188 JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



into the market before the English fruit was ripe, did not act 

 against our own growers. It only opened the way for the con- 

 sumption of the English product when it was ripe. Foreign 

 fruit competition was not, therefore, an unmixed evil. With 

 regard to the preservation of fruit, a lamentable waste of soft fruit 

 occurred, and he thought we were only just beginning to wake 

 up to the idea that it was possible to preserve fruit so that it 

 might be useful throughout the year — not only as jam, but for 

 other domestic purposes, to which bottled, dried, and candied 

 fruits could be put. He knew for a fact that their Chairman 

 (Mr. Crowley) had been most successful in drying Plums in an 

 ordinary kitchen oven. 



Mr. Archibald Weir (Ottery St. Mary, Devon) said : — I 

 was perhaps one of the first small growers in England to use 

 boxes for packing my fruit, and what led me to do so may 

 possibly interest you. 



The variety of Apple that I principally depend on is Cox's 

 Orange Pippin. Of my 500 established trees, planted in 1890, 

 about 250 bore more or less of a crop in 1893, the remainder 

 being worked on a less precocious and prolific stock. All the 

 more vigorous trees prospered greatly, and some of the fruit 

 attained a size and colour which I had supposed could be reached 

 only under glass. The fruit of a few dishes weighed 9 oz. each 

 on an average. Of course it matured six weeks earlier than 

 usual, owing to the hot summer, though happily it defied more 

 successfully than most sorts the attacks of wasps and birds. 

 The trees had their share of blight to contend with, but after a 

 thorough washing they recovered very readily. Ultimately I 

 succeeded in getting indoors a very fine crop of fruit ; and, as 

 the best methods of packing and marketing first quality Apples 

 had formerly engaged much of my attention, I determined to 

 put to the test the system that I had worked out. 



At the outset I was unable to find any sort of basket fit for 

 Apples to travel in. Apples require to be packed tightly, without 

 risk of rubbing against an uneven surface or against each other. 

 No basket is sufficiently rigid to obviate considerable attrition, 

 and all baskets present only knobby projections for the fruit to 

 press against. Boxes, on the other hand, can be made as rigid 

 as is necessary, and, with the help of a little suitable packing 

 material, they present a surface against which a sound Apple 



