MARKET GARDEN CULTIVATION DURING QUEEN VICTORIA'S REIGN. 403 



Besides our home-raised fruits there are enormous quantities 

 of foreign imported fruits. In 1896 we received no less than 

 6,177,193 bushels of Apples from abroad, valued at £1,582,471 ; 

 483,823 bushels of Pears, valued at £206,674 ; 560,246 bushels 

 of Plums, valued at £241,782 ; and 219,867 bushels of Cherries, 

 valued at £105,246 ; and a total of 18,641,874 bushels of raw 

 fruit, valued at £5,540,069, being an increase of £2,200,000 

 since 1871. With such facts before us can we wonder that 

 English open-ground fruit culture is on the increase ? Could 

 we but depend with any certainty on our climate, I should say it 

 was a great national waste that so much money should go out of 

 the country to pay for what might profitably be grown within it. 

 But unfortunately the English fruit crop is very uncertain, and 

 many who might profitably engage in the business have not 

 sufficient faith to inspire them with courage to make the attempt, 

 or have not sufficient means to enable them to await the successful 

 return for their outlay. Many instances could be cited of large 

 returns in one year being followed by almost nothing another, 

 and only by a system of averages can the value of a fruit farm 

 be gauged. This uncertainty is very much against extended 

 fruit culture. 



The latest competitor with the home fruit grower has been 

 California, the climate of which country seems most admirably 

 adapted for choice high-class fruits. Mr. A. Block, of Santa 

 Clara, is a very extensive fruit producer, and he has induced the 

 railway and shipping companies to send fruit into London 

 markets in cool chambers. He has perfected a system of pack- 

 ing for this purpose, and I have the pleasure of submitting to 

 you for inspection a case of Doyenne du Cornice Pears and a 

 case of Coe's Late Red and Golden Drop Plums which started 

 from California sixteen days ago, and were sold by thousands in 

 the market by Messrs. Garcia & Jacobs yesterday. The fruit 

 compares favourably with the choicest noblemen's gardeners' 

 productions here to-day, and is an object lesson for English 

 growers how to pack and forward to market. One great advan- 

 tage of foreign fruit in the market is the fact that they are sold 

 with the case complete, thus avoiding all the vexations and 

 troubles attaching to returned empties. 



