FOR PROFIT. 193 



the West country, it is not deficient in fine quality 

 and flavour. As to keeping properties, he had been 

 lately drinking good cider, made in 1895-1896 from 

 local fruit. In the Weald of Kent they have lost the 

 true art of cider-making ; they put sugar in it, which 

 is a great mistake. The French were paying more 

 and more attention to the manufacture of cider. 

 Mr. Radcliffe-Cooke had said he knew nothing for 

 agriculturists which offered such an unlimited and 

 profitable field as cider-making. Mr. Cooke's advocacy 

 of cider, and specially in the interests of his own county, 

 Hereford, had led to his being called the " great 

 De-/'^r-atum." He would like to say that Mr. Bunyard 

 had not referred to poultry keeping in orchards, but 

 he thought it was a valuable and profitable adjunct, 

 and he might mention that the production of poultry 

 and eggs was now equal in value to our British 

 wheat crop, and still admitted of immense extension. 

 Mr. D. LOUIS said the washing of fruit trees with 

 poisonous materials had been practised for the last 

 50 years, and it was constantly done in France and 

 elsewhere, as well as in England. He did not know 

 of any recorded case in which any accident had arisen 

 therefrom. In connection with artificial manures, he 

 was pleased to hear Mr. Berry's remarks ; he had 

 been advocating it in Kent for some years, both 

 because it was more efficient, and on account of the 

 saving in carriage. But these things were adjuncts, 

 not substitutes entirely for farmyard manure, and it 

 was necessary that the right material should be applied 

 at the right time and in the right way, otherwise it 

 might be injurious. He lately had an interesting 

 example of that on some thin soil in South Kent, just 

 P 



