190 



The above was used as an argument 

 against a proposed increase in excise of 

 4s. a hogshead, which was opposed, and 

 taken off. 



Notes on the history of English fruit 

 growing would be incomplete without the 

 mention of Thomas Andrew Knight (1758- 

 1838), who lived at Downton, in Hereford- 

 shire, he was probably the best practical 

 gardener of his day. After graduating 

 at Oxford he made research into various 

 points of vegetable and animal physiology; 

 in 1785 he read before the Royal Society 

 a paper upon the inheritance of disease 

 among fruit trees. Noticing that excellent 

 old varieties of fruit deteriorated and 

 became more subject to disease, he raised 

 new varieties by taking pollen from 

 the blossoms of celebrated apples and 

 placing it on the blossoms of hardy apples 

 and crabs; this system he carried out on 

 cherries, pears, plums, nectaries, straw- 

 berries and potatoes. Yellow Ingestrie is 

 one of the apples he raised ; Monarch, a 

 pear; but perhaps he was really most 

 successful with cherries, of which Water- 

 loo, Elton Heart, Knight's Early Black 

 and Black Eagle are some of the best 

 known. In 1797 he published a treatise on 

 the culture of apple and pear, and on the 

 manufacture of cider and perry. He was 

 president of the Royal Horticultural 

 Society, and during his time many 

 European varieties of fruit were sent to 

 the United States of America to be tried 

 there. 



In Worcestershire, from about 1845, 

 fruit planting seems to have increased 

 quickly in the Evesham valley; here, 

 beside a soil eminently suited to market 

 gardening and plum growing (especially 

 the native Pershore Yellow Egg plum), 

 tenants and landlords have learnt mutual 

 confidence as to fruit planting, which 

 proves an advantage and security. 



Since the development of the railway 

 system the acreage of fruit has steadily 

 increased. The first Kentish railway, "The 

 South Eastern," was completed about 

 1846 ; the Chatham and Dover railway 

 was built some years later to take people 

 and produce even more rapidly to and 

 from the Continent; there has been the 

 temptation to favour foreign produce as 

 to rates and quick delivery. It is to be 



hoped that both British and foreign 

 produce will be treated fairly in the 

 future. 



William Topley, in his " Geology of the 

 Weald " (1875), writes : " The most fertile 

 district of the Hythe beds is that near 

 Maidstone. Enormous quantities of hops 

 are grown here, also filberts and fruit." 



The abolition of the duty upon sugar 

 in 1874 gave a great impetus to jam- 

 making, and consequently to fruit pro- 

 duction. 



About 1880 Lord Sudeley erected the 

 first preserving factory on a fruit farm 

 on his large fruit estate at Toddington, 

 in Gloucestershire. Here fruit was boiled 

 into pulp in steam heated pans, then 

 placed in barrels, to be reboiled with 

 sugar for jam when the fruit season was 

 over. About 1880, as apple drying in 

 America was making great strides, and an 

 evaporating factory at St. Catherines, 

 Ontario, Canada, was drying 150 bushels 

 of apples a day at a temperature of 160 

 to 170 deg. F., evaporation of apples and 

 plums, also crystalizing fruits, was tried 

 successfully in England. 



In about 1880 fruit-farmers began to 

 plant apple, pear and Morello cherries as 

 " bush trees " on dwarfing stock, the trees 

 commencing to branch at one or two feet 

 from the ground, as these trees come into 

 bearing earlier than standard and half- 

 standard trees. 



In 1884 the Extra-Ordinary Tithe Act 

 was passed, whereby no further tithe 

 rent charge could be levied on newly 

 planted fruit or hops. 



Since 1880, Agricultural Holdings Acts 

 and a Market Gardeners' Compensation 

 Act have been passed, these have helped 

 farmers, but not fruit growers, as 

 solicitors always find a way of avoiding 

 it in the case of fruit planting; and a 

 tenant proposing to plant fruit needs to 

 search for firstly, suitable land, and 

 secondly, the goodwill of a landlord. 



Between the years 1876 and 1885 the 

 "Herefordshire Pomona" was published 

 by the Woolhope Naturalists' Field Club, 

 edited by Robert Hogg and Dr. Henry 

 Graves Bull; this work, in two volumes, 

 illustrating apples and pears grown at 

 that date, is, we believe, the best illus- 



