60 JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



CONFERENCE ON FRUIT-GROWING. 

 At R.H.S. Spring Meeting at Chelsea, May 21, 1919. 



[The Conference was under the joint auspices of the Royal Horticultural 

 Society and the Chamber of Horticulture. The Chair was occupied by Mr. 

 George Monro, jun., and there was a large and attentive audience.] 



The Chairman, in opening the proceedings, said : We thought it a 

 good opportunity on the occasion of the Chelsea Show, when almost 

 every grower and cultivator interested in horticulture is present in 

 London, to have a Conference on a subject to which some of us attach 

 considerable importance, viz. " the increase of the supply of home- 

 grown fruit," possibly at the expense of decreasing foreign imports. 

 One of the biggest questions we have ahead of us in the future, in view 

 of the financial state of the country as the result of the war, is to 

 produce as much as possible ourselves, and to import as little as 

 possible. This afternoon addresses will be given by four speakers, 

 each of whom will speak about the subject from a different point of 

 view, and after they have finished the meeting will be open for general 

 discussion. We propose to limit the four speakers as nearly as possible 

 to ten minutes each, and in the general discussion I propose 

 to limit the speakers to five minutes each. You will be able to say 

 a good deal in five minutes, and I should like every speaker in the 

 audience to give his name before addressing the meeting. I will now 

 ask Mr. W. Lobjoit to open the discussion, and he will speak more 

 particularly in regard to distribution. 



The Distribution of Fruit. 



At first sight it may appear that distribution has but a small place 

 in any discussion of methods to increase the supply of truit. It may 

 be said that the proverb, " First catch your hare before you jug her," 

 applies. On second thoughts, however, it will appear that to produce 

 fruit on a plantation is not the same as to produce it upon the 

 consumer's table. That if the second operation is not possible without 

 the first, the first is, to say the least, incomplete without the second ; 

 that, so far as the consumer is concerned, the second is of equal im- 

 portance with the first. For little is he benefited if the strawberries 

 make lines of luscious scarlet on the fertile wealds of Kent or the 

 sun-warmed slopes of Hampshire, or if the plums bear down the 

 laden limbs of the trees in Worcestershire or Middlesex, or the apple- 

 trees of Hereford and Cambridge make gold and scarlet landscapes, 

 if means exist not for forging up the chain of contact between him and 

 the produce itself. It may also be said that the main proposition 



