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JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



another grower who always takes the trouble to sort and pack 

 carefully his wall-fruit, with the result that, when occasionally 

 there have been very over- abundant crops, his fruit has always 

 been looked for by the retailers, and sold at as high a price as 

 in any of the previous short-crop years. The fault, I fear, is 

 generally due to the grower being so busy with other duties on 

 his farm that he pays no attention to the sorting and the packing 

 of his fruit ; and so it comes to pass that though so much is grown 

 yet we have great difficulty in purchasing any large quantities of 

 really fine and reliable fruit. The price, if the consumer requires 

 it, is no object, if only he can get his fruit regular in size to make 

 up his dishes for the table. In buying parcels of high-class fruit 

 we cannot afford to be hampered up with 75 per cent, of 'chats,' 

 cripples, &c. The consumer little knows that what he thinks he 

 is paying a good price for are taken from the surface only of the 

 baskets purchased by us. Would it not be better, especially in a 

 heavy-crop season, for the grower to send only the cream or pick 

 of his growth, well sorted and packed, and get a fair price, and 

 let us be without the second-rate stuff we are now compelled to 

 buy. The grower, if he were to do this, could well afford to let 

 his rough stuff lie upon the ground. It is want of prudence that 

 makes our markets glutted with so much rubbish, which we know, 

 after expenses of carriage, toll, &c, have been paid, often finds the 

 sender actually out of pocket. It is rather humiliating for an 

 English fruit-grower to own that fruit coming 8,000 miles arrives 

 in this country in a more perfect condition than that sent only 

 ten or twenty miles, but it is no less a fact. I have seen English 

 Pears sent in single-layer trays, packed on naked straw, with the 

 result that every single fruit bears marks upon it, as on the back 

 of the youth whom the grower has just flogged for stealing his 

 Apples. This, of course, is due to the lack of knowledge in the 

 art of packing. 



" Another common mistake is for the grower to suppose that 

 he profits by ' feeling the market,' i.e. by sending just a few 

 ' halves ' of his picked produce, thus preventing the retailer from 

 purchasing enough to make stacks of really choice stuff; he 

 can never depend on running on any large parcels, he must for 

 ever be picking up ' odd lots ' to enable him to make any show at 

 all. How long this state of things is to last rests entirely with the 

 grower, if, at least, he can only be induced to pay greater atten- 



