90 JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



of them, excellent hunting-grounds for the entomologist or the 

 cryptogamic botanist, whose special attraction is amongst mosses 

 and lichens. Most of the trees are favourable specimens of artistic 

 antiquity. The only evidence of anything approaching a pruning 

 process which I have ever witnessed amongst some of them was 

 the wreckage of the storm or the broken boughs at apple-tide 

 which had snapped asunder under the weight of the ladder 

 against them. 



If the orchards are carelessly kept — or carefully unkept — it 

 is an equally peculiar fact that when fruit is borne by the trees 

 it seems to suggest no necessity for right handling. Mark Twain 

 in one of his sketches enlarges, I think, upon his experience in 

 days when he was assumed to have the editorial charge of an 

 agricultural paper, and in reply to a correspondent, he told him 

 he thought he had himself to blame for the condition of his 

 turnip crop, the defects of which he had just described. " You 

 should wait," said Mark, " until they are nearly ripe, then get up 

 the tree and shake them down." He found that was not the way 

 turnips were treated, but the editor had probably seen a county 

 farmer gathering his fruit, for that is precisely the method he 

 follows on such an occasion. All this and much more must be 

 changed before British fruit-growing takes the important place 

 to which it is entitled. 



The present position of the fruit question in the public mind 

 seems to be that fruit is now used to grace the tables of the 

 wealthy, or to add a kind of fashionable finish to the dinner of 

 the fairly well-to-do ; but it is seldom regarded as food pure and 

 simple, though such it really ought to be. 



Let anyone having an interest in philanthropic work cause 

 district visitors or City missionaries to make inquiries amongst 

 the poor of the large cities, and you will find that fruit is almost, 

 if not entirely, absent from the list of dietary articles from which 

 the food-supply of those who live in the narrow streets and the 

 crowded alleys is derived. I have gathered statistics in our own 

 district, and was startled to find how the poor live even in a 

 provincial town, where a person placed at its centre might get be- 

 tween the hedgerows and into the fields well within half an hour. 

 Ignorance and prejudice have helped to maintain this condition 

 of things, for they have only the bare idea that fruit is palatable, 

 and have no idea that it is also invigorating and healthful. 



For the proper and complete development of the fruit move- 

 ment in this country we must have all our forces to the front. 

 There is a really steady demand, we are told, for the best fruits 

 carefully gathered and well packed at most remunerative prices. 

 That seems to meet the want in certain directions, but we must 

 encourage those educational and moral movements which have 

 for their aim and object the inculcation of habits of thrift and 

 health amongst the masses of the people. 



