Fiftij Years of Fruit Farming. 
159 
years the standard trees begin to produce fruit. It will be found 
that a large proportion of the fruit plantations ' made within the 
last twenty years is of this character. 
Just now there is a tendency to change this. There is a 
slight reaction from the rush to produce soft fruits, as there 
have been gluts in the markets. Prices have not been so good 
latterly as in previous years. Foreign supplies increase, and 
home growers are just a little frightened. Seeing that there is 
always a demand at good prices for really fine fruit, there is a 
disposition to aim at producing quality, fruit of fine appearance 
and flavour, rather than quantity, common and cheap. 
This is shown by the formation of orchards of appi"oved 
kinds of apples, both for cooking and dessert, and the intention 
to bestow more care, not only in the selection of the best kinds, 
but also in the treatment of the trees and of the land, as well 
as in a better and more judicious system of marketing the fruit. 
It may be said in this place that radical changes in these direc- 
tions are still imperative in the cultivation of apples, if English 
growers are to hold their own against American and Canadian 
producers, whose fruit, as a rule, is well grown, and is sent over 
comparatively uniform in size and quality, and can be depended 
upon by English consignees to arrive according to sample, or 
according to the specification. Great complaints have been 
made of the want of quality of the best English apples of the two 
last seasons. American and Canadian apples have been far better, 
it has been alleged, and have made better prices. This is due 
to bad weather to a great extent, also to the attacks of insects, 
which have in many cases spoilt the look of the fruit.^ The 
American climate seems to be more suited to apple trees ; the 
orchards, too, are in full vigour, not, as is the case with many 
of our English trees, old, and weakened by a long course of 
neglect or unscientific treatment. 
It is the fashion to profess that the English climate has 
changed, that apples cannot be produced in the same perfection 
as they were fifty years ago ; but the trees in many places are 
past bearing now, or far past their prime, besides having been 
suffered to be overrun by mosses and lichens, and crowded with 
boughs and branches. On grass-land apple trees had been 
supposed to require no manure. In plantations, the bushes 
under the apple trees have taken a great proportion of the manure 
' A fruit " plantation " is laud planted with standard fruit trees and bushes, 
and cultivated. A fruit " orchard " is land planted with fruit trees, and laid 
down with grass. 
* The Carpoca2)sa 2>omonana, whose caterpillar burrows in apples, caused 
incredible mischief last season. 
