FRUIT CULTURE 149 



considerable scope for cultivation of the Blackberry, and it would 

 be interesting work to study the effect of cultivation, pruning, 

 and manuring on some of the thirty-four species or sub-species 

 of Rubus fruticosus described in the British Flora. (Consult 

 Bentham and Hooker, British Flora.) 



It is to be hoped that in course of time a portion of every 

 school garden will be devoted to fruit culture. The fact that 

 the hardy British fruits can be profitably grown in perfection 

 in this country with ordinary attention and skill, considered in 

 connection with the further fact that between four and five 

 million of bushels of apples alone are yearly imported into this 

 country, point to the desirability of the further increase in the 

 area devoted to fruit culture. According to the returns of the 

 Board of Agriculture, the total area of land under cultivation in 

 Great Britain is about fifty-six million acres, of which about a 

 quarter of a million acres are orchards and one hundred thousand 

 acres are under small fruit (Currants, Gooseberries, and Straw- 

 berries). The greatest amount of orchard ground is found in the 

 counties of Worcester, Hereford, Gloucester, Somerset, Devon, 

 and Kent, but it must be remembered that all but the last named 

 are mainly cider-producing counties. In small fruit Kent easily 

 heads the list with some twenty-two thousand acres. Next 

 come Worcestershire, Herefordshire, Hants, Cambridge, Norfolk, 

 Essex, Middlesex, and Surrey. There can be no doubt that 

 while the soil of some of these counties, such as Hereford, Wor- 

 cester, Somerset, Devon, and Gloucester, are especially suitable 

 for Apple culture, there is no county in which the area under 

 fruit culture could not be profitably increased. 1 There appears 

 to be a considerable need for soil surveys in each county for the 

 purpose of ascertaining what soils and formations are specially 

 suitable for the cultivation of various fruits. 



In deciding what varieties to plant of a particular fruit, it 

 is desirable to ascertain from other growers in the neighbourhood 

 and from local nurserymen what kinds have been found to succeed 

 best in the locality. As in the case of the numerous varieties 

 of potatoes, differences of soil, situation, and climate have a 



1 Consult the Journal of the Roy. Hort. Soc., vol. xxx., 1906; also, "The Report of 

 the Departmental Committee upon the Fruit Industry of Great Britain." (Cd. 2589). 



