194 



G-iease Banding. 



In Kent, for banding fair-sized apple trees, 

 the cost is estimated at about £1 per acre. In 

 Worcestershire, where the trees are chiefly 

 plums, rather closely planted, my brother told 

 me locally-made grease cost him £60 for 30 acres. 

 Ringing Fruit Trees to bring them into Bearing. 



Near Malvern, Mr. F. Paget Norbury showed 

 me espalier apple trees which had not been 

 bearing. On the trunks of some of these, at 

 about 6 inches from the ground, he had cut out 

 a ring of bark i inch wide, leaving i to | inch 

 uncut. The trees thus treated had far more 

 blossom this spring than the trees not so treated. 

 Blowing TJp Tree Stumps with High Explosive. 



Mr. N. D. Fourdrinier, of Pershore, from his 

 experience in blowing up forest trees, considered 

 three men could get out stumps of fruit trees, 

 18 feet apart, at the rarf^e of an acre a day. 



Old Hose Pipe makes excellent collars for tying 

 fruit trees to stakes to protect the trees from the 

 cutting of cord or wire. 



Apple Jelly Recipe of the Horticultural College, 

 Swanley, Kent. 



Apples too small for market are quite good for 

 making into apple jelly. They should be 

 mature; hard, sharp apples are best, such as 

 Bismarck and Keswick. The apples are wiped, 

 cut up with peel and core, placed in stone jars, 

 just covered with cold water, and baked for 12 

 hours. If placed in copper or pans they should 

 only just simmer for the same length of time. 



The apple pulp is then strained through a 

 jelly bag of tammy (or through soup cloth tied 

 over a chair), either of which has been previously 

 wrung out in boiling water. The straining 

 continues for 24 hours. 



The pulp should not be pressed or squeezed, or 

 the juice will be cloudy. 



Good cane preserving sugar is used, lib. to 

 every pint of juice; the sugar should be slightly 

 baked in a cool oven for 15 minutes to warm 

 the sugar, but not sufficiently to colour it, before 

 adding to the juice. 



Cloves and lemon are added at the rate of 

 two cloves and the rind of half a lemon to each 

 pint of juice. The cloves and lemons are tied 

 up in a muslin bag. 



The juice is boiled for 30 minutes before add- 

 ing the sugar, and after the sugar is added it 

 is boiled very quickly and skimmed well for 

 10 or 15 minutes, or till the jelly thickens, when 

 a little is put in a saucer to cool. 



Strain again through a muslin (previously 

 wrung out in hot water) into a hot jug, with a 

 good pouring spout, and pour from this into hot 

 glass jars, very clean. The colour of the jelly 

 depends a good deal on the apples used. 

 Large Yields ol Fruit. 



Plum. — 112 Pershore Egg plum trees on 0.65 

 of an acre (two roods 24 perches), in 1920, yielded 



258 pots of fruit of 72lbs., equal to nearly 400 

 pots per acre — i.e., over 12^ tons to the acre; 

 beside this, about 10 pots were lost owing to their 

 dropping through being over-ripe, so the yield 

 is rather underrated, on farm of G. F. Hooper, 

 Pershore, Worcestershire. In the same year Mr. 

 Harold Martin gathered 10 pots of fruit from 

 four Monarch plum trees (equal to 1801bs. per 

 tree) ; and for the fruit from a quarter-acre allot- 

 ment at Broughton, chiefly planted with Purple 

 Pershore plum, he received £90 gross. Mr. Fred 

 Smith-, of Loddington, near Maidstone, once had 

 20 bushels of plums from a Black Diamond tree, 

 which variety is an irregular cropper and does 

 not usually crop heavily. 



Mr. Thomas Francis Rivers, of Sawbridge- 

 worth, Herts., said in 1875, at the Surveyors' 

 Institution, that two acres of Early Prolific 

 plums, planted as pyramids 6 to 12 feet apart, 

 had produced 800 bushels of fruit (10 tons per 

 acre). Rivers' Early Prolific crops well in grass 

 orchards, as among cherries. 



Apple. — ^In 1919, 80 acres of apple and plum 

 plantation, when 17 years old, trees 15ft. apart, 

 yielded 200 tons of apples and 100 tons of plums, 

 on farm of H. S. Bickham, Hilltop, Ledbury, 

 Herefordshire. 



In 1919, 200 trees of Bramley's Seedling, when 

 15 years old, yielded 2,500 bushels of apples on 

 Colonel Clive Murdoch's farm, Westerhill, 

 Linton, near Maidstone. 



In 1919, an orchard of Blenheim Orange, 

 planted by Mr. F. Paget Norbury, near Malvern, 

 when 21 years old, yielded an average of six pots 

 per tree, but it was only their second year of 

 cropping. 



In 1919, a four-acre grass orchard of Blenheim 

 Orange and Newton Wonder, trees 30ft. apart, 

 yielded an average of 12 cwts. per tree, on farm 

 of George Jones, Pinvin, Worcestershire. 



Bramley's Seedling apple trees, when 15 years 

 planted, produced 3^ bushels each on an average, 

 and at 40 years old for three years in succession 

 yielded an average of 15 bushels per tree. At 

 this age the trees had a circumference of 100ft. 

 and trunks IBins. in diameter. Plantation of 

 Messrs. Merriweather (the introducers of this 

 apple) at Southwell, Nottingham. 



Perhaps the record yield was 900 bushels per 

 acre of Bramleys, which was reached on Mr. 

 Wimshurst's farm at Wadhurst, Kent. 



Peab. — In 1920, six old pear trees yielded fruit 

 to the value of £45, there being an exceptional 

 crop selling at an exceptional price, on Mr. 

 Shackle's farm, Comberton, Worcestershire. 



Some old Perry pear trees in the West of 

 England sometimes yield a ton of fruit yearly, 

 which, containing 4-^-lbs. potash, withdraws from 

 the soil 1 cwt. of potash in 30 years. (Clement 

 Cadle.) 



Cherry. — In 1919, a Cluster cherry tree pro- 

 duced 90 half-bushels (281bs.) of fruit, or 22^ 



