together for their mutual advancement; it also 

 showed me the benefit of the telephone on the farm and the packing house at 

 the railway depot. What I saw convinced me that, although the best English fruit 

 plantations are probably as well managed as any in Canada or the U.S.A., the 

 majority of the fruit plantations and orchards in England are not as good as the 

 average of those countries, where the growers are by nature progressive, the 

 surroundings and climate helping to make them so. I was much struck at the time 

 by the excellent bulletins issued by the agricultural experiment stations and by the 

 Provincial Government departments. However, now our own Ministry of Agricul 

 ture has an excellent series of leaflets on fruit cultivation, insects, diseases, etc., 

 which all fruit growers or intending growers will do well to read, mark and learn. 



In these strenuous times home growers, in order to maintain pre-eminence in 

 our own markets, must work shoulder to shoulder and cease to look upon their 

 immediate neighbouTS as competitors, but rather as brothers with common interests. 



For this second edition the whole work has been carefully revised and in many 

 cases rewritten Several specialists have kindly contributed valuable chapters, as 

 will be noted by a glance at the Table of Contents. I sincerely hope the book 

 will help the monetary side of fiuit grooving, and also add interest from the many 

 points of view from which the subject is dealt with. 



Cecil Heinry Hoopek. 

 Oxenturn House, Wye, Kent, 

 June, ly^l. 



