96 
Fruit-growing in Kent. 
the Lower Greensand. The best and most productive soil is 
the clay loam on the beds of " Kentish Rag," in the neigh- 
bourhood of Maidstone, upon which all fruit-trees do well. 
Mr. Topley comments as follows upon this : " The most fertile 
district of the Hythe beds is that near Maidstone. Enormous 
quantities of hops are grown here, and also filberts and fruit." * 
Fruit is grown also upon the lighter and " stone shattery " soil 
of the Hythe beds, but the great bulk of it is produced upon the 
ragstone soil which is undoubtedly, as Mr. Topley suggests, 
more fertile in the neighbourhood of Maidstone than elsewhere. 
The Thanet, and the Woolwich and Reading beds are found in 
the third fruit-growing division of the county ; by their super- 
position over the chalk, making the district eminently suitable 
for the production of fruit. It is curious to note how sharply 
the fruit-growing line is defined here, and how perfectly con- 
current it is with the outcrop of these beds,t running from 
Halstead, near Sevenoaks, to Chelsfield, then, after a break, to 
Orpington and on through the Crays. 
Until quite recently, apples were the only fruit grown in the 
Weald, though in the last ten years other fruits have been culti- 
vated. In the term " Weald," as locally used, the whole of the 
district in Kent " under the hill," or southward of the Lower 
Greensand formation, is included. Geologically, it comprises the 
Weald Clay and the various sands and clays of the Hastings Sand. 
Fruit does well on the former, as at Maiden, Staplehurst, and 
Cranbrook, and upon the Grinstead Clay of the latter formation, 
as, for instance, at Brenchley and Horsmonden. 
An improvement has taken place in the management of fruit- 
land in Kent during the past twenty-five years ; and at the same 
time greater facilities of transit and a steadily increasing de- 
mand have led growers to add largely to their plantations. 
This is proved by the Agricultural Returns for 1875, which 
show an increase of 846 acres in 1875 over the return of 1874; 
the acreage of arable or grass lands used for fruit in Kent being 
12,032 acres against 11,186 in 1874. 
Foreign competition $ has assumed enormous proportions, and 
is becoming more formidable each year. This has stimulated 
Kentish producers to pay greater attention to the cultiva- 
tion and management of fruit-land as well as to the selection 
of better and more attractive sorts. In those parts of the 
* 'Memoirs of Geological Survey.' " Geology of the Weald." By W. Top- 
Icy, F.G.S., p. 253. 
t See Map No. vi. illustrating Geological Survey of Great Britain. 
% The imports of raw fruit in 1875 from the chief importing countries were: — 
Belgium, 703,777 bushels; France, 581,170 ; Holland, 199,860; Spain, 199,650; 
the United States, 164,160; Germany, 146,493. 
