1878.] 
OUR SEASONS. 
7 
year, more tlie rule than the exception for 
us to be minus either of one or other of 
the sections of the hardy fruits of this coun¬ 
try. Frequently it is called a “ partial failure 
of the fruit crops.” Rare, indeed, is it for 
us to have amongst our hardy fruits a red-letter 
year—that is, a full crop all over; but when 
this does happen, we are so brim full of fruit, 
that we forget both the failures and short¬ 
comings of former years, and the fruitful ex¬ 
ception is run away with, as being representa¬ 
tive of our fruit position generally. 
With all due respect to some of our southern 
counties I fear their claim to be regarded as the 
“ fruit garden ” of England must be altogether 
set aside, and that we must accept broadly such 
countries as Spain, Portugal, France, Turkey, the 
United States, and Canada as being the great 
orchards for the supply of the English fruit- 
market. An abstract from a Blue-Book shows 
that the imports of fruits from all countries to 
various ports in the British Isles for the year 
187C is £5,606,534. For the same year and 
from the same source, the value of imported 
grain, meal, flour, &c., is put down at 
£51,812,438. Allowing a large margin of the 
above fruit value for fruits which we could 
not grow in this country under our most 
favourable circumstances, there is still ample 
room left for industrial exertions applied to the 
production of fruit, should the nature of our 
climate permit; but those exertions are followed 
by one disappointment after another, these 
again by expenditure after expenditure, pro¬ 
nouncing in almost the plainest language which 
can be written, that our climate has become 
far too uncertain ever to allow England again 
to take rank as an out-door fruit-producing coun¬ 
try. Whatever we do, to be depended upon, 
must be in a small way under glass, the same 
as they do in Sweden: witness the collection 
of pears and apples from that country, exhi¬ 
bited the other day at the Crystal Palace. 
Our seasons, according to experiences of late 
years, are evidently becoming perceptibly de¬ 
teriorated, for similar remarks to those relating 
to our failures of fruit, may be applied to 
our shortcomings in the production of grain ; 
but of this I shall say but little here, beyond 
expressing my decided opinion that the culture 
of the land, agriculturally speaking, has not 
kept pace with the times—witness the filth in 
our fields, the tortuous sub-divisions of land by 
quick-set hedges, the condition of our highways 
and our byways, our ditches, our rivulets, and 
our rivers. During wet seasons, such as we are 
having, our country may be described as a 
country almost under water, and its inhabitants, 
developing gradually by force of circumstances, 
into amphibious animals. All these are rem¬ 
nants of feudal ages, and until they are swept 
from off the face of the country, our position, 
no matter with what favoured seasons we may 
be blessed, will remain the same. 
True, we have what is called in this country 
mild winters, which might be put down as so 
many days, weeks, or months of cold sloppy 
weather, intermixed with occasional frosts and 
snows, supposing, to begin with, we have not 
had a wet, sunless summer and autumn. This 
sort of weather often commences in November, 
and continues throughout the winter, until 
spring, again supposing that we are not 
to have a wet spring, followed again by a 
wet summer, &c. These climatal conditions, 
besides preventing the proper ripening of either 
wood or fruit-buds preparatory to the pro¬ 
duction of fruit, also prevent the British farmer 
from preparing his land in autumn, or at the 
fall, as they do in most other grain-producing 
countries. The consequence is, the farmer is 
compelled to get on his land by snatches, either 
preparing for, or sowing, all through the 
autumn, the winter, and the spring, leaving 
besides, for the want of the necessary fair 
weather to clean it, a large per-centage of land 
as dead fallow for the year, and in many in¬ 
stances even for two years. The only thing 
which is really done well in this country during 
the winter months is fox-hunting ; an d should 
the seasons continue much longer as they have 
been lately, it may soon become a question 
whether it might not be advisable to let 
the country altogether to companies of fox- 
hunters, and hie the British farmer and 
gardener farther away to “ fairer fields and 
pastures new,” for like Cleopatra’s Needle, 
the elements appear to be throwing most of 
them on their beam-ends. 
For the salubrity of the British Isles it is 
said we are much indebted to the famous Gulf- 
stream. I fail to note the benefits, seeing that 
this ocean current brings to our shores such a 
promiscuous mixture of weather, that we can 
