282 JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
per bushel. The comparatively small crop in England in 1894 
favoured the importers, and in that year the total rose to 
4,967,411 bushels, valued at £1,376,411, an average of 5s. Gd. per 
bushel ; the increase, as compared with 1892, being over 450,000 
bushels, and with 1893 of 1,500,000 bushels. Yet within the 
past four years the Agricultural Returns sljow an increased area 
for Great Britain placed under fruit culture of about 10,000 
acres.* 
The consumption of fruit in a preserved state has also been 
largely assisted by the low price of sugar. Many preserving 
firms either grow their own fruit or purchase of the producers to 
the extent of thousands of tons annually, at low prices certainly, 
but it is a never-faihng source of return in seasons of large 
crops. 
Fruit-growing Districts. 
In Kent the total area under orchards and small fruits 
exceeds 40,000 acres, well cultivated and closely cropped, but 
giving very diverse returns. Instances could be enumerated 
where considerable capital has been expended, and there has 
been no lack of industry, and yet the growers are on the verge of 
bankruptcy. These are, it is true, the exceptions, and they are 
not more numerous in proportion than in any other trade, and 
cannot reasonably be adduced as proofs that fruit-growing is 
not a profitable undertaking generally. They serve to show, how- 
ever, that the indiscriminate advocacy of fruit culture as a panacea 
for all the evils of agricultural depression and bad trade is fraught 
with danger. 
A few of the Kentish fruit-farmers are successful in no 
ordinary degree, and arc advancing rapidly to that happy state 
of independence which all engaged in trade find so difficult to 
reach nowadays. But it is only under favourable circumstances, 
backed up by such capital, knowledge, experience, and business 
acumen as would produce marked results in any trade. The 
majority of fruit growers cannot be said to be gaining more than 
a comfortable living, and then only by assiduous attention to 
* In the past ten years (18S5 to 1804) the total amount of imported 
Apples has exceeded iili!, millions of busliels, valued at over 1).^ millions 
sterling, or an average of alxjut 5.s'. Cul. per bushel. In the same period the 
area under orchards in (ireat Uritain lias incrciascnl by 20,000 acr(!S, tlio 
total for IB'J'l being returned at 214,187 acres. The area under small fruits 
iB 05,487 ucrcb. 
