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November  30,  1899.  JOURNAL  OF  HORTICULTURE  AND  COTTAGE  GARDENER. 
Speaking  of  preserves,  some  persons  will  possibly  remember 
having  tasted  that  most  delicious  Medlar  jelly  which  our  friend 
the  late  Mr.  Rivers  brought  several  years  ago  to  the  Fruit  Com¬ 
mittee.  I  was  privileged  in  my  school  days  to  be  the  recipient  of 
divers  boxes  of  Guava  jelly,  which  a  relative  sent  from  Brazil,  and  I 
used  to  think  that  nothing  could  ever  equal  it  in  my  estimation,  but 
Mr.  Rivers’  Medlar  jelly  would,  I  think,  run  it  very  closely.  Alas  !  I 
have  tasted  neither  of  late,  so  cannot  well  compare  their  merits,  but  I 
feel  sure  that  Medlar  jelly  would  find  a  ready  sale  if  it  were  cunningly 
prepared,  and  as  tne  Medlars  can  be  worked  on  any  hedgerow  there 
need  be  no  difficulty  about  providing  ground  for  them.  I  throw  this 
hint  out  to  any  who  may  wish  to  make  a  fortune,  and  trust  that  when 
the  money  comes  rolling  in  they  will  remember  me  substantially.  I 
am  not  supposed  to  be  writing  about  new  fruits,  but  I  may  mention 
incidentally  that  two  new  Black  Currants  carried  crops  of  fruit  this 
season  with  me ;  the  first,  called  Early  Black,  had  a  large  crop  of  very 
small  fruit,  which  dropped  off  as  soon  as  ripe;  the  second,  Golden 
Black,  was  a  very  sweet  Currant  of  a  dirty,  muddy  brown  colour 
and  most  unattractive  appearance. 
Plums  and  Damsons. 
Passing  on  to  Plums,  these  were  somewhat  patchy  in  the  Midlands, 
some  localities  having  practically  no  fruit  at  all  whilst  others  had  a 
very  fair  crop.  It  is,  I  know,  the  custom  to  lay  the  blame  of  all 
failures  upon  spring  frosts,  but  mischievous  as  these  undoubtedly  are, 
I  think  that  much  loss  is  charged  to  them  of  which  they  are  in  a 
great  measure  guiltless.  What  I  mean  is  this,  when  trees  are 
suffering  from  an  overcrop  the  previous  season,  and  oftentimes  also 
from  a  lack  of  manure,  the  blossom  is  more  easily  damaged  by  spring 
frost  than  would  have  been  the  case  had  the  trees  been  in  more 
robust  health.  I  noticed  particularly  this  year  that  the  Plum,  and 
Damson  bloom  at  Chilwell  was  almost  entirely  destroyed,  whilst  at 
Eowdham,  thirteen  miles  away,  in  the  same  valley,  with  the  same 
climatic  conditions  and  what  seems  an  exactly  similar  soil,  the  trees 
were  well  loaded,  in  fact  many  Victorias  had  to  be  supported  with 
props  to  prevent  the  trees  being  broken.  1  have  purposely  said 
“what  seems  to  be  an  exactly  similar  sail,”  for  although  the  soil  is 
on  the  same  geological  formation  and  to  all  appearance  is  as  much 
alike  as  possible,  I  believe  that  some  difference  exists  (which  p>ssibl.y 
a  chemical  analysis  would  show),  and  that  this  differencs  in  the 
constituents  of  the  soil  is  the  main  cause  why  one  village  is  essentially 
a  plum  district  whilst  the  other  cannot  lav  claim  to  be  anything  more 
than  a  fair-weather  locality  lor  Plums.  It  may  illustrate  this  point 
more  clearly  if  I  state  that  for  twenty  years  we  never  siw  fruit  upon 
young  nursery  trees  of  Pond’s  Seedling,  at  Chilwell,  whilst  this 
year,  at  Lowdham,  although  an  unfavourable  spring,  three-year 
feathered  standards  were  roped  with  fruit;  also  untrimmed  standards 
of  Brussels  and  Brompton  Plums,  used  for  stocks,  carried  fruit,  which 
I  have  never  seen  any  but  old-established  trees  do  at  Chilwell. 
Weights  and  Measures. 
Our  neighbours  made  an  excellent  price  of  their  Plums  and 
Damsons,  the  latter  realising  the  comfortable  figure  of  3s.  per  peck  of 
18  lbs — in  1877  we  sold  Damsons  at  11s.  6d.  per  peck,  but  the  crop  was 
so  thin  that  they  did  not  pay  very  well  even  at  that  price.  Speaking 
of  pecks,  is  it  not  absurd  that  although  these  measures  are  supposed  to 
be  abolished,  each  local  market,  not  to  leave  out  London  which  heads 
the  list  in  these  absurJities,  has  its  own  terms  of  pecks,  bushels,  baskets, 
sieves,  pots,  and  what  not,  the  meaning,  or  rather  weight,  of  which 
not  one  person  in  a  djzen  living  in  the  district  understands,  and  still 
fewer  out  of  it  ?  For  example  :  a  housekeeper  in  Nottingham  buys  a 
peck  of  Potatoes  and  receives  20  lbs.  If  she  weighs  her  purchase  and 
subsequently  buys  a  peck  of  Pears  or  Plums  she  thinks  they  are  short 
weight,  because  they  only  weigh  18  lbs.  a  peck.  Apples  16  lbs.,  Black 
Currants  14  lbs.,  Beans  9  lbs.,  Peas  8  lbs. 
What  idea  do  these  quotations  of  pecks,  pots,  and  others,  convey 
to  the  intelligent  grower  in  another  county  who  is  trying  to  study  our 
market’s  prices  ?  Our  old-fashioned  tons,  hundredweights,  quarters 
and  pounds,  are  somewhat  cumbersome  as  compared  to  the  metric 
system  of  our  continental  neighbours,  but  these  local  measures  and 
weights  for  fruits,  corn,  and  other  things,  are  “  confusion  confounded.” 
Pears  and  Apples. 
Pears  this  season  were  generally  a  failure,  and  the  French  pro¬ 
ducers  must  have  had  a  good  time  if  they  received  anything  like  a 
share  of  the  2£d.  each  for  which  very  ordinary  Williams’  Bon  Chretiens 
wereretaded  in  our  shops.  Strange  to  say,  as  soon  as  home-grown  fruit 
came  in  (certainly  within  a  fortnight)  better  Williams*  could  be 
bought  at  3d.  per  lb. ;  what  a  profit  to  the  grower  would  have  resulted 
from  the  use  of  a  tiny  bit  of  thin  blue  paper  wrapped  around  each  fruit ! 
Apples  in  the  Midlands  have  been  almost  an  average  crop  ;  some 
varieties,  indeed,  have  produced  a  heavy  crop.  I  wish  someone  who 
has  the  time  to  study  such  things  would  tell  us  why  certain  varieties 
almost  always  pull  through  the  worst  of  spring  weather,  whilst  others 
alongside,  in  bloom  at  the  same  time,  quite  as  constantly  succumb. 
One  of  our  leading  nurserymen  once  told  us  that  the  hardy  varieties 
were  those  in  which  the  petals  incurved,  but  the  little  observation  I 
have  given  to  this  point  does  not  quite  bear  this  out,  and  I  think  the 
reason  is  still  to  seek. 
If  there  is  one  fact  which  stands  out  more  prominently  than 
another  in  respect  to  the  fruit  crop  of  1899,  it  is  that  the  British 
gardener  can,  despite  the  weather,  produce  a  sample  of  hardy  fruits 
which  it  would  puzzle  any  other  portion  of  the  world  to  excel.  Every 
visitor  to  the  Crystal  Palace  Show  must  have  been  amazed  to  find 
that,  with  all  the  talk  of  failure  of  crops,  cold,  ungenial  spring,  and 
burning,  droughty  summer,  the  fruit  exhibited  was  really  splendid. 
When  one  tries  calmly  to  carry  one’s  mind  back  to  the  Apple  and 
Pear  Congress  of  1888  and  the  samples  of  Apples  and  Pears  which 
were  then  exhibited  and  considered  good,  one  cannot  but  marvel  at 
the  enormous  progress  which  has  been  made  in  the  production  of  fine 
fruit.  I  venture  to  say  that  many  market  samples  from  young  and 
well  cared  for  orchards  of  to-day  are  far  superior  to  the  picked  fruit 
which  was  exhibited  at  the  Conference  in  1888. 
The  Educational  Value  of  Conferences  and  Shows. 
It  would  be  difficult  to  exaggerate  the  value  of  the  Apple  and 
Pear  Congress,  the  great  Guildhall  Show,  and  the  subsequent  Crystal 
Palace  Shows  from  an  educational  point  of  view,  and  I  am  sure 
everyone  will  agree  that  the  effect  they  have  had  in  stimulating  growers 
to  produce  better  fruit  has  been  simply  marvellous.  To  many  visitors 
at  the  earlier  shows  the  fruit  exhibited  was  a  revelation  ;  they  had  no 
idea  such  fruits  could  be  produced  in  the  open,  still  less  had  they  any 
thought  that  such  fruits  could  be  grown  anywhere  except  in  favoured 
Kent  and  Devon ;  and  yet  to-day  the  Midland  exhibitors  stage  fruits 
superior  to  the  best  seen  in  1888,  whilst  our  friends  from  Maidstone, 
Exmouth,  Bassaleg,  Hereford,  and  other  places  have  made  still  further 
progress  in  excellency. 
This  march  of  progress  is  a  matter  of  congratulation  to  all,  for  it  is 
undoubtedly  only  by  tne  production  of  fine  fruit  of  high  quality  that 
we  can  hope  to  command  our  home  markets,  or  to  make  fruit  growing 
a  commercial  success.  That  our  exhibitors  can  much  improve  upon 
the  results  already  attained  with  our  present  varieties  of  fruits  we  can 
scarcely  hope,  nor  can  we  expect  that  market  growers  can  quite  attain 
the  high  level  at  which  our  friend  Mr.  Woodward,  of  Barham  Court, 
stands ;  but  some  of  them  are  close  upon  his  heels,  and  when  one 
looks  back  upon  the  market  samples  of  fifteen  years  ago,  and  tries  to 
compare  them  with  the  best  of  to-day,  one. can  but  rejoice.  I  say  the 
best  of  to-day,  for  unfortunately  there  is  still  a  fearful  amount  of 
rubbish  sent  to  market,  but  its  day  is  over,  and  it  must  soon  be  a 
thing  of  the  past,  from  the  simple  fact  that  the  public  will  not  buy  it 
at  any  price,  and  the  only  market  open  for  it  is  the  “smasher,”  by 
which  term  I  suppose  all  will  recognise  the  jam  maker,  who  uses 
these  small  fruit  as  a  basis  upon  which  to  mike  several  kinds  of  jam, 
which  are  not  always  sold  under  the  name  of  Apples.  Our  local 
growers  have  been  making  from  40s.  to  55s.  per  ton  of  small  Apples 
sent  to  the  jam  factory,  but  they  do  not  like  the  price,  and  many  of 
them  ate  now  planting  orchards  of  bush  fruits  on  cultivated  land,  and 
intend  shortly  to  lay  to  the  axe  in  the  old  orchards  to  provide  some 
Christmas  fuel. 
I  must  apologise  for  having  wandered  somewhat  from  my  subject, 
but  I  have  been  preaching  improvement  in  fruit  growing  for  so  many 
years  now  that  I  find  it  difficult  to  keep  away  from  a  matter  which  is, 
after  all,  slightly  connected  with  the  fruit  crop  of  1899,  nor  can  one 
help  rejoicing  when  one  sees  the  improvement  which  has  been  already 
effected,  for  the  question  is  one  of  no  mean  importance  or  narrow  bounds. 
Seeing  that  during  the  past  fourteen  years  we  have  imported  no 
less  than  55,727,756  bushels  of  Apples,  valued  at  £15,726,476,  the 
question  is  of  some  importance  financially,  especially  when  we  see  that 
the  imports  are  rapidly  increasing,  and  that  the  average  price  is  higher 
during  the  latter  half  of  the  period  than  it  was  during  the  first  seven 
years.  This  shows  that  the  taste  for  fruit  is  increasing ;  a  fact  which 
is  hopeful  for  the  grower,  and  of  great  importance  to  the  health  of  our 
people,  for  all  medical  authorities  are  agreed  that  fresh  fruit  is  most 
beneficial  to  health,  and  is  especially  needed  by  the  dwellers  in  towns 
and  cities. 
But  the  question  of  improved  fruit  culture  does  not  end  here,  for 
if  the  industry  of  fruit  growing  can  be  made  to  pay  in  the  future,  as 
it  most  undoubtedly  has  done  in  the  past,  I  know  of  nothing  which 
will  help  to  solve  the  difficulty  of  making  the  land  reproductive  to  the 
capital  and  labour  bestowed  upon  it,  and  of  inducing  men  to  live 
upon  it  and  make  their  homes  in  the  rural  districts  like  this  same 
fruit  culture.  I  find  nowhere  such  thriving  villages  in  districts  not 
dependant  upon  manufacturers  as  those  in  which  fruit  growing 
is  extensively  carried  on,  and  if  only  for  this  reason  the  matter  is  of 
national  importance.  We  see  tracts  of  land  in  the  Highlands  of 
Scotland  which  once  maintained  a  sturdy  Tace  of  cottars,  nearly  all  of 
whom  sent  a  member  to  our  Highland  regiments,  now,  alas  1  cleared  of 
human  habitations  and  sacred  to  the  grouse  or  red  deer  ;  we  Bee 
thousands  of  acres  of  land  which  in  our  younger  days  was  in  oulti- 
