26 



CASSELL'S POPULAR GARDENING. 



grant ; sepals and petals wliite ; lip large, soft rich, 

 rose-colour. June and July. Bombay. 



A. Wightianum. — A very beautiful small-growing 

 plant, sometimes called A. testaceum, and also Vanda 

 parvifiora ; leaves strap-shaped, oblique, and obtusely 

 two-lobed at the apex, with a tootli between the 

 lobes ; racemes straight, erect, longer than the leaves, 

 simple, few-flowered ; flowers fragrant ; sepals and 

 petals oval, lateral sepals largest, soft apricot-yellow; 

 lip funnel-shaped ; lateral lobes obtuse, adnate to the 

 foot of the column ; middle lobe subcuneate, rounded, 

 and two-lobed at the apex, deep violet, dotted with 

 lilac, the disk crested with, several elevated lines ; 

 spur short, incurved, obtuse. May and June. Neil- 

 gherries and Ceylon. 



THE HAEDY TEUIT GAEDEN. 



Bt D. T. Fish, assisted by William Carmichael. 



FRUIT being such an important article of food, 

 as well as a universally appreciated luxury, 

 one might naturally expect to find fruit gardens 

 pure and simple as common as vegetable or flower 

 gardens ; and yet the fa'ct is very much othei-wise. 

 Fruit gardens are comparatively rare, whilst those 

 devoted to flower and vegetable culture are so com- 

 mon as to be looked upon as the necessary adjuncts 

 to our advanced state of culture and of civilisation. 

 And they are. Any retrogression in the growth of 

 vegetables or the culture of flowers would indeed be 

 a step backwards towards barbarism. But without 

 growing fewer of either, it would be quite possible in 

 most gardens to grow more and flner fruit. And 

 one of the first steps towards this, in not a few places, 

 would be the setting aside of a certain area expressly 

 for this piu'pose. So long as fruit-growing is tacked 

 on, as it were, to vegetable culture as a mere embel- 

 lishment to the culinary department, so long will it 

 hold a secondary place in the care, thought, and 

 skill of the cultivator. 



Fruit is so important for food, pleasm^e, health, 

 that it is worthy of the best place that nature and 

 art combined can provide for it. Its consumption 

 is increasing day by day, and were railway rates 

 lower, and the means of distribution more simple, 

 rapid and efficient, there is literally no limit to the 

 fruit that would be consumed by the workmen in 

 mines, factories, mills, and workshops. 



Under present circumstances the consumption is 

 (30 irregular and irrational that it often does more 

 harm than good. Thirsty men, tired women, and 

 fruit-famished childi^en, that may hardly have had 

 a taste of fruit for months, have suddenly a cheap 

 lot of inferior quality brought within their reach. 



They natmally eat to excess, suffer from their im- 

 prudence, and lay the blame on the fruit. But were 

 more and better fruit eaten as food, fewer pills and 

 digestive -aiding mixtm-es would be swallowed. A 

 Manchester merchant, who used to be a martyr to 

 indigestion, took to dining upon any fruit that 

 might be in season ; Cherries, Strawberries, Goose- 

 berries, Currants, Plums, Apples, Pears — nothing 

 came amiss to him. The one fruit meal a day cured 

 his chronic indigestion, and he waxed fat, worked 

 hard, and continued strong on his fruit mid-day 

 meal. A quart of Cherries disappeared before him 

 like snow in summer, but then he ate nothing with 

 them but a slice of dry bread or a stale roll. His 

 maxim was, bread agreed with fruit, but hardly any- 

 thing else did, and hence his never mingling savouries 

 with his fruits. 



The cry of fruit for food has scarcely yet arisen 

 amongst us, and the suggestion that Apples and 

 other fruit are in a special sense food for the brain, 

 has hardly as yet gone further than a philosophical 

 speculation. Only a little over one himdred and 

 fifty thousand acres are under fruit-culture in 

 Great Britain. True, the area is extending, but 

 very slowly, and what are those few acres to 

 supply the fruit-wants of over thirty millions of 

 men, women, and children ? It is true that here and 

 there bold and successful attempts are being made to 

 enlarge fi'uit gardens, or to expand them into farms 

 ranging in extent from fifty to five hundred acres ; 

 but these are rare exceptions; and it is as true 

 now as it was fifty years ago that a large pro- 

 portion of our fruit supplies reach us from abroad. 

 At home one of the most cheering signs of the 

 times is the bold enterprise initiated by Lord Sudeley, 

 at Toddington, in Gloucestershire. He has recently 

 planted five hundred acres of land Avith nearly half a 

 million of fruit-trees and bushes. So far the pro- 

 spects of this gigantic fruit garden are cheering, and 

 the area is about to be extended. As big things are 

 infectious, no doubt this example will have many 

 imitators on a smaller, and possibly a few on a yet 

 larger scale. Such enterprises will be fostered by 

 ]\Ir. Gladstone's suggestion to try jam-growing as 

 one means of mitigating the present agricultural 

 distress. As it is now said that the profits of wheat- 

 growong are nil to the British farmer, it is surely 

 worth while to try fruit, that realises a profit varjTng 

 from ten to a hundred pounds per acre per annum. 



Useful, however, in a national point of view, and 

 profitable as these gigantic fruit gardens or farms 

 may prove to their proprietors, the increase of fruit- 

 culture among all classes of gardeners would have a 

 far greater effect in increasing our home supplies. 

 If those who never grew any fruit would only grow 

 one Apple, Plum, Pear, or Cherry tree, and those 



