I QO FRUIT FARMING 



of fruit and hop growing in keeping labourers on the 

 soil, which was a matter in which he took great 

 interest. Things were looking up a little in every 

 branch of agriculture, and they wanted more labourers 

 than they did a few years ago, but they could not get 

 them. They were often in great straits for men to do 

 a little extra work which they knew would pay for 

 doing. If you went away from the most prosperous 

 districts, up into the hilly and barren parts, you will 

 find only one in three, or one in six of the cottages 

 occupied, but down where fruit and hops were grown, 

 and near the towns, there was an enormous dearth of 

 labour. Instead of getting the assistance they used 

 to have from the hill country, when there was any 

 extra work, they could not now find it. In the 

 villages where fruit growing was carried on, there 

 was work during the winter in pruning, manuring, 

 digging, making new plantations, and so on, and he 

 was paying ^1,000 in wages now, where ^100 was 

 paid when he was young ; and a cottage could not be 

 got for love or money, though five miles away there 

 were empty houses, because there was no work for 

 the men to do. The Kent fruit industry, therefore, 

 was a grand thing, and it must be the same in many 

 other counties. Fruit was becoming more and more 

 popular every day ; it had never been overdone yet, 

 except in 1886, when there was the biggest all-round 

 crop of fruit ever known, while at that time the 

 system of distribution had not developed in proportion. 

 There might be a crop now three times as big as 

 that, and it would all go to market, and the public 

 would get the benefit of it. Enormous quantities of 

 hot-house Grapes and Tomatoes were now produced in 



