JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 
398 
[ May 19, 1881. 
-We are requested to remind our readers that an Aspa¬ 
ragus competition will be held in the horticultural department 
of the Bath and West of England Society’s Show at Tunbridge 
Wells, commencing on Monday, June 6th. Notice from those 
desiring to compete should be given to the Secretary of the hor¬ 
ticultural department, the Hon. and Rev. J. T. Boscawen, Show 
Yard, Tunbridge Wells. All exhibits should be staged on the 
morning of Monday, not later than twelve o’clock. The following 
prizes are offered for the first year’s Exhibition, and are (except 
the last two for market growers in Kent), open to growers in any 
part of the United Kingdom. Prizes for Gardeners in Private 
Places. —For the best bundle of Asparagus grown by the exhibitor 
—first prize, £4; second, £2 10.?.; third, £1 10,?.; fourth, £]. 
The bundle of Asparagus is to consist of sixty heads. The prizes 
will be given to the largest Asparagus, provided it be in all other 
respects unobjectionable. Prizes will not be given where in the 
opinion of the Judge there is no merit. The Asparagus must be 
free of earth, and the bundles will be opened by the Judges in 
all cases where they think it well to do so. No imperfect or 
“double ” heads will count. Prizes for Amateurs not Employing 
any Regular Gardener. —For the best fifty heads—£2 10,?.; 
second prize, £1 10.?.; third prize, 15.?. Grown by the exhibitor. 
Prizes for Cottagers. —For the best twenty-five heads grown by 
the exhibitor—£1 10,?. ; second, £1 ; third, 10,?. ; fourth, os. 
Prizes for Market Growers. —For the market grower who shall 
exhibit the best three bundles, each containing one hundred 
heads—£5 5s. This prize is offered by the Bath and West of 
» England Society. For the market grower in the county of Kent 
who shall exhibit the two best bundles of Asparagus, each con¬ 
taining one hundred heads—first prize, £3 3s. ; second, £2 2s. 
FRUIT-GROWING IN KENT. 
We sometimes find large books with little in them besides 
words, but occasionally a small work crowded with instructive, 
suggestive, and interesting matter comes before us. Such an one 
is a small manual of thirty-two pages by Mr. Charles Whitehead, 
F.L.S., Barming House, Maidstone, which originally appeared as 
an essay in the Journal of the Royal Agricultural Society, and 
from which we take the following extract :—• 
grew small by degrees and beautifully less. The owners of the cele¬ 
brated Cherry orchards in East Kent have found out the folly of 
starving the trees. For the last few years they have manured the 
land liberally with manure brought from the London stables and 
cow-sheds, which has largely increased the quantity and improved 
the quality of the fruit. Sheep fed with corn and cake feed off the 
grass, and it is now quite the exception to mow orchard land. 
It might be supposed that Kentish fruit-growers, only forty miles 
distant from London, would not be affected in any great degree by 
the competition of foreigners in the matter of soft fruit— i.e., fruit of 
a perishable nature, as Gooseberries, Raspberries, Currants, and Straw¬ 
berries ; yet, as a fact, the cost of carriage of a ton of fruit from 
France to the London Docks is no more than from Maidstone to the 
London markets. Rents and labour are cheaper in France and 
Belgium, while the climate of the former country is far more suited 
for the production of fine well-flavoured fruits than our own. 962,983 
bushels of raw fruit were sent to England in 1879 from Belgium, the 
value of which was £268,914. France sent 477,473 bushels, whose 
value was £264,908, showing that the quality of French fruit is far 
superior. 
Fruiterers and salesmen say that the foreign fruit has much im¬ 
proved in flavour and size, and is steadily improving, while the 
imports are increasing year by year, as may be seen by the returns 
of the Board of Trade, which show that the total amount of “ raw ” 
fruit imported into England in 1879 had reached the enormous 
amount of 4,219,951 bushels, as against 1,128,568 bushels in 1871. 
France s?nds Strawberries, Cherries, Red Currants, Gages, Plums, 
Pears, and Apples ; and sent to this country 477,473 bushels of 
“raw” fruit in 1879, against 354,606 bushels in 1871. Plums and 
Currants arrive from Belgium and Holland. Apples and Pears are 
imported from Spain. Immense quantities of Apples come from 
America, of fine quality and flavour, almost equal to Ribston or 
Cox’s Pippins in good seasons. A large Covent Garden fruit merchant 
wrote on the 18th of December, ult. : “ This day alone there are 16,394 
barrels and 109 cases of Apples from America, to be sold by auction.” 
In October last no less than 167,400 barrels of Apples were landed at 
Liverpool from America, equal to 502,000 bushels. 
Two principal systems or methods of planting fruit prevail in Kent. 
One, according to which it is intended that the land under the standard 
trees shall be eventually laid down with grass ; the other, where the 
land will always be cultivated and kept constantly filled with fruit 
trees and bushes under the standards or half-standards. 
East Kent growers for the most part adopt the former method, 
because it is not good for Cherry trees that their roots should be 
disturbed after a certain time. The standard trees are planted first 
on well-prepared arable land, with Hops or fruit bushes, which give a 
return until the standards come in. When these have arrived at a 
good size the Hops and bushes are taken away and grass seeds are 
sown. Apple orchards are occasionally formed in this way ; but 
Apples are generally grown on the other system—in permanent 
plantations set out and planted with Plums, Damsons, Gooseberries 
and Currants (and Filberts in some parts of the Mid Kent district), 
which are renewed from time to time as occasion requires. In an 
orchard which is eventually to be laid down with grass, the standard 
trees, if Cherry tree3, are set from 33 feet to 24 feet apart each way, 
giving forty to eighty trees to the acre. If Apples are planted they 
are set about the same distance apart. Plums or Damsons are very 
often put between Apples or Cherries, and are taken out when they 
get in the way. In a plantation that is to be permanently cultivated 
the Apple trees are set about 30 feet apart. Plums or Damsons 
would be set in between each Apple tree, and Gooseberries and 
Currants between the rows, 6£ feet apart, so that there would be 
44 Apple trees, 44 Plum or Damson trees, and 1031 bushels on each 
acre. Where Filberts are grown under Apples they are usually 
planted about 13 feet apart, which would give about 257 trees to 
the acre, and Plums or Damsons are not generally planted in this 
case. The cost of preparing the land and of planting it as a mixed 
plantation with all incidental expenses, varies from £16 to £20 per 
acre, according to the sorts and number of trees planted. Apple 
trees cost Is. 6d. each on an average. Plums and Damsons Is. each. 
Filbert and Cob trees 4 d. each. Gooseberry and Currant bushes from 
10s. to 14s. per 100. The annual average cost of cultivation, including 
rent, interest on outlay, tithes ordinary and extraordinary, rates, 
maintenance, and other expenses, exclusive of all charges connected 
with picking and selling the crop, which would, of course, depend 
upon its amount, ranges from £13 to £16 per acre. 
In the Weald of Kent Apples are principally grown on grass land, 
the fruit grown in this way being of a somewhat better colour and 
quality than that which has been produced on cultivated land ; and 
practical men hold that, independently of this, all Apples grown on 
the Weald clay and Hastings sand are superior in colour and size and 
make better cider than the fruit grown in other parts of Kent, though 
there is not much difference as regards quantity. It is certain that 
Apples grown on grass are not so liable to specks and blemishes. In 
the formation of an Apple orchard intended for grass, it is found in 
practice to be best to plant the trees on well trenched land, and to 
lay it down after a few years, when the trees are well established. I 
have planted Apple trees of the excellent variety known as “ Lord 
Suffield ” on grass land and on cultivated land at the same time, both 
being manured in the same way ; those on the cultivated land grew 
away from those on grass in a remarkable degree, and bore fruit 
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 demand have led 
growers to add largely to their plantations. This is proved by the 
Agricultural Returns, which show an increase of 1031 acres in 1880 
over the return of 1879 ; the acreage of arable or grass lands used for 
fruit in Kent being 14,645 acres in 1880, as against 12,032 acres in 
1875. 
Foreign competition has assumed enormous proportions, and is 
becoming more formidable each year. 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. In 1879 the imports of 
raw fruit from these countries were:—Belgium, 962,983 bushels ; 
France, 477,473 ; Holland, 598,952 ; Spain, 429,116 ; the United States, 
734,904 ; Germany, 418,778, showing an enormous aggregate increase. 
This has stimulated Kentish producers to pay greater attention to the 
cultivation and management of fruit land as well as to the selection 
of better and more attractive sorts. 
Though a certain amount of improvement has taken place in the 
methods of fruit-culture, there is still much to be done as regards 
selection of sorts, the methods of planting, the actual cultivation, 
and the pruning of the trees. The delicate and important operation 
of pruning, which makes all the difference between high and low 
production, is, it must be confessed, but imperfectly understood by 
many Kentish fruit-growers and their tree-cutters or pruners. In¬ 
stead of the careful selection of the wood most likely to bear fruit— 
in place of a i-aison d’etre applied to every stroke of the knife—the 
typical tree-cutter hacks and slashes away ruthlessly, aiming princi¬ 
pally at obtaining a symmetrical cup-shaped form rather than at 
retaining the wood most likely to bear fruit. He is paid by the tree, 
and cannot afford pauses for reflection as to individual shoots or 
buds, like the careful interested pruners in France and Belgium, or 
like some of the best English gardeners. 
It was formerly the prevalent notion, still holding to some extent, 
that fruit trees require but little manure. Apple and Cherry orchard 
lands were mown or fed off with lean sheep year after year, with the 
result that the trees only bore a crop once in two years, and the fruit 
