1922.] 



Fruit and Vegetable Growing. 



719 



suggest improved methods and better types to the existing 

 growers, but will lead others to seize the opportunity which is 

 afforded them. 



In Cheshire the surprises in store were of a different character. 

 Here,, the county that in imagination had been pictured as 

 stocked with mottled herds and redolent with cheese making, 

 turned out to be carrying on extensive industries in intensive 

 cultivation of fruit, vegetables and flowers. How many know that 

 on the borders of Cheshire, overflowing into the neighbouring 

 Welsh county of Flint, there is a firm of growers who cultivate 

 800 acres of strawberries ; whose undertaking extends to 1.200 

 acres, and is devoted to three crops, namely, potatoes, spring 

 cabbages, and strawberries — an establishment revealing a stan- 

 dard of cultivation, and an organisation that can challenge 

 comparison anywhere. 



In another part of the county there is gathered a colony of 

 intensive cultivators whose holdings are admirable examples of 

 " How to make the most use of the land," where clean cultiva- 

 tion, sustained fertility, and ingenious close cropping can be 

 seen as well as anywhere in the world. In another district one 

 finds that the soil, which is specially adapted to the growing of 

 pears, has long been discovered by the local growers, although 

 most of the sorts grown are of many old varieties, and the possi- 

 bilities of development still await exploiting. The enterprise of 

 a fruit merchant in planting out some 60 acres of top and bottom 

 fruit of all kinds should, if as successful as it promises to be, give 

 a stimulus to further development. In another area where some 

 seaside marshes have been reclaimed by draining and hedging 

 and years of intensive cultivation, there is a source of supply of 

 vegetables which must be of great value to the population of 

 Birkenhead and Liverpool, and one is surprised to know that 

 the cultivators are nervous of the possibility of their being 

 displaced by building operations. 



In the midst of such a county, with so many alert and enter- 

 prising growers, and so many potentialities waiting for exploita- 

 tion, the Horticultural Department of Reaseheath Agricultural 

 Institute should have an important sphere of influence. There 

 are still new methods that could be demonstrated. There are 

 yet types of vegetables and fruit apparently unknown to the 

 local growers, and especially there is a wide field of opportunity 

 for demonstrating methods for combating diseases and pests. 



The opening of two such demonstration stations is an event 

 of great importance, and one can only hope that other counties 

 in England will be able to follow along the same road. 



