October 25, 1888. 
JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 
381 
Cottonopolis Keswicks or Lord Suffields by the ton why not grow them 
by the acre rather than coddle with somebody’s new seedling said to 
surpass the Newtown Pippin in its sugary flavour when the season is 
favourable enough for it to fruit ? Meet the demand of the district and 
proceed cautiously ; extend as rapidly as you like, but carefully. 
If it is worth doing at all it is worth doing well. Do away with 
worthless incumbrances of the ground. A good fruit is as readily grown 
as a bad one. This is the crux in the provinces. 
If time permitted me to draw you a picture of the typical farmer's 
orchard you would not wonder that fruit-growing was a feeble industry 
in many places. Such so-called orchards are, many of them, excellent 
hunting grounds for the entomologist or the cryptogamic botanist, 
whose special attraction is amongst mosses and lichens. Most of the 
trees are favourable specimens of artistic antiquity. The only evidence 
of anything approaching a pruning process which I have ever witnessed 
amongst some of them was the wreckage of the storm or the broken 
boughs at Appletide which had snapped asunder under the weight of 
the ladder against them. 
If the orchards are carelessly kept—or carefully unkept—it is an 
equally peculiar fact that when fruit is borne by the trees it seems to 
suggest no necessity for right handling. Mark Twain in one of his 
sketches enlarges, I think, upon his experience in days when he was 
assumed to have the editorial charge of an agricultural paper, and in 
answer to a correspondent, he told him he thought he had himself to 
blame for the condition of his Turnip crop, the defects of which he had 
just described. “ You should wait,” said Mark, “ until they are nearly 
ripe, then get up the tree and shake them down.” He found that was 
not the way Turnips were treated, but the editor had probably seen a 
country farmer gathering his fruit, for that is precisely the method he 
follows on such an occasion. All this and much more must be changed 
before British fruit-growing takes the important place to which it is 
entitled. 
The present position of the fruit question in the public mind seems 
to be that fruit is now used to grace the tables of the wealthy or to add 
a kind of fashionable finish to the dinner of the fairly well-to-do ; but 
it is seldom regarded as food pure and simple, though such it really 
ought to be. 
Let anyone having an interest in philanthropic work cause District 
Visitors or City Missionaries to make inquiries amongst the poor of the 
large cities, and you will find that fruit is almost, if not entirely, absent 
from the list of dietary articles from which the food supply of those 
who live in the narrow streets and the crowded alleys is derived. I have 
gathered statistics in our own district, and was startled to find how the 
poor live even in a provincial town, where a person placed at its centre 
might get between the hedgerows and into the fields well within half 
an hour. Ignorance and prejudice have helped to maintain this condi¬ 
tion of things, for they have only the bare idea that fruit is palatable, 
and have no idea that it is also invigorating and healthful. 
For the proper and complete developments of the fruit movement in 
this country we must have all our forces to the front. There is a really 
steady demand, we are told, for the best fruits carefully gathered and 
well packed, at most remunerative prices. That seems to meet the want 
in certain directions, but we must encourage those educational and moral 
movements which have for their aim and object the inculcation of habits 
of thrift and health amongst the masses of the people. 
There should be, and must be, a very largely increased demand for 
the home product, and the home product will be then forthcoming ; and 
this brings us closer to some of the features we have to face in the 
question of distribution. 
This opens up as many avenues of thought as the question of pro¬ 
duction—perhaps more, for in the question of production we deal largely 
with matters of conjecture, for we can never know the end of an 
unfollowed course, and if you advocate two methods or fifty you would 
find followers for each ; but the question of distribution brings us at 
once face to face with the problems of & s. d., and with the conditions 
of market operations and regulations. 
I do not intend ;to take up the time of this meeting by attempting 
to deal with one of the most damaging conditions which we meet with 
as a most serious obstruction in the very outset, that, namely, of the 
railway rates. Nor do I attempt to touch upon that other forcible 
deterrent—the question of land tenure ; but this and the railway 
question will, I find, be dealt with in separate papers ; but until some 
sweeping change is made in the present system of railway charges it 
seems that the British fruit-grower will find his industry shackled and 
weighted to such an extent as to prevent his making a profit at all 
commensurate with that which he is helping to put into the pockets of 
the railway shareholders. 
Next to the railway question we require the establishment of some 
responsible agency or agencies to take up in combination the conditions 
which cannot be successfully fought single-handed, and this agency 
should not be merely commercially protective, but also educational. 
Amongst other matters it should collect and publish careful data as to 
districts, climatic influences, meteorological notes, and such other 
intelligence as would serve to guide. This body would have to be 
influential and potent, for the power of monopoly is, as matters now 
stand, almost invariably against the producer and the consumer, and in 
favour of some intermediate agent, whose name is legion apparently, 
and whose presence may be necessary for the discharge of commercial 
enterprise, but who ought to be regarded more in the capacity of a 
carrier or an agent rather than a trader or merchant. 
Next we require the provision of centres of sale. Endless time is 
lost by the producer in his effort to find a market, and neglect at home 
is consequently unavoidable. It is essential that persons having produce 
to sell should be brought into contact with persons requiring to purchase, 
but we have at present no such facility. Cheshire has its cheese fairs) 
established by the order of a council, and the staple product of the 
county therefore holds its own in spite of foreign competition. Bir¬ 
mingham has its Onion fair, but I do not know of a town in England 
thas has its fruit fair. 
Then we ought to be able to purchase fruits by name as to variety. 
To the farmer mind not so many years ago everything green upon the 
face of the field was grass. To the mind of the average citizen or 
citizen’s wife anything that is round, and that has been plucked from 
a tree in an orchard, is an Apple ; it matters not whether it be a flavour¬ 
less Crab or a Golden Pippin—it is an Apple ; but we want to initiate 
the public into a knowledge that certain Apples carry with them certain 
qualities and certain flavours, and we want then to show that precisely 
what they want can be supplied. There are advertisements in connec¬ 
tion with domestic commodities, which seem to suggest the grave 
importanci of your being sure you get somebody’s starch when you ask 
for it. The same caution should be applied in the pomological depart¬ 
ment, and when the cook finds out that a certain kind of Apple can be 
depended upon for a certain quality we should find the beginning, too, of 
a more definite order of things. 
Another great impetus to the home product might be insured if at 
railway stations and other places where the public gather themselves in 
masses English fruit could be obtainable instead of the everlasting 
French Pears and American Apples ; and I should like, if those ugly 
iron impedimenta called “ automatic deliveries,” or some such wonder¬ 
ful name, are to be tolerated, that they should, in response to the penny 
and the push, give orchard Plums instead of sugar plums, and Apples 
and Pears in preference to chocolate or candy. 
Another idea that has long possessed me is the idea of selling of 
fruits from sample. According to present methods of distribution a pro¬ 
ducer gathers his fruit and carries it away to the markets, there to stand 
with a load of it until it is distributed. Those who have learned the art 
of modern marketing have found out that prices decline as the day 
wears on, for the grower does not desire to cart the piece of a load home 
again. On the other hand, there may be a system of “ topping ”—I may 
be excused if I explain (for of this my present audience is doubtless 
ignorant) that this implies a process, possibly accidental, by which the 
larger, better fruits in a basket gravitate towards the top 1 This is, of 
course, open to the suggestion of unfairness on the other side, but if the 
grower submitted samples of his fruit just in the way the farmer does 
who has grain or seeds to sell, an immediate relief would result. 
A farmer does not think of carting the yield of his grain fields to 
the open markets, but asks the merchant to buy upon the sample 
placed before him in the market; and he can sell or hold as he then 
thinks best. He would then be in a less likely position for the im¬ 
position of injustice. 
Then I think is the interests of distribution our leading agricultural 
and horticultural societies—agricultural societies especially—should re¬ 
cognise the industry, and admit home fruit products into the schedules 
of subjects for competition. I am glad to observe that the Royal Agri¬ 
cultural Society of England has taken up the matter, and hope other 
agricultural societies may now be induced to follow. It is likely that 
more good will arise from sources of this character than through 
minor efforts of less prominent bodies, as the subject would then be 
considered along with the problems of land cultivation in their more 
important and varied aspects. 
I must not forget to include the all-powerful press. We have natural 
