THE ORCHARD AND ITS PRODUCTS, CIDER AND PERRY. 
II 7 
dead meat, restrict the profits of the farmers, happy are they, who as in the fruit districts of 
England, have their orchards to help them. 
Two hundred years ago, it was the necessities of isolation that caused the Orchards to be 
looked to as a chief source of profit: in these times it is a world-wide competition that makes the 
same demand : and thus it has come to pass by a curious revolution in the cycle of commerce, that the 
careful cultivation of English Orchards has again become a necessity, and every effort must be made 
to improve their condition, and to make them, as they can be made, one of the main sources of the 
profits of the farm. 
The fruit districts of England in ali ordinary seasons should afford the chief supply to the 
English markets ; but they do not do so. American and Continental Apples and Pears are brought 
year by year in larger quantities to supply our great centres of population. They are always noted 
for those first two marketable qualities “ size ” and “ beauty of colour,” and are often also excellent 
in flavour and quality. In bad seasons, as in 1879, American apples are brought moreover into our 
own apple districts, and this competition will for the future have always to be considered, and it must, 
and it may be met successfully by care and attention. Of late years table and kitchen fruit, “pot fruit” 
as the local name has it, have been much more extensively grown in our Orchards, and they must 
still be grown in increasing quantities and in improved quality. This change however will not prove 
the universal panacea for agricultural prosperity that has so recently been thought. 
The English Orchards however afford a better resource. The products in which they are 
unrivalled,and for which they need not fear competition, are Cider and Perry of superior quality. Here 
is the speciality that requires the immediate attention of our fruit growers, and it will well repay all the 
care they can bestow upon it. For many years past the Cider and Perry of first quality has been 
chiefly made by the small holders of land. They have looked to their Orchards for their rent and 
livelihood : and by unremitting attention to their trees, have received a liberal and just reward. 
The holders of the larger farms, and larger Orchards, must follow their example. It does 
not answer to produce a drink of inferior quality, when it is possible to produce better: and it may 
assuredly be said now, as truly as it ever could have been said, that so long as the quality is superior, 
however large the quantity may be, a ready market will always be found for it at highly 
remunerative prices. 
The writers of the 17th and 18th centuries produced many excellent practical works on 
Orchard culture and the manufacture of Cider and Perry. They are for the most part the result 
of personal experience, and vary greatly in their views : indeed they also show signs of isolated 
culture. The Orchardist whose land is variable, and but little of it good, thinks “soil” 
is the one thing essential: he whose land has been undrained and whose trees grow 
unkindly, with rugged mosscovered branches, lays great stress on “ drainage " : he whose Orchards 
are on low ground exposed to night fogs, and whose hopes have been again and again cast down 
by spring frosts destroying the fertility of the bloom, dwells fondly on the importance of a “ sunny, 
airy, upland situation ” : he whose land is everywhere good and well adapted for orcharding, throws 
all his energy into the absolute need of selecting “ the best varieties of fruit ” for cultivation : whilst, 
lastly, he who happily possesses all the foregoing advantages, considers that “ the management of 
