Fifty Years of Fruit Farming. 
169 
requiring no stakes. It is one of tlio leading jam and preserve 
fruits, being sent in tubs straight to the jam factories. From 
its perishable and j uicy nature it is seldom sold for dessert pur- 
poses. Contracts are made with jam makers at prices ranging from 
12L to 30Z. per ton. As many as two tons of raspberries have 
been grown per acre in favourable seasons, but this is altogether 
exceptional. In dry seasons the crop is sometimes very small. 
Strawberry culture is a great feature of modern fruit pro- 
duction, at times very profitable, but most dependent upon 
influences of weather. There are growers who have 100 acres 
of strawberry plants. The approved method of planting upon 
strawberry farms is to put the plants in rows 2\ feet wide, 
and about 1^ feet from plant to plant in the rows, requiring 
about 10,500 plants per acre ; or they are set 2^ feet apart, from 
plant to plant and from row to row, in order that the horse-hoe 
may be used and manual labour saved. The best and earliest 
fruit is used for dessert purposes, and the later and indifferent 
quality goes for jam-making. As before shown, the earliest 
strawberries come from Cornwall. The Saltash and Tavistock 
districts of Devonshire send this fruit nearly as early. The sorts 
are Alice Maud, President, Paxton, British Queen. Next 
follows fruit from the Botley and Fareham districts of Hampshire, 
and from Sandwich in East Kent. From this last locality, 
strawberries sent to London on June 22 last season made 12s. 
per gallon. 
Blackberries have been planted somewhat extensively lately, 
as thei'e is a growing demand for blackberry jam. This fruit is 
very largely grown in America, from which country the improved 
varieties, bearing very large-sized fruits, have been imported. 
The modes of planting and treatment are pretty much the same 
as in the case of raspberries. 
In the description of fruit-production in Kent, it was 
remarked that growers had discovered that cherry orchards 
require manure from time to time, and were now in the habit of 
supplying this. This applies to other fruit orchards, and to 
other fruit plantations, to which manure is now in many instances 
most liberally applied. There are still growers in the cider- 
making counties who do not believe that the apple and pear 
trees require any assistance whatever. Generally speaking, 
there has been a wonderful advance in this direction, which 
should be especially noted as constituting an element, and by 
no means an unimportant element, in the progress of fruit- 
farming. It has been found that the progress of canker is 
stayed by plentiful manurings, and other disorders to which fruit 
trees are liable are checked by liberal treatment. 
