.  ..T'  -'r'  *  /  *  rr-” *  w'y  ~ 
328  JOURNAL  OF  HORTICULTURE  AND  COTTAGE  GARDENER.  October  10,  1901. 
Clfoice  Pears,  particularly  late  sorts,  are  being  placed  in 
boxes  in  single  layers,  and  stood  on  the  floor  of  the  fruit  room, 
this  with  a  view  to  prolong  their  season.  Stood  on  open  shelves 
in  the  ordinary  fruit  room,  they  mature  much  too  fast,  and 
despite  the  exhaustive  variety  there  is  in  Pears,  there  are  but 
few  that  with  certainty  can  be  depended  on  for  supplying  the 
table  at  about  Christmas  and  later.  It  is  then  that  a  little 
trouble  becomes  well  repaid,  if  in  their  treatment  they  can  be 
made  to  last  out  the  winter  season.  Hay  and  straw  are  bad 
materials  for  storing  fruit  on,  though  I  have  often  seen  it  in 
use.  Clean  paper  is  much  better.  Strong-smelling  hay  is 
distinctly  offensive  to  Pears,  because  their  flavour  is  so  quickly 
tainted. 
Winter  Moth. 
There  is  a  great  outcry  in  some  localities  against  the  ravages 
of  the  Winter  Moth,  evidence  of  their  presence  being  so  distinctly 
apparent  in  the  great  waste  of  fallen  fruit.  It  is  a  good  and  a 
necessary  practice  to  gather  up  this  fallen  fruit  and  put  it  to 
an  immediate  use.  By  these  means  it  is  said  that  much  of  this 
dreaded  Apple  enemy  can  be  destroyed.  In  orchards  where 
fowls  have  a  free  access  there  do  not  seem  nearly  the  same 
amount  of  “  maggotty  ”  fruit  as  in  the  garden.  In  the  confines 
of  the  garden,  however,  this  is  an  impracticable  remedy,  because 
the  domestic  fowls  a:*.d  the  gardener  are  so  entirely  averse  one 
to  each  other  in  their  methods.  But  for  this  failing,  their  help 
would  be  much  in  request  in  clearing  the  garden  of  obnoxious 
insects,  both  winged  and  otherwise. — W.  Strtjgnell. 
Fruit  for  the  Milliou. 
There  is  a  wide  difference  between  the  gardener  who  grows 
fruit  for  the  supply  of  a  private  family  and  the  individual  who 
grows  entirely  for  profit.  As  a  cultivator  the  former  is  very  often 
the  better  man  of  the  two,  because  fruit  growing  is  an  important 
branch  of  his  business,  aoid  his  aim  is  to  get  the  best  examples. 
The  latter  may  be  anything — a  farmer,  tradesman,  or  amateur, 
who  observes  an  opening  for  profit  in  this  direction,  and  becomes 
one  of  the  community  known  as  market  growers.  But  the  condi¬ 
tions  are  different,  and  there  are  plenty  of  men  who  manage  to 
make  a  profit  out  of  their  fruit  who  would  be  quite  at  sea  in  a 
private  establishment ;  while,  on  the  other  hand,  there  are 
private  gardeners  who  have  launched  into  commercial  fruit 
culture  and  made  a  hash  of  it,  simply  because  their  methods 
have  not  been  suited  to  the  circumstances. 
Perhaps  there  could  be  no  better  place  for  observing  the  varied 
aspects  of  commercial  fruit  culture  than  the  “  Garden  of 
England,”  and  that  Kent  has  a  reputation  in  this  direction  no 
one  will  deny.  Nor  is  it  undeserved.  Soil,  climate,  and  situa¬ 
tion  do  much  to  forward  the  industry,  and  with  the  teeming 
millions  of  London  within  a  day’s  journey,  it  seems  as  though  the 
country  is  doubly  blest.  In  certain  respects  every  advantage 
has'been  taken  of  the  facilities, offered,  and  in  spite  of  the  thread- 
worn  story  about  English  methods  of  culture  being  indifferent 
and  behind  the  times,  tons  of  fruit  are  grown  on  Kentish  market 
plantations,  on  the  very  best  of  modem  principles.  The  growers 
in  these  cases  are  shrewd,  practical  men  of  business,  who,  know¬ 
ing  what  the  public  wants,  endeavour  to  supply  it.  But  the 
bad  is  lamentably  apparent  amongst  the  good.  This  fair 
country  has  its  blighted  spots.  There  are  orchards  and  planta¬ 
tions  unworthy  of  the  name,  in  the  hands  of  men  who  would  be 
better  without  them,  and  tenanted  by  examples  of  trees  and 
bushes  that  are  only  encumbering  the  earth,  and  doing  no 
material  good  to  anybody. 
Swanley  and  Its  Neighbourhood. 
An  interesting  feature  that  strikes  one  about  Kent  is  the  way 
in  which  certain  fruits  predominate  in  different  districts.  This 
proves  that  the  soil  in  one  locality  is  suited  to  one  class  of  fruit, 
which  forms  the  staple,  and  growers  have  seen  the  wisdom  of 
planting  largely  of  it.  Nowhere  in  the  British  Isles,  perhaps, 
will  Cherries  grow  as  they  do  in  certain  districts  in  the  neigh¬ 
bourhood  of  Sittingbourne.  There  you  may  see  mile  after  mile  of 
orchards,  containing  giant  trees  that  are  an  excellent  source  of 
income  to  the  growers.  This  is  the  Cherry  ground  of  Britain, 
and  Kent  monopolises  the  home  production  of  this  luscious  fruit. 
In  the  fields  round  Swanley  and  that  neighbourhood  the  Straw¬ 
berry  holds  the  sway,  and  the  rich  retentive  soil  grows  the  fruit 
to  perfection.  The  majority  of  the  county’s  Raspberries  are 
grown  in  the  locality,  though  you  may  see  odd  fields  dotted 
about  in  other  parts.  Perhaps  the  Weald  of  Kent  produces  the 
best  Apples,  and  the  moist  holding  soil  suits  the  constitution  of 
the  Black  Currant.  No  district  produces  finer  Gooseberries  than 
the  country  between  Canterbury  and  Sandwich,  though  this  fruit, 
and  Plums,  appear  to  have  no  strong  likes  and  dislikes,  but  do 
well  in  nearly  all  parts  of  the  county. 
And  what  a  community  is  engaged  in  growing  fruit  for  the 
million !  There  are  big  proprietors  who  cultivate  hundreds  of 
acres  of  fruit  land,  and  account  for  hundreds  of  tons  of  produce 
every  year ;  farmers  who  combine  fruit  culture  with  Hop  and 
Corn  growing,  sheep-breeding,  cattle-feeding,  and  the  rest ; 
small  proprietors  who  own  their  freeholds,  and  in  making  a  living- 
by  the  fruit  grown  on  small  areas,  make  one  think  that  it  is  a 
pity  there  are  not  more  of  them;  and  capitalists  “who  take  land 
and  launch  into  the  business  without  having  much  practical 
knowledge  of  it.  Combination  is  not  a  great  power.  As  a  rule 
every  grower,  large  and  small,  is  a  proprietor  on  his  own 
account,  independent  of  his  neighbour,  both  as  regards  produc¬ 
tion  and  distribution,  and  doing  his  business  through  that 
common  medium,  the  market  salesman.  The>  advantages  of  co¬ 
operation  have  been  pointed  out  many  times  to  all  who  produce 
commodities  from  the  land,  but  the  British  farmer,  whether  his 
speciality  be  fruit  or  dairy  produce,  doesn’t  seem  to  see  it. 
Rightly  or  wrongly,  he  prefers  to  dispose  of  his  produce  himself, 
and  in  his  own  way,  and  make  the  most  of  the  results. 
Market  Men  and  Market  Methods. 
But  in  the  selling  of  fruit  there  are  men  interested  who  are 
not  necessarily  growers  nor  retailers,  but  speculators  in  a  middle 
sense.  There  are  many  fruit  growers  who  prefer  only  to  culti¬ 
vate  their  crops.  They  wipe  their  hands  of  the  responsibility  of 
picking  and  marketing  the  produce  by  selling  it  as  it  stands.  The 
purchaser  buys  it  under  the  hammer  at  an  auction  sale,  and  then 
makes  the  best  of  it.  He  may  come  out  all  right,  as  a  rule,  but 
there'  is  a  risk  about  the  business,  and  a  few  hundreds  of  pounds 
can  soon  be  sunk  in  buying  orchards  of  fruit.  It  is  necessary  for 
the  buyer  to  be  a  good  judge  of  crops,  and  he  must  also  be  able  to 
anticipate  the  market  somewhat,  for  after  paying  for  the  produce 
he  has  to  pick,  pack,  and  sell  at  his  own  risk.  I  know  a  man 
who  dabbled  in  Cherries  last  year,  and  did  a  good  stroke  of 
business.  He  plunged  a  bit  deeper  this  season,  but  the  fruit 
became  a  drug  on  the  market,  and  while  the  man  in  the  street 
was  congratulating  himself  on  being  able  to  buy  a  pound  of 
Bigarreaus  for  a  penny,  my  friend  was  cogitating  over  the  sales¬ 
man’s  returns,  which  did  not  show  sufficient  balance  to  pay 
picking  expenses,  to  say  nothing  of  interest  on  the  capital  in¬ 
vested. 
There  is  a  certain  philosophy  about  the  growers  who  “  send 
their  fruit  up  ”  and  hopefully  wait  for  the  returns  in  the  old- 
fashioned  way.  They  have  confidence  that  the  salesman  will  do 
his  best  for  them,  and  when  the  sieves  are  packed  away  in  the 
railway  trucks  they  have  wiped  their  hands  of  them,  so  to  speak. 
They  sit  at  the  railway  siding  and  see  the  trains  dash  through 
laden  with  produce  from  the  Continent,  but  wait  for  the  vans 
that  serve  their  turn.  They  group  together  and  discuss  the 
returns,  bemoaning  their  hard  luck  if  the  balance  is  small,  but 
accepting  the  situation  as  inevitable.  Co  vent  Garden  and  the 
Borough  are  the  main  hopes  of  many  of  them,  and  they  are  appa¬ 
rently  content  with  the  system.  I  remember  seeing  some  time 
ago  a  glowing  description  in  a  daily  paper  about  a  service  of 
motor-cars  that  was  to  travel  to  and  fro  to  London  with  fruit 
and  other  commodities.  I  do  not  know  how  they  progressed, 
but  I  observed  the  other  day  a  tiny  paragraph  of  about  four  lines 
in  the  same  paper,  stating  that  the  motor  service  had  been  aban¬ 
doned  owing  to  numerous  breakdowms,  and  the  difficulty  in 
collecting  produce.  Evidently  the  advantages  of  motors  are  not 
yet  realised. 
Surplus  Fruit. 
The  question  of  what  to  do  with  surplus  fruit  in  seasons  of 
glut  is  one  of  pressing  importance.  It  is  pitiable  to  see  whole¬ 
some  fruit  wasted  when  there  are  thousands  who  would  be  glad 
of  it.  The  grower,  who  is  the  greatest  loser,  says  he  cannot  help* 
himself,  and  the  difficulty  remains  unsolved.  A  correspondent 
to  a  newspaper  settled  the  matter  the  other  day,  apparently  to 
his  own  satisfaction.  He  advocates  the  erection  of  jam  factories, 
on  a  kind  of  profit-sharing  system,  in  various  centres  to  deal  w:th 
the  fruit  where  it  is  grown,  and  pointed  out  how  everything 
might  be  managed  and  a  profit  be  shown.  The  scheme  looked 
well  on  paper  ;  but  somehow  rural  jam  factories  have  not 
answered  in  practice,  and  I  know  several  buildings  of  the  kind 
that  could,  I  fancy,  be  bought  at  a  reasonable  figure,  considering 
the  time  they  have  been  for  sale.  Fruit-drying  is  advocated  by 
some,  but  it  does  not  seem  to  gain  headway ;  bottling  does  not 
appear  to  pay,  and,  in  the  meantime,  the  grower  .sells  what  he 
can,  and  when  he  can  sell  no  more  at  a  profit  it  goes  to  Mother 
Earth  of  its  own  accord. 
Injurious  Pests. 
The  market  fruit-grower  has  a  good  many  opposing  forces  to 
contend  with,  and  insect  pests  figure  conspicuously  amongst  the- 
number.  I  should  not  like  to  say  how  many  Apples  have  fallen 
this  year  through  being  bored  by  the  Codlin  moth  caterpillar; 
but  a  correct  return  would  surprise  many.  There  are  growers 
who  observe  the  importance  of  keeping  trees  clean,  and  fight  the 
insects  tooth  and  nail.  But  many  others  are  very  lethargic  about 
this  matter.  They  daub  a  little  limewash  on  the  stems  of  the 
orchard  trees  as  a  matter  of  custom  ;  but  to  them,  sprays  and 
washes  are  something  that  you  read  about.  If  considerable 
damage  is  done  they  put  it  down  to  the  season,  and  accept  it  as 
inevitable.  If  they  come  off  fairly  well  they  are  thankful ;  but 
when  a  pest  ruins  the  tree  as  well  as  the  year’s  crop  the  grower  is 
alarmed,  and  a  case  in  point  is  the  dreaded  mite  in  Black: 
