December 13, 1833.1 
JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 
531 
T HIRTY-FIVE years ago notes on orchards of the past were 
written by an able and very old acquaintance of ours ; the 
-fruit question, for there was a “ fruit question ” then, as now, 
was also discussed, and the condition of British orchards at that 
time described and lamented. In looking over those notes we 
Iiave been interested, and as they refer to matters possibly not 
Tmown to young men of the present day, and some of which 
matters their elders may have forgotten—namely, the duties 
imposed on foreign fruit and their effects on home prices; the 
reduction of those duties, and the consequent uprooting of 
orchards ; the agitation for the re-imposition of the tax, and a 
parliamentary inquiry, with the examination of witnesses ; the, to 
some, curious result that, after the duty was decreased to a nominal 
sum, the prices for Apples increased in our markets to figures then 
claimed as remunerative to growers—as all those items are in¬ 
teresting, and some observations thereon suggestive, we make no 
apology for placing them before our readers. 
An important and practical deduction from what appears will 
be seen to be this—if an extension of orcharding was desirable 
then as a profitable occupation, and for meeting the wants of 
consumers with superior home-grown produce instead of by large 
importations of imported fruit, how much more desirable is it to 
•extend fruit plantations now that prices for Apples are higher 
than they were in 1850, and for several years previously, as will be 
■seen by the tabulated lists that will be given? We are constrained 
to say that at no time in the history of orcharding were the 
prospects brighter for planters, and good returns surer than at the 
present time. An ever-growing population will, and must, demand 
increased supplies of fruit, and if these are not provided at home 
they will be had from abroad, preference being given to the “ best 
for the money,” for it is not the habit of purchasers nowadays to 
ask where fruit is grown, for they do not care, but buy that which 
best suits them, come from whence it may. Whether this is the 
most agreeable or not to home growers, it is a home fact, and as 
such must be met. The whole question, then, of fruit production 
for the multitude resolves itself into a question of judgment in 
■selection, skill in cultivation, and enterprise in supplying the 
markets with consignments that both in appearance and quality 
best meet the public taste. Let landowners recognise this, and 
fhey will perceive it is to their advantage to offer facilities for 
the cultivation of fruit, and growers of it will then know that 
it depends on themselves whether the money of consumers is to 
be “ kept in the country ” or go out of it for their daily supplies 
■of what will be more and more recognised as healthy wholesome 
food. With these observations we introduce the notes referred to, 
which the writer of them little thought, when he penned them so 
long ago, that he would read them in the Journal of Horticulture 
in 1888. They are as follow :— 
The interest which the study and cultivation of fruits have of 
late excited, and the importance with which they are likely to be 
regarded, induce us to give the subject that consideration which it 
appears to demand. There can be no doubt that is a subject which 
has of late years been too much lost sight of ; and particularly since 
the duty of 4s. per bushel on foreign fruit has been removed, the 
growers seem to have thought that it is one which does not concern 
them. We shall now lay down a sketch of this branch of rural 
economy, and see how far they are acting with a due consideration 
No. 442.— Vol. XVII., Thibd Sebies. 
of their own interests in neglecting it. Our observations will be 
directed to the great orchard districts of Kent, which will furnish 
good evidence, however, equally applicable to other parts of the 
country. 
It is upwards of 300 years since Richard Harris, “ the king’s 
fruiterer,” planted his orchard, called “ The Brennet,” at Tenham, 
in Kent. This was not, as some say, the first orchard ever planted 
in Kent ; neither was it, as some still more erroneously have stated, 
the first that existed in England. Fruit was grown for commercial 
purposes from time to time immemorial before then ; but the 
reason why Richard Harris left his counter and his counting-house 
to become a Kentish fruit-grower was the very same that would 
induce many an equally respectable fruiterer of the present day to 
act similarly. It was this “ Having observed that those plants 
which had been brought over by our Norman ancestors had lost 
their native excellence by length of time, and that we were served 
from foreign parts with those fruits : on that account, which ho 
saw no reason for, as neither the soil nor the climate here were 
unequal to the bringing of them to perfection, determined to try a 
plantation here ; for which purpose, having in 1533 obtained 105 
acres of rich land, then called ‘ The Brennet,’ he divided it into 
ten parcels, and then having with great care, good choice, and no 
small labour and cost, brought plants from beyond the seas, he 
furnished this ground with them in rows in most beautiful order.” 
The necessity for such a complete change of the system which 
had hitherto prevailed, and the success which attended this experi¬ 
ment were so great, that Tenham became the centre from which all 
the other plantations emanated. So extensive and rapid was the 
influence which this example had that Lambarde, writing in 1570, 
says, this parish, with thirty others lying on each side of the great 
road from Rainham to Bleamwood, was, in his time, the Cherry 
garden and Apple orchard of Kent; and, further, that “ the 
orchards of Apples and gardens of Cherries, and those of the most 
delicious and exquisite kinds that can be, no part of the realm (that 
I know) hath them, either in such quantity and number, or with 
such art and industry set and planted.” 
We shall not stay to inquire into the decline and fall of these 
orchards, nor shall we trace the causes which led to these results ; 
but, in all probability, the trees were allowed to become aged, 
diseased, and unfruitful, a succession was not provided, and they 
became extinct. We are induced to believe that such was the case, 
for a writer of that time states that these orchards continued to 
exist till within memory, when the lucre of planting Hops prevail¬ 
ing, few of them were suffered to remain. From the fact, too, of 
the writers of the seventeenth century, among whom were Ralph 
Austen, Hartlib, Bligh, Evelyn, and Worlidge, urging so strongly 
the encouragement of orchard planting as being a matter which 
should engage the attention of the Government as well as private 
individuals, there is every reason to believe that the cultivation of 
fruits had, to a great extent, been discontinued and neglected. By 
the writings of these men a fresh impulse was given : new planta¬ 
tions were formed and new varieties of fruit introduced, the old 
varieties having been allowed to disappear with the old orchards. 
The new sorts were as superior to the former as the former were to 
those of which Richard Harris complained. But these new planta¬ 
tions were doomed, in their turn, to the same fate as all the others 
which preceded them ; and so, in the year 1778, we find it said that 
Rainham had “ within memory great plantations of Cherries and 
Apples, especially on the lands adjoining the high road, and to the 
northward of it ; but the greatest part of them have been displanted 
some years since.” And of Newington it i3 said, that it was 
formerly the greatest part of it planted with orchards of Apples, 
Cherries, and other kinds of fruit ; these falling to decay, and the 
price of Hops making them a more advantageous commodity than 
fruit, most of the orchards in the parish were displanted, and Hops 
raised in their stead.” 
We shall give one more instance^ it is of Borden, where ‘ the 
No. 2098 .—Vol. LXXIX., Old Sebies. 
