152 
The Orchard in its Commercial Aspect. 
twenty-nine other counties. This “ Return'' affords a basis for calculation, from which a rough 
estimate may be derived of the value of the Fruit Crop, but since it embraces all the hardy Orchard 
Fruits, it will be better to limit the enquiry to Herefordshire where the fruit acreage is the highest, 
and where the only Orchard Fruits grown are Apples and Pears. 
Herefordshire contains, as we have seen, 26,683 acres of Orcharding. Of this amount, in 
these days of cheap and rapid transit, when all Apples with size and colour meet with a ready sale 
as “ Pot fruit,” as it is called, that is fruit for edible or culinary purposes ; not less than one sixth 
must in this way be first accounted for. Thus the product of 4,470 acres of “ Pot fruit,” at the 
low estimate of 60 bushels to the acre, and at the equally low price of 3/- a bushel, would produce 
-^39>93°* The remaining five sixths, or 22,213 acres, for the production of Cider or Perry would 
yield, on a low annual average, 2 hogsheads of 100 gallons each per acre; and this at the low price 
of 6d. a gallon would produce ,£111,065 :—and thus at this computation, purposely made so low,, 
the yield for this County, would be at the rate of £5 13s. per acre of orcharding, per annum ; and if 
the best fruit was grown, and the best Cider and Perry made, the profit would be very much 
greater as a matter of course. 
It must.also be remembered that “pot fruit” is grown in almost every garden through the 
County, and this does not appear in the “ Return .” Its amount could scarcely be estimated at less 
than the Orchard “ pot fruit,” or .£39,930 in addition to the sum already named. 
The total annual value of the Herefordshire Apple and Pear crop, thus reaches, according 
to these estimates, the very large sum of £190,925. As a matter of fact however, it is not easy to 
determine the actual produce of English Orchards ; for there are no published records of the exact 
crops they yield year by year. As a general rule, the trees of “ pot fruit,” or “ table fruit ” as it is 
better called, bear a full crop every alternate year; but this is not the case with the varieties grown 
for making Cider and Perry. These trees will bear profusely for some two or three years in 
succession, but after these great “ hits,” they seem to become exhausted, and, with the exception of 
a few individual trees, are apt to yield only a sprinkling of fruit for the next three or four years; 
which leads to the direct inference, that with proper care, and a more liberal supply of manure, they 
would bear much more regularly. 
The French have published a few systematic observations on this point. In the report of 
the French Congress, “ Le Cidre ” so often quoted, it is stated (p. 339—40,) that M. Varin-Simon, 
the proprietor of the celebrated Orchard for Cider fruit at Yvetot, kept an exact register of the 
annual yield from 105 fruit trees, for thirty-eight years in succession. His books show that each 
tree, from 5 to 20 years old, gave an annual average, over this series of years, of 216 litres 
(or 40 gallons) : and each tree from 20 to 80 years old yielded 30 7 litres (or 57 gallons) : or 
taking all the trees together during the 30 years preceding 1869, each one gives, the annual average 
of 2 hectolitres, 6 litres (or 45 gallons). This return of course denotes the highest cultivation and 
an excellent climate, but it is still so extremely favourable on the annual average, that we may well 
believe the popular saying in Normandy “ Le dessus vaut mieux que le dessous ,” the trees yield more 
than the ground beneath them. The' actual return would, at this rate, amount to about 10 
hogshead’s per acre, even if the trees were 60 feet apart, which is double the distance of a thickly 
planted orchard. 
Little information is handed down from early times as to the commercial value of Cider and 
