WHOLE FRUIT PRESERVATION. 



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am confident that such an intimation would be warmly welcomed by all 

 lovers of English fruit. This is not a mere flight of fancy ; it is an 

 actual possibility under the new method of vacuum Whole Fruit preserving. 



There is yet another aspect of the matter to which I should like to 

 refer. Has it never struck you as singular that — with the exception of 

 jam, and this in limited quantity — there has never been any export 

 trade for British fruits ; that, notwithstanding the fact that thousands 

 of tons of fruits are imported into Great Britain from every part of the 

 world in the course of a few months, our export trade for home-grown 

 fruits is practically nil ? Some few days ago a very excellent article 

 appeared in one of the morning papers — I think the Daily Mail — having 

 for its subject " The Timidity of British Manufacturers " ; it was altogether 

 well worth reading, and one or two statements appear to bear on this 

 question. It said : " The supremacy of British commerce originally 

 sprang from the fact that her manufacturers were able to supply the 

 whole world with the excess of her own requirements." If that is true 

 — and I do not doubt it — it is very evident that we who are associated 

 with the fruit industry of Great Britain have not been contributors to 

 that supremacy. 



There was also another statement equally suggestive : " The serious 

 decline in the exports of this country (and statistics show how serious 

 this is) is largely, if not entirely, due to the fact that her manufacturers 

 are barely able to supply her own requirements." This, too, I believe to 

 be true as regards many British industries, but especially so as regards 

 the fruit industry. 



Not only do we not grow sufficient fruit to give us any excess for 

 exportation, but, as a matter of fact, we do not grow more than about 

 half the quantity consumed by our own population. Assuming, for the 

 sake of argument, we were able to double our fruit production, and that 

 by some such method as that which I am advocating we could 

 manipulate and effectually preserve it so that it might be proof against 

 any variation of temperature, of heat or of cold, what an important 

 industry it would become ! And I can assure you that both the produc- 

 tion and the preservation are possible. 



I am not forgetting the fact that other countries have a super- 

 abundance of fruit ; this is doubtless true, but they have not got the 

 kind of fruit which we grow upon our island. British fruits would 

 be just as great a luxury to them as some of their choice kinds are 

 to us. Particularly would this be so in the case of our own countrymen 

 who are to be found in every civilised part of the world, and in an 

 especial sense in that Greater Britain, the immensity of which has 

 been so forcibly brought home to us during the past few months. 



Within the past week I have had a conversation with a gentleman who 

 for several years has been resident in Buenos Ayres. Speaking of fruit, 

 he said there was an abundance of certain kinds there, such as Bananas, 

 Pines, Peaches, and Apricots ; but such kinds as were grown in England 

 were not obtainable at any price, and although there were 25,000 English- 

 speaking people in that city alone, the fruits of the Mother Country 

 were practically unknown except in the form of jam, and that only 

 from one London firm. 



M 



