380 
JOURNAL  OF  HORTICULTURE  AND  COTTAGE  GARDENER. 
May  11,  189?. 
FRUIT  PROSPECTS  ROUND  EVESHAM. 
Perhaps  you  may  be  able  to  cull  some  information  from  the 
enclosed  report  from  the  “  Evesham  Journal”  of  a  meeting  of  some 
of  the  old  Evesham  Fruit  Pests  Committee  at  Toddington  on  Thurs¬ 
day  last.  The  trials  of  the  spraying  machines  were  most  interesting, 
but  so  far  as  insect  pests  were  concerned  they  were  conspicuous  by 
their  absence.  My  opinion  is  that  the  intense  frosts  in  March  settled 
the  bulk  of  them,  and  the  later  frosts  the  bul^of  the  Plum  crops. — 
J.  IIiAM,  Astwood  Bunk. 
“  Looking  to  the  future  there  is  a  great  deal  of  misapprehension 
as  to  the  Plums.  In  the  low-lying  grounds  the  frost  has  done  much 
damage,  and^  taking  the  Evesham  gardens  all  through,  two  men 
who  are  qualified  judges  place  this  year’s  crop  at  twenty-five,  taking 
100  as  the  average.  If  this  should  prove  to  be  correct  it  will  be  a  poor 
outlook  for  those  gardeners  who  place  most  of  their  reliance  on  the 
Plums,  but  we  hope  it  will  not  be  found  to  be  the  case,  and  we  are  the 
more  strengthened  in  this  hope  by  the  fact  that  other  growers  place 
the  probable  yield  much  higher — more  like  fifty.  As  is  generally  the 
case,  the  frost  has  behaved  in  a  capricious  manner,  doing  much  injury 
in  some  grounds,  and  leaving  others  untouched. 
“  The  early  Plums,  Prolifics  and  Czars,  seem  to  have  suffered  most, 
and  some  of  those  that  flower  early,  such  as  the  Monarch,  which  does 
not  come  into  the  market  till  later,  have  also  been  touched.  In  some 
of  the  gardens  there  is  scarcely  a  Plum  left  that  is  good  for  anything, 
and  in  some  cases  the  cold  weather  has  so  checked  the  sap  that  the 
leaves  on  some  of  the  boughs  are  withering  just  as  if  hot  water  had 
been  thrown  over  them,  and  the  boughs,  when  you  break  them  off, 
are  brown  just  where  the  sap  runs.  This  is  particularly  the  case  wilh 
some  Victorias  we  saw  at  Pershore,  and  the  same  thing  has  occurred 
in  some  of  the  Toddington  plantations.  Egg  Plums  were  a  good 
bloom,  and  generally  they  seem  to  be  setting  well,  but  in  some  of  the 
plantations  they  are  a  good  deal  cut  up,  and  so  are  the  Victorias, 
though  in  favourable  situations  the  prospect  is  fair.  The  Damascenes 
seem  to  have  suffered  as  severely  as  any.  In  some  places  there  are 
scarcely  any  left,  and  some  of  the  growers  will  be  in  the  position  of  a 
well-known  Evesham  man,  who  has  some  ground  at  Hampton,  and 
who  some  years  ago  carefully  placed  a  single  Plum  in  the  middle  of  a 
pot  hamper,  and  exhibited  it  to  admiring  crowds  as  his  crop  for  the 
sea.son.  I  nfcrtunatcly,  though  the  season  is  bad  enough  so  far,  the 
worst  is  not  yet  apparent.  When  the  Plums  are  stoning,  and  about 
the  size  of  Hazel  nuts,  we  shall  see  a  good  many  of  them  fall  off, 
and  this  will  still  further  thin  an  already  thin  crop.  However,  we 
must  hope  for  the  best.  A  very  heavy  crop  does  not  always  pay  the 
best,  and  perhaps  the  small  yield  of  the  present  year  may  not  be  such 
an  unmixed  evil  as  some  people  would  have  us  bjlieve. 
“As  to  bush  fruit,  Gooseberries  are  practically  the  only  ones  that 
anything  need  be  said  about.  Here  again  our  pessimistic  friends 
place  them  at  a  quarter  of  an  average  crop,  but  other  growers  say 
they  were  not  hurt  much,  and  will  be  a  fairly  good  crop.  This 
divergence  of  opinion  may  be  attributed  to  the  difference  in  the 
situation  of  the  gardens,  for,  as  is  always  the  case,  some  of  the 
gardens  have  escaped  comparativ’ely  lightly,  while  others  have  suffered 
severely,  and  possibly  those  who  take  the  worst  view  of  things  have 
seen  most  of  the  bad  gardens. 
V  ith  regard  to  insect  pests,  they  are  not  so  apparent  as  they  have 
been  in  many  past  years.  Thanks  to  the  investigations  of  the  Fruit 
1  ests  Committee,  the  gardeners  now  know  how  to  deal  with  them 
better  than  they  did  some  eight  or  ten  years  ago,  and  the  difference  in 
e  gaidensis  most  marked.  The  general  adoption  of  the  practice  of 
grease  banding  for  the  winter  moth  has  resulted  in  a  great  diminution 
o  the  caterpillars  on  the  Plum  trees,  and  the  aphides  and  other  pests 
are  not  doing  the  damage  they  did  in  previous  years.  Red  spiders  are 
+  ^  trouble,  but  they  are  got  rid  of  without  very  much 
trouble  by  sj^aying  with  quassia  and  softsoap,  soda,  and  other 
Reparations.  They  are  mostly  seen  in  the  old  plantations.  The  Goose- 
rry  caterRllar,  too,  has  not  been  seen  lately.  Whitewashing  the 
us  es  m  the  winter  to  keep  the  bark  clean  and  healthy  is  found  an 
exce  lent  remedy.  In  one  of  the  Wyre  plantations  the  thrips  are  found 
this  season  in  considerable  numbers. 
Speaking  of  V  yre  reminds  us  of  Mr.  George  Eccles’  Apple 
p  an  ations.  Mr.  Eccles  is  a  great  believer  in  Apples,  and  he  sajs 
ere  is  a  great  future^  before  Apples  as  a  paying  crop.  The  Yankee 
grovvers  have,  he  thinks,^  had  their  day,  or  pretty  neaily  so,  for  the 
ng  ish  growers  are  beginning  to  see  that  there  is  money  in  the 
pp  eiKu,  and  when  we  state  that  Mr.  Eccles  made  last  year  from 
s.  0  10s.  ^a  pot  for  his  Apples  we  can  quite  believe  that  there  is  in 
em  a  hue  that  the  growers  in  this  neighbourhood  would  do  well  to 
a  e  advantage  of.  Compared  w'ith  other  fruits  it  costs  very  little  to 
pic 'them  about  l^d.  per  pot,  and  there  is  always  a  good  demand 
or  decent  Apples.  Last  year  Mr.  Eccles  put  on  the  market  some 
arge  ArIcs  that  made  Is.  Gd.  a  jieck,  w^hich  is  about  Ijd.  or  2d. 
each.  He  only  grows  choice  sorts,  on  Paradise  stocks,  and  treats  them 
well.  Shoddy,  soot,  and  certain  other  artificial  manures,  with  a 
dressing  of  lime,  are  found  very  useful. 
■‘Some  of  his  Newton  Wonders  last  year  made  2s.  a  pot  more 
than  the  Blenheims,  and  he  has  a  row  of  Peter  the  Great,  an  early 
table  Apple,  which  last  year  were  heavily  laden.  His  Apple  planta¬ 
tion,  which  consists  of  some  1500  trees,  looks  very  well  this  season. 
He  grows  them  between  the  standard  Plum  trees,  and  finds  they  do 
very  well  on  rather  heavy  land.  He  does  not  care  very  much  about 
Lord  Suffield.  For  early  varieties  he  recommends  Potts’  Seedling, 
Ecklinville  Seedling,  and  Lord  Grosvenor. 
“  Mr.  Eccles  is  a  Tomato  grower  also.  This  year  he  is  putting  in 
9000  or  10,000  plants,  and  he  prefers  the  Early  Ruby  to  the  Early 
Evesham.  Last  year  he  grew  the  French  variety,  known  as  the 
Chemin.  This  is  really  an  indoor  variety,  but  last  year  he  found  it 
answered  well  out  of  doors  with  the  oti.ers,  and  improved  the  sample. 
He  does  not  sell  his  fl’omatoes  on  commission,  but  sends  them  direct 
to  the  shops,  nicely  packed  in  12  lb.  baskets,  and  all  the  defective 
ones  carefully  picked  out,  so  that  in  a  ton  there  is  hardly  a  pound  of 
bad  ones.  ■ 
Spraying  at  Toddington. 
“  At  the  Toddington  gardens  on  Thursday  afternoon  we  witnessed 
an  exhibition  of  spraying  machines.  We  were  first  shown  a  washer 
designed  by  Mr.  Wise  and  built  by  Messrs.  Weeks  &  Co.  of  Maidstone. 
This  machine  is  drawn  by  a  couple  of  horses,  and  consists  of  a  tank 
for  the  insecticide,  and  so  geared  to  the  w'heels  as  to  throw  a  strong 
spray  from  four  nozzles  held  ,  by  as  many  men.  There  is  an  inter¬ 
changeable  action  which  enables  the  machine  to  be  worked  over 
Strawberries  or  between  Raspberries,  for  spraying  Plum  trees.  This 
should  prove  very  useful  for  grass  orchards,  or  plantations  where 
there  is  no  bush  fruit  between  the  Plum  trees,  but  in  the  Evesham 
gardens  it  would  not  be  much  use,  as  it  could  not  be  got  between 
the  rows  of  Plum  trees  with  any  facility,  and  in  some  cases  not 
at  all. 
“  The  principal  event  was  an  exhibition  with  a  new  steam  sprayer 
made  by  Messrs.  Merryweather  &  Sons,  the  well-knowm  fire  engine 
people  of  Greenwich  Road,  London.  This  is  a  far  and  away  the  most 
efficient  washer  we  have  seen.  It  consists  of  a  portable  steam  pump¬ 
ing  engine  of  about  six  horse  p  wer  in  onnretion  with  a  system  of 
iron  piping,  which  is  laid  along  the  top  of  the  plantation  as  a  main. 
The  piping  is  in  convenient  lengths,  each  length  being  fitted  with  a 
piece  of  flexible  anti-caustic  hose  at  each  end,  and  quick-hitching 
gun-metal  couplings.  A  number  of  tee  pieces  aie  provided,  each  with 
flexible  hose  and  coupTngs,  and  in  work  tliese  tee  pieces  are  connected 
between  two  lengths  of  pipes.  Each  tee  piece  has  a  cock  attached, 
and  by  means  of  breechings,  line^  of  hose  pipie  can  be  led  away  to 
supply  jets  or  sprays.  This  system  of  pipics  can  be  laid  down 
between  the  rows  by  a  few  men  in  a  very  short  time,  and  enables  the 
washing  to  be  done  rapidly  and  thoroughlj',  there  being  no  small  hand 
pumps  to  be  filled  with  insecticide.  The  insecticide  is  mixed  in 
a  tank  placed  on  the  ground  alongside  the  engine,  and  is  prumped 
continuously  into  the  portable  pipe  system.  Each  man  has  a  long  jet 
pipe  with  a  spray  nozzle,  and  a  cock  is  fitted  to  each  pipe,  so  that  any 
of  the  jets  can  be  shut  off  independently. 
“  The  engine  and  boiler  is  very  light,  and  the  pump  is  of  rustless 
gun-metal,  with  copper  air  vessels  and  gun-metal  pipe  connections.  It  is 
tilted  with  a  patent  injector  for  keeping  the  boiler  supplied  with  water 
as  well  as  with  a  lever  hand  pump  to  fill  boiler  when  starting  work. 
An  important  feature  is  that  one  or  the  whole  of  the  sprays  may  be  shut 
off  at  once  without  stopping  the  engine,  a  special  by-pass  valve  being 
fitted  from  the  delivery  to  the  suction  pipe,  and  thus  the  man  in  charge 
of  the  engine  can  keep  one  or  the  whole  of  the  jets  supplied  at  an  even 
pressure.  By  means  of  this  apparatus  a  large  number  of  trees  can  be 
sprayed  in  a  very  short  time,  aud  sprayed  very  effectually  too,  for  each 
man  can  spend  as  long  as  is  necessary  at  each  tree  or  bush  ;  he  has  no 
we'ght  to  carry  about  as  in  the  knapsack  pumps,  and  there  is  no  time 
lost  in  filling  the  tanks.  For  standard  trees  the  nozzle  is  held  on  the 
end  of  a  cane,  and  the  tops  and  hearts  of  the  trees  can  be  dealt  with. 
By  an  arrangement  of  the  valve  the  strength  of  the  solution  can  be 
adjusted  to  a  nicety. 
“  We  doubt  whether  it  would  pay  a  man  with  a  small  plantation  to 
buy  one  of  these  sjirayers,  but  for  large  growers  it  certainly  seems 
the  most  efficient  thing  in  this  line  that  has  yet  been  put  on  the 
market.  The  engine  can  also  be  used  for  pumping  water  and 
M'atering  plantations  in  times  of  drought,  for  driving  light  machinery,  • 
such  as  chaffeutters,  and  as  a  fire  engine  in  case  the  owne» 
should  be  so  unfortunate  as  to  have  a  fire.  The  engine  is  very  smalt , 
for  the  horse-power  it  develops ;  it  is  fitted  avith  a  tubular  boiler  so 
that  steam  can  be  got  up  in  a  very  few  minutes,  and  it  seems  to  bo 
fitted  in  every  way  for  the  work  it  has  to  do.  Mr.  Maryon,  Messrs. 
Merryweather’s  representative,  was  present,  and  very  courteously 
explained  all  the  details  to  those  present.  The  apparatus  has  not  been 
on  the  market  long,  but  where  it  has  been  tried  it  has  proved  most 
successful.” 
