1 88 FRUIT FARMING 



advice he had given, and for the indomitable per- 

 severance with which he had carried out his experiments 

 over many years. The question of selection and 

 packing of fruit was all important. If he had 100 

 bushels of Apples, he would rather send off 60 per 

 cent, of the best, even if he had to throw away the 

 other 40 per cent., but that was not at all necessary. 

 If you picked out the very best, say 20 per cent., and 

 packed them carefully in boxes, and then took a further 

 40 or 50 per cent, and packed them carefully in baskets, 

 the returns from these two sections would be greater 

 than from the whole 100 bushels marketed in a careless 

 way ; there would be a saving in carriage, in packing, 

 and in other ways, and you would still have 30 to 40 

 per cent, of sound fruit to deal with, which you could 

 dispose of to the ** smasher," as the jam maker or 

 cider maker was termed, at a fairly remunerative 

 price. The same thing would apply to every kind of 

 fruit. Another improvement was the steam cultivation 

 of the land, not only in clearing old woodlands, but 

 even on some of the best land in Kent, where he 

 would not think of planting fruit trees without first 

 thoroughly ploughing it arid stirring the subsoil by 

 steam. He recently broke up 14 acres, first ploughing 

 it 9 to 12 inches deep by steam, and then following 

 the furrows with a powerful steel implement to break 

 up the subsoil, being careful not to bring the subsoil 

 to the top, but thoroughly breaking it up from 21 to 

 24 inches deep. The whole cost was not more than 

 2 per acre, if you hired the implements, and that 

 was quite saved in the cost of planting. Artificial 

 manure was another important point. Any farmer or 

 fruit grower could now be supplied with exactly the 



