September 17,1885. ] 
JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 
245 
bushes, whilst some few years ago 1700 bushes had, on an 
average yielded as much as 2s. worth of fruit upon each bush. 
According to Mr. Charles Whitehead, the crop of Gooseberries 
in 1883 produced something like £75 per acre, and in 1882 fully 
£100 per acre. I do not know what the produce would yield in 
Gooseberry-growing districts this year, but when I was in 
Cambridgeshire in the summer the trees of the fruit farms in 
that county were literally loaded, and the growers were making 
good prices. 
To come nearer home to this western side of the island let us 
have some particulars of the Gloucester fruit farm of Lord 
Sudeley. His Lordship’s home farm, near Toddington, was some 
few years ago an ordinary arable farm, for which nobody could 
be found willing to offer the previous rent of £ 1 per acre. His 
Lordship drained and levelled the ground, planted hedges for 
shelter, and Plum trees, 6 feet standards, three years old from a 
nursery, and which had been started in advance of the experi¬ 
ment, were planted in rows of 15 feet apart. Raspberries, 
Currants, and Gooseberries were interspersed in carefully ar¬ 
ranged order, so that straight and uninterrupted vistas open in 
every direction. His Lordship had about 40,000 Plum trees, and 
these were all most carefully staked. Sometimes over 300 
workers are employed in weeding, picking, and packing. The 
farm is surrounded by a fence of Canadian Poplars, planted a yard 
apart, and when the trunks meet and the tops are pollarded at 
18 to 20 feet above the ground level, a remarkable natural wall 
will be formed. Mr. Beach’s jam factory is established upon 
the premises, and some idea of the extent of the business carried 
on may be gathered from the fact that the bottles used in a year 
cost about £1000. The setting of the fruit is assisted by bees 
visiting the blossoms, and an apiary of 165 hives is maintained 
under the care of an experienced manager. That does not look 
like failure. 
Added to this the land laws are now favourable, so that there 
should really be little or no hindrance to enterprise. Every 
place is fitted to grow fruit of some sort. That 1 believe is an 
established certainty, the doubts of the desponding being but 
groundless alarm. We must not be discouraged by adverse 
comments of the horticultural or the general press. Writers 
are influenced unduly by the appearances of the moment, but 
the experience of years shows that Nature is always mightier in 
repair than she is terrible in ravage. We have been repeatedly 
told, for instance, that Cheshire is not suitable for fruit-growing. 
That is only a half truth. I visited a few days ago a Cheshiie 
fruit farm, a brief account of which appears in the Journal of 
Horticulture. Anyone filled with doubt or fear for fruit-farming 
in this district has but to pay a visit to this farm, he will there 
find abundant evidence to satisfy him that we can grow Apples, 
Pears, and Plums, as well as cheese. 
THE STRAWBERRY. 
But we must hurry on to the consideration of some more 
practical points connected with our subject. First, then, let us 
consider briefly some phases of the question bearing upon the 
cultivation and production of small fruits. The extent of Straw¬ 
berry cultivation is something enormous. I read recently that 
Messrs. Vinson, who are large Strawberry growers in the county 
of Kent, are reckoned to grow 500 acres of Strawberries, and 
pick probably something like 1000 tons. It is not an uncommon 
sight, I believe, to see ten or a dozen railway vans loading fruits 
for the northern markets. Messrs. Vinson employ something 
like 300 pickers resident in their own district, whilst they employ 
about 1000 altogether. In gathering time the pickers live in 
tents set up round the sides of the fields, and the delights of the 
situation may be better imagined than described. 
In the Field newspaper of August 15th last I observed a letter 
from Mr. Walter Kruse of. Maidstone, giving some particulars 
of his system of “surface culture in fruit farming.” In the 
course of that letter he remarks, “ Since your reporter was here 
we have completed gathering our Strawberry crop, which has 
much exceeded our expectations, and has truly been an extraor¬ 
dinary one. Last year we had what we considered the very good 
crop, considering the very dry season, of over 5^ tons from about 
2f acres, or nearly 2 tons per acre. This year, after grubbing 
up half an acre of plants, we gathered over 91 tons, or nearly 
4 tons per acre.” At market price you may readily find out 
what Mr. Kruse has realised. He remarks that he found the 
variety Sir Joseph Paxton the best adapted for market purposes. 
This, I have no doubt, is a correct judgment, as the fruit of this 
variety is shapely, firm, and solid, and if gathered dry it may be 
kept for a day or two, not only undamaged but improved in 
quality. The Strawberry is one of the most valuable of our 
British fruits; sub-acid, juicy, and cooling, its value medicinally 
can hardly be over-rated. 
The cultivation is simple and the plant in every way produc¬ 
tive. Plants should be placed out during August or September, 
the season being determined by the weather. This year, for 
instance, runners are only now available in consequence of the 
long-continued drought. The length of time a bed may be con¬ 
sidered productive is variable, depending upon the constitution 
of the variety and the condition of the situation; but fresh 
plantations should be made every year for succession. British 
Queen, Duke of Edinburgh, Elton, James Veitch, Keens’ Seed¬ 
ling, Loxford Hall, Oxonian, President, Sir Charles Napier, and 
Sir Joseph Paxton may be counted as the most popular and best 
varieties. They can be grown anywhere, always command a 
ready sale, and the demand is practically unlimited. I believe 
the proprietors of the preserve factories—sugar boilers as they 
are called in the Liverpool district—have this year received 
constant and considerable consignments from Kent and the 
southern counties The cost of carriage added to the price of 
the fruit leads one to believe that there is a most eligible oppor¬ 
tunity for the still further development of Strawberry farming 
in North Wales and the Border counties. 
The succulent character of the Strawberry is such as to 
make it a necessity that it should receive most careful handling, 
and careless picking and packing may be the cause often of 
unsatisfactory returns. 1 may mention a fact which came under 
my notice this last season. In one of the Cheshire markets a 
careful grower, who invariably takes pains to have his fruits 
properly presented, was making 6d. and 7d. per quart for a3 
much fruit as he could market, whilst his neighbours were glad 
to get 3d. and 4d., and oftentimes had to take large quantities to 
the Lancashire markets, simply because the fruit had been 
reduced to a pulp oozing through the baskets and was unsaleable 
except for boiling down. The packing which commends itself 
most is a system of which I have an example before me. The 
fruit is laid in clean chipwood punnets holding each a quart, 
leaves are placed carefully to protect and decorate, the punnets 
are then placed in a tray divided into compartments and boxed 
in tiers, so that the berries are not injured in the least, and are 
lifted from the case just as fresh and beautiful as when they 
were put in. 
(To be continued.) 
EXHIBITING CHRYSANTHEMUMS. 
I notice several Chrysanthemum societies are offering prizes as 
follows :—For twenty-four cut blooms incurved, not less than eighteen 
varieties or more than two of one sort. What I want to know is, would 
twenty-four distinct varieties stand before eighteen, provided all were 
good ? I suppose you could put up a much heavier stand by staging 
duplicates of the Queens and Empresses which would throw out some of 
the smaller varieties, although they might be as well grown of the sort. 
Supposing A showed eighteen varieties all good, and B showed twenty-four 
varieties, eighteen of which were equally as good as A’s and the other six 
were as good as the varieties could be, which ought to be first ? An 
opinion expressed on this point in the Journal would perhaps assist some 
yaung exhibitors besides myself. 
I am looking out very anxiously for Mr. Molyneuxto fulfil the promise 
he made some time ago, which was to this effect : “ There are many other 
details in Chrysanthemum culture that cannot be fully dealt with in a 
short article like this, but I hope at some future time to give exhaus¬ 
tive details of the mode practised in producing exhibition blooms.”— 
Chrysanthemum. 
[Provided eighteen varieties are staged the conditions are complied 
with. If a person could stage twenty-four varieties in the class he could, 
in all probability, select from them twenty-four better blooms in eighteen 
or twenty varieties, and we suspect he would act prudently in doing so. 
We are willing, however, to publish the opinions of growers and judges 
on this matter.] 
AN OCTOGENARIAN HORTICULTURIST. 
On Monday, the 7th inst., the employes of Messrs. Wm. Barron and 
Son, of the Elvaston Nurseries, Borrowasb, near Derby, to the number of 
sixty-five, were entertained at dinner by Mr. Wm. Barron, the senior 
partner of the firm, to celebrate his eightieth birthday. The employd) 
took advantage of the occasion to show the high esteem in which they 
hold their host by presenting the octogenarian with an armchair, accom¬ 
panied by an appropriate address. During the evening Mr. Barron gave 
his guests a very interesting sketch of his past career. 
Mr. Barron has been a most enthusiastic horticulturist all his life, 
having commenced his career of gardening as an apprentice at Blackadder, 
the seat of Thos. Boswell, Esq., where he made rapid progress in his pro¬ 
fession. Having finished his term of apprenticeship, he was appointed 
foreman in the houses under Mr. McNab at the Botanic Gardens, Edin¬ 
burgh ; from thence he went to Sion House. Having remained at Sion 
House for some considerable time he was selected to lay out the gardens 
at Elvaston Castle, the grounds of which are famed for the artistic manner 
in which they have been designed. Ultimately, Mr. Barron was per- 
