8 



ARCH. 

 L1BRABY 



PREFACE 



IT is several years since the suggestion was first made that 

 the time had come for publishing a connected account of the 

 results obtained at the Woburn Experimental Fruit Farm, but 

 the advent of the war rendered it advisable to defer any such 

 undertaking to some more suitable time : the same cause, how- 

 ever, operated at a later date in the opposite direction, for the 

 economic conditions engendered by the war soon rendered it 

 impossible to continue the Farm on its original basis, and, as 

 stewards of the undertaking, we now find ourselves called upon 

 to render an account of our stewardship. 



Fortunately, however, it is not altogether a case of Te morituri 

 salutamus ! for thanks to the broad-minded views now held by 

 the Board of Agriculture and the Development Commissioners, 

 and thanks, also, to the kindly exertions of the Committee of 

 the Lawes Agricultural Trust, the Farm will be continued for the 

 present on nearly the same lines and under the same manage- 

 ment as heretofore, though the funds necessary for the purpose 

 will be derived from Government. 



The origin of the Farm, which was established in June 1894, 

 may be suitably described by a quotation from Nature of 

 September 19, 1895 : 



" The object of this institution, which, under the above 

 somewhat unpretentious title, has been established by the joint 

 action of the Duke of Bedford and Mr. Spencer Pickering, F.R.S. 

 in order to supply what has hitherto been a great national 

 want, is to provide an experimental station where all matters 

 connected with horticulture, and especially with the culture of 

 hardy fruits, may be investigated both from the scientific and 

 practical point of view. 



" The origin of such an enterprise is always a matter of some 

 interest, and it becomes all the more so in after years, when, 

 too often, the details of its conception and evolution are irre- 

 trievably lost. In the present instance we may trace the origin 

 to an accident in a chemical laboratory. It was owing to such 

 an accident some years ago that Mr. Pickering, whose work in 



