REPORT OF THE COMMITTEE ON THE FRUIT INDUSTRY. 517 



proximity to London, which enables growers, particularly in West Kent, 

 to send their fruit easily and cheaply to the London markets, and also to 

 get down large amounts of stable manure. Indeed, so far as the Swanley 

 district is concerned, railway carriage is dispensed with almost entirely 

 for these purposes, the roads being used, and motor haulage being 

 employed more and more each year. In Kent every class of grower and 

 of plantation is found, from the ordinary farmer with the old grass 

 orchard, to the highly specialised fruit-grower, having possibly 500 to 

 1,000 acres of fruit, in mixed plantations. A good deal of the highest 

 class of fruit is also grown under glass at Swanley. Speaking generally, 

 however, it may be said that large holdings prevail in Kent, and that very 

 little vintage fruit is grown, it being found more profitable to grow Apples 

 for the table than for cider-making. Another county conspicuous for its 

 fruit-growing is Worcestershire. Worcestershire, indeed, seems to com- 

 bine many of the characteristics of the West of England with the large 

 mixed plantations of Kent and other districts. Very interesting evidence 

 of a large fruit farm, comparable only with some of the Kent plantations 

 or with Toddington, was given by Mr. Best of Suckley, near Worcester. 

 But the most remarkable feature in Worcestershire is to be found at 

 Evesham. Here is an area of many thousand acres, stretching in every 

 direction from the town of Evesham, devoted to the cultivation of fruit, 

 flowers and vegetables, and mostly divided into small holdings, varying 

 from two to twenty acres. The cultivation is of a high order, and the 

 whole is a remarkable example of what can be effected on small holdings 

 by industry and skill. All the hardy fruits are grown, the plum pre- 

 dominating. Other notable fruit-growing districts in England are 

 Middlesex, where a great deal of small fruit has been planted in recent 

 years, and where there is also a considerable acreage of orchards ; Norfolk, 

 where the cider industry of the West is reproduced, to some extent, in the 

 East ; and Cambridgeshire, where, though the acreage is not very large 

 at present (orchards, 8,732 acres ; small fruit, 4,403 acres), there has 

 been a greater increase than in any other county, amounting to no less 

 than 88 per cent, in the case of orchards during the past twenty years, 

 and 56 per cent, in the case of small fruit during the past six years. 

 This increase has been chiefly in the Wisbech district, where, as at 

 Evesham, small holdings generally prevail, though here the fruit-grower 

 has been able in many cases to buy his own holding, whereas at Evesham 

 he is generally a tenant. There are, of course, many other counties which 

 grow fruit in a greater or lesser degree, but not to such an extent as to 

 cause it to occupy a leading position among the industries of the county ; 

 but an exception must be made of the very large business, employing 

 capital and labour altogether out of proportion to its acreage, of growing 

 fruit under glass, which has sprung up, especially in the Lea Valley in 

 Hertfordshire, and in the neighbourhood of Worthing in Sussex. The 

 same industry is also extensively carried on in the Island of Guernsey, 

 from which the Committee received some interesting evidence, although, 

 strictly speaking, the condition of affairs in the Channel Islands is a little 

 beyond the limits of their Reference. 



14. Turning now to Scotland and Wales, the amount of fruit grown 

 in these countries is small compared with that grown in England. In 



