INSTKICTIONAI. I-IU IT STATIONS. 
151 
INSTRUCTIONAL FRUIT STATIONS. 
By ^Ir. Kdwaud Li ckhukst, F.R.H.S. 
rRead September 2G, 1899.] 
It was some seven years ago, soon after horticulture was added to 
the list of subjects foi- technical education by the Special Committee 
of the County Council of Derbyshire, that the idea of bringing 
instructional fruit stations into the scheme took tangible form in 
the laying out and planting of the first County Council fruit plot 
at Duffield, near Derby. It came about in this way. From the 
very outset, during the preliminary pioneer lectures, requests for 
special advice and assistance in local difficulties with all kinds of hardy 
fruit were made wherever I went. At the lectures bushes. Raspberry 
canes, and branches, shoots, and trees were brought for object lessons 
in pruning, and during the first regular course of lectures one often had 
requests to go and see what could be done to render barren trees fruitful, 
sickly trees healthy, and so on. Several times have I given a lesson in 
pruning in some garden by lamplight before an evening lecture, or paid 
a special visit by daylight for a demonstration in a village garden. 
Faulty practice generally and *' wrong " trees and bushes everywhere 
prompted the thought of how much the right thing was wanted for object 
lessons. The suggestion of a fruit plot met with approval by the County 
Council, with the result of the planting of the first plot at Duffield in 
1893 ; of the second plot at Matlock Bridge in 1895. A year later the 
local secretary of Whittington's ofter of his new garden for demonstra- 
tions was accepted. These three stations are in and for Derbyshire. In 
November, 1897, a fruit plot was planted at the Midland Dairy Institute 
at Kingston, which is maintained by the combined counties of Derby- 
shire, Nottinghamshire, Leicestershire, and the Lindsey Division of 
Lincolnshire. It may be useful to mention that there might have been 
two more plots now in other parts of Derbyshire, land suitable for the 
purpose having been oftered as a gift in both cases ; but when I went to 
inspect the sites — one near a tow^n, the other near a large mining village, 
both quite away from any house — I had to point out that it would be 
useless to lay out a station there without the provision of a caretaker's 
cottage or an unclimbable fence or wall. In neither case could the local 
authorities guarantee immunity from pilfering, or find funds for safe- 
guarding the fruit, and so the matter fell through. 
Ends and Aims. 
At these stations instruction full and complete, by actual demonstra- 
tion in every detail of hardy fruit cultivation, is our aim. Everything is 
made a lesson, so that students may have an opportunity or obtaining a 
fair practical knowledge of the work ; of grasping its significance suffi- 
ciently to realise the importance of close attention to every detail as a 
means to the development of healthy, w^ell-formed, profitable trees and 
bushes. It is not merely a knowledge of fruit that we desire to impart. 
