1920.] The Nation's Fruit and Vegetables. 



557 



applied to production under the most hygienic conditions. The 

 Government, without desiring to interfere in any way with the 

 welfare of great firms and combines, does not wish to see the 

 small man eliminated. 



It has been the settled policy of the Ministry of Agriculture 

 for some time past to develop horticulture in all its branches, and 

 it may be taken to be a part of this policy that has brought the 

 Experimental Station at Campden in Gloucestershire into being. 

 In general terms the object of the station is to disseminate infor- 

 mation that will prevent waste, enable surplus to be wisely used, 

 and reduce the burden of expensive imports. The methods 

 adopted are to train the trainer in the first instance, that is to 

 say. to take people nominated by County Education Authorities, 

 Agricultural Colleges and other educational institutions, and 

 teach them how to teach. Then the small co-operative societies 

 and even the householders can take their turn and obtain their 

 training, while the man or woman who desires to set up in 

 business on a small scale — a business which as it cultivates and 

 handles the fresh fruits of the earth must be deemed to be 

 extremely attractive — will find that the greater part of the 

 problems that beset an endeavour on its way to success have 

 been solved, and that the rest are in process of solution. 



The range of teaching embraces at present canning and 

 bottling, pulping, jam-making on practical and economical lines, 

 the drying of vegetables, the making of pickles, preserves and 

 liqueurs and the crystallising of fruits. One cannot help hoping 

 that this programme will be extended in the future to cover the 

 more attractive recipes of the old still room, that it will teach 

 the possibilities of the herb garden, that it will give us the 

 cordials of the old-time housewife, pleasant drinks like mead and 

 morat, English wines and the best of the stock-in-trade of the 

 herbalist : all those things, and indeed more than those things, 

 referred to on the opening of this article. These developments 

 find no place on the present programme of the Institution at 

 Campden, but it may be hoped that they will arrive in time. 



The Institution is at present in its infancy. Its singularly 

 unattractive building is most happily set in a valley surrounded 

 by orchards and has a railway station for neighbour. At the 

 time of writing, the county bricklayers having decided to strike, 

 building operations have been suspended, but the " Homo 

 Kitchen " Classes are being held, and only the Commercial 

 Classes are postponed bv the strike, possibly until the spring of 

 next year. Canning, bottling, pulping and the rest are care- 



