HORTICULTUEAL PROGRESS DURING THE 19th CENTURY. 331 
greatly assisted by the many exhibitions of hardy fruits fostered and 
encouraged by the Royal Horticultural Society, and undertaken with the 
hearty co-operation of the large nurserymen and private growers. By 
these means the appetite of the general public has been whetted to pro- 
cure the very best varieties, and barren trees and worthless varieties 
have been stubbed up and burnt and their places filled with improved 
varieties, of which we now have so many that a gardener is able to have 
a supply of splendid Apples almost all the year round. 
Much, very much, has been done in this direction, but we are still 
far from being perfect. The orchards in many country districts are 
sadly neglected, and the farmers and cottagers by this neglect have lost 
and are losing thousands of pounds yearly, which would otherwise have 
assisted in making up the wretchedly low price of corn or the short- 
comings on other crops. In the more famous fruit-growing districts of 
Kent, Hereford, and Worcester great care is taken, but in this county of 
Norfolk, and in many others also, it is not so. 
Apples and Pears, even when planted in the hedgerows between fields 
in country districts, while being a most beautiful addition to the land- 
scape when in blossom, give as well a fair return in fruit if attended to. 
And I find that our imports of foreign Apples for September of the year 
1900 cost us £70,643 ! During the same month in 1899 we spent 
£78,609 ; but notwithstanding this drop of £'8,000 on the month, I find 
the total bill for 1900 up to the end of September reaches the enormous 
total of £545,501, and this for AjJj^les alone ! And if you ask me why 
this is so, I think it is that our American cousins and our colonial 
brethren have studied the whole question deeply, and have decided to 
send us only the very best graded fruit, and that well packed, while we 
at home are so engrossed in other matters that we do not bother our- 
selves with such things, but send all together to the market just as they 
come from the trees, and, as is to be expected, the bad baskets (although 
probably only a small proportion of the whole) spoil the good ones, and the 
buyer gets the lot at one price, and that, of course, the jJ^ice of the pooy^est. 
Did space permit I should have enjoyed dealing with all the various 
fruits, as the Strawberry, of which we have now fifty or sixty varieties, 
and those mostly good ones, against two or three at the commence- 
ment of the century, and those little better than the wild one of the 
hedgerows. 
The Raspberry has produced fewer novelties, but is well represented 
by that variety whose name tells its own tale as being an advance — 
^ Superlative.' 
Of hothouse fruits the improvement in Peaches and Vines has been 
something wonderful. Mr. Mclndoe writes : — 
" Of all branches of horticulture probably nothing has advanced 
more than the cultivation of the Grape Vine. Fifty years ago only the 
very wealthy people in this country ever tasted home-grown Grapes, now 
they are a common article of food, and can be procured at a wonderfully 
cheap rate." 
Flowers. 
Here again there has been the most positive progress all along the 
line, and I consider that one of the most beneficial features of that 
