May  25,  1899. 
JOURNAL  OF  HORTICULTURE  AND  COTTAGE  GARDENER. 
429 
COMMENTS  ON  HOME  AND  FOREIGN  FRUIT. 
Planting — Manuring— -Packing— Marketing. 
After  our  pages  were  practically  filled  for  the  present  issue  we 
received  from  Mr.  George  Bunyard  a  copy  of  the  Society  of  Arts 
Journal  containing  his  comprehensive  paper  on  “  Fruit  Growing  in 
Kent,”  read  on  the  10th  inst.  We  were  unable  to  attend  the  meeting, 
and  as,  through  a  possible  oversight,  a  proof  of  the  matter  in  type  was 
not  sent  to  us  in  the  customary  manner,  we  could  not  publish  the 
paper  at  the  time,  and  as  to  abridge  it  would  be  to  spoil  it,  ^1  we  can 
do  now  in  the  space  at  disposal  is  to  reproduce  some  comments  on  it 
by  Mr.  W.  W.  Berry,  a  well  known  commercial  grower  of  hardy  fruits, 
and  Mr.  J.  Assbee,  the  able  Superinteudent  of  Covent  Garden  Market. 
These  indicate  the  character  of  the  paper  and  emphasise  important 
subjects.  _ 
Mr.  Berry  said  Mr.  Bunyard  was  a  prophet,  not  without  honour, 
even  in  his  own  country,  and  the  tenant  farmers  and  landlords  of 
Kent  would  always  be  grateful  to  him  for  the  pioneer  work  he  had 
done,  fcr  the  advice  he  had  given,  and  for  the  indomitable  perseverance 
with  which  he  had  carried  out  his  experiments  over  many  years. 
The  question  of  selection  and  packing  of  fruit  was  all-important. 
If  he  had  100  bushels  of  Apples  from  a  tree,  he  would  rather  send 
60  per  cent,  of  the  best,  even  if  he  had  to  throw  away  the  other 
40  per  cent.,  but  that  was  not  at  all  necessary.  If  you  picked  out  the 
very  best,  say  20  per  cent.,  and  packed  them  carefully  in  boxes,  and 
then  took  a  further  40  or  50  per  cent,  and  packed  them  carefully  in 
baskets,  the  returns  from  those  two  sections  would  be  greater  than 
from  the  whole  100  bushels  marketed  in  a  careless  way  ;  there  would 
be  a  saving  in  carriage,  in  packing,  and  in  other  ways,  and  you  would 
still  have  30  to  40  per  cent,  of  sound  fruit  to  deal  with,  which  you 
could  dispose  of  to  the  “  smasher,”  as  the  jam  maker  or  cider  maker 
was  termed,  at  a  fairly  remunerative  price.  The  same  thing  would 
apply  to  every  kind  of  fruit. 
Another  improvement  was  the  steam  cultivation  of  the  land,  not  only 
in  clearing  old  woodlands,  but  even  on  some  of  the  best  land  in  Kent, 
where  he  would  not  think  of  planting  fruit  trees  without  first  thoroughly 
ploughing  it  and  stirring  the  subsoil  by  steam.  He  recently  broke 
up  14  acres,  first  ploughing  it  9  to  12  inches  deep  by  steam,  and  then 
following  the  furrows  with  a  powerful  steel  implement  to  break  up 
the  soil  underneath,  being  careful  not  to  bring  the  subsoil  to  the  top, 
but  thoroughly  breaking  it  up  from  21  to  24  inches  deep.  The  whole 
cost  was  not  more  than  £2  jier  acre,  if  you  hired  the  implements,  aud 
that  was  quite  saved  in  the  cost  of  planting. 
Artificial  manure  was  another  important  point.  Any  farmer  or 
fruit  grower  could  now  be  supplied  with  exactly  the  manure  his  land 
or  crop  required,  and  at  a  moderate  price — either  jirepared  bones, 
guano,  or  some  of  the  phosphatic  manures  which  had  been  referred  to. 
One  of  the  principal  reasons  for  which  he  would  recommend  these 
things  in  preference  to  farmyard  manure,  was  the  economy  in  applica¬ 
tion.  Apart  from  the  (juestion  of  weeds,  which  was  very  serious, 
especially  with  manure  from  Loudon,  the  expense  of  hauling  20  or 
25  tons  of  farmyard  manure  on  to  an  acre  of  fruit  land,  getting  it  to 
the  plantation,  and  then  getting  it  out  and  in  amongst  the  fruit 
bushes  was  enormous,  whereas  if  you  had  a  suitably  prepared  manure, 
with  the  proper  quantity  of  potash,  phosphates,  and  ammonia,  it  would 
all  go  in  a  one-horse  cart  and  be  carried  out  and  sown  broadcast  * 
on  the  land  for  3s.  or  4s.  On  a  large  scale  that  saving  alone  would 
make  a  good  living  for  the  fruit  grower. 
With  regard  to  foreign  competition,  there  had  been  complaints  for 
twenty-five  years,  but  he  thought  the  time  had  come  to  admit  that  the 
British  fruit  grower  was  largely  dependent  on  the  foreign  and  Colonial 
produce.  In  the  old  days  a  small  quantity  of  fruit  could  be  sold  during 
the  season;  there  was  a  shop  here  and  there,  and  fruit  was  very  dear, 
and  when  any  unusually  large  quantity  was  sent  to  market  there  was  no 
one  to  distribute  it.  The  season  then  only  lasted  three  or  four  months, 
but  now  we  had  choice  fruit  all  the  year  round.  There  were  hundreds 
of  shops,  stores,  and  barrows — fruit  was  constantly  put  before  the 
public,  who  were  thus  educated  to  the  consumption  of  it,  and  insisted 
on  having  it,  and  thus  the  fruit-grower  was  far  better  off  than  he  would 
have  been  without  the  foreign  supplies. 
Reference  had  been  made  to  the  advantage  of  fruit  and  Hop  growing 
in  keeping  labourers  on  the  soil,  which  was  a  matter  in  which  lie  took 
great  interest.  Things  were  looking  up  a  little  in  every  branch  of 
agriculture,  and  they  wanted  more  labourers  than  they  did  a  few  years 
ago,  but  they  could  not  get  them.  They  were  often  in  great  straits 
for  men  to  do  a  little  extra  work  which  they  knew  would  pay  for 
doing.  If  you  went  away  Irom  the  most  prosperous  districts,  up 
into  the  hilly  and  barren  parts,  you  would  find  only  one  in  three,  or 
one  in  six  of  the  cottages  occupied,  but  down  where  fruit  and  Hops 
were  grown,  and  near  the  towns,  there  was  an  enormous  dearth  of 
labour.  Instead  of  getting  the  assistance  they  used  to  have  from  the 
hill  country,  when  there  was  any  extra  work,  they  could  not  now  find 
it.  In  the  villages  where  fruit  growing  was  carried  on,  there  was 
work  during  the  winter  in  pruning,  manuring,  digging,  making  new 
plantations,  and  so  on,  and  he  was  paying  £1000  in  wages  now, 
where  £100  was  paid  when  he  was  young  ;  and  a  house  could  not 
be  got  for  love  or  money,  though  five  miles  away  there  were  empty 
houses,  because  there  was  no  work  for  the  men  to  do.  The  fruit 
industry,  therefore,  was  a  grand  thing,  and  it  must  be  the  same  in 
many  other  counties. 
Fruit  was  becoming  more  and  more  popular  every  day  ;  it  had 
never  been  overdone  yet,  except  in  one  year,  1886,  when  there  was 
the  biggest  all-round  crop  of  fruit  ever  known,  and  at  that  time  the 
system  of  distribution  had  not  developed  in  proportion.  There  might 
be  a  crop  now  three  times  as  big  as  that,  and  it  would  all  go  to  market, 
and  the  public  would  get  the  benefit  of  it.  Enormous  quantities  of 
hothouse  Grapes  and  Tomatoes  were  now"  produced  in  this  country. 
Mr.  George  Monro  had  given  evidence  before  a  Parliamentary  Com¬ 
mittee  that  in  one  year  he  had  sold  700  tons  of  English-grown  hot¬ 
house  Grapes,  in  addition  to  those  irom  the  Channel  Islands,  and  more 
than  1000  tons  of  Tomatoes. 
Mr.  J.  Assbee  said  it  was  perfectly  true,  as  the  last  speaker  had 
said,  that  it  was  much  better  to  keep  inferior  fruit  out  of  the  market 
altogether,  than  to  put  it  in  with  the  better  class.  He  had  repeatedly 
seen  the  sale  of  good  Apples  entirely  spoiled  because  certain  growers 
thought  they  could  get  the  better  of  the  public  by  putting  inferior 
ones  in  with  them.  'I'here  were  two  distinct  classes  of  buyers :  the 
man  who  bought  the  best  and  gave  the  best  prices,  and  the  man  who 
bought  the  worst  and  only  paid  the  lowest  price.  If  you  sent  a  mixed 
lot,  the  good  man  would  not  look  at  it,  and  consequently  the  lower 
class  buyer  must  have  it,  and  he  would  only  take  it  at  his  own  price, 
and  thus  the  grower  often  di  I  not  realise  the  cost  of  carriage,  simply 
through  carelessness  and  stupidity  in  packing  his  goods. 
Foreign  competition  in  fruit  was  like  foreign  competition  in  every¬ 
thing  else — cereals,  hay,  straw,  eggs,  butter,  cheese,  or  poultry. 
Foreign  fruit  could  not  be  kept  out  of  the  market,  and  it  answered 
a  very  useful  purpose.  No  doubt  it  had  stimulated  the  public  taste 
for  fruit ;  the  more  fruit  people  ate  the  more  they  liked  it.  He  had 
often  wondered  what  our  forefathers  did  for  fruit  ;  the  people  generally 
could  have  had  hardly  any.  He  could  remember  the  time  when  the 
only  thing  you  could  get  in  winter  was  an  Orange. 
The  colonies  were  making  great  strides  in  this  direction.  Cape 
Colony  had  recent  1}"  come  to  the  fore,  and  within  a  decade  would  be 
sending  fruit  here  which  would  be  a  surprise  to  many  people.  But  it 
would  come  in  when  the  English  fruit  was  over.  English  Grapes  were 
now  just  finished,  and  there  would  be  a  good  opening  for  Grapes  from 
the  Cape.  They  had  a  few  this  year,  but  nothing  to  what  would  be 
sent  in  a  year  or  two.  It  was  the  same  with  Apples,  which  were  just 
beginning  to  arrive.  Men  had  gone  to  the  Cape  from  California,  who 
were  laying  down  hundreds  of  acres  of  land  in  fruit,  and  they  would 
be  sending  thousands  of  packages  before  many  years.  But  it  would 
do  no  harm  to  English  fruit,  which  was  equal  to  anything  in  the 
world  when  well  grown  and  properly  sent  to  market. 
Further  comments  followed,  mainly  on  cider-making  and  spraying, 
and  Mr.  Bunyard,  in  reply,  said  he  “  strongly  recommended  that  all  new 
orchards  should  be  raised  on  arable  land,  except  for  Cherries,  for  which 
he  could  not  advise  that  course.  It  was  true  they  did  well  under 
it,  but  if  there  came  a  severe  frost — anything  below  24°  of  frost — 
the  trees  would  be  completely  spoiled  ;  and  not  only  that,  but  where 
the  ground  was  very  well  manured,  the  Cherry  trees  ran  away 
altogether.  He  was  called  in  to  advise  at  a  place  m  Gloucestershire, 
where  they  had  manured  the  trees  highly,  aud  they  made  enormous 
growth,  6  feet  in  a  year,  but  when  they  got  a  hard  frost,  the  trees  were 
corap)letely  spoiled.  To  farm  a  good  Cherry  orchard,  you  must  let  it 
go  on  very  slowly.  With  regard  to  renovation,  if  you  had  good  sorts, 
by  all  means  go  in  for  it :  but  it  was  useless  to  take  the  trouble  if  the 
sort  of  fruit  was  not  good  enough  to  pay  for  it.  With  regard  to  spray¬ 
ing,  he  had  to  be  very  careful  what  he  said.  If  he  advised  people  to 
do  this,  it  might  be  done  carelessly,  and  very  grave  results  might 
ensue.  He  knew  of  a  case  where  a  man  washed  his  Apple  trees  with 
London  purple,  and  some  of  it  fell  on  the  Gooseberries,  resulting  in  a 
vast  amount  of  illness.  It  was  a  good  thing  to  use  where  people  were 
sufficiently  careful.  A  man  once  said  to  him,  ‘  I  never  tell  people  to 
do  it,  but  I  do  it  myself;  ’  and  that  was  sometimes  his  position.”  IMr. 
Bunyard  was  the  worthy  recipient  of  a  unanimous  vote  of  thanks. 
Globe  Artichokes. — I  was  interested  to  learn  from  a  gai'dener 
the  other  day  on  passing  his  stock  of  Globe  Artichokes,  that  the 
foliage  is  liberally  githered  and  used  for  house  decoration.  I  wonder 
whether  many  other  gardeners  employ  the  leafage  in  the  same  way. 
The  flower  heads  are  esteemed  delicacies  when  properly  cooked  and 
served,  but  certainly  they  do  not  constitute  a  popular  dish.  But  the  use 
of  the  leafage,  which  is  finely  formed  and  noble  in  appearance,  for 
domestic  decoration  seems  novel.  Those  who  would  like  to  have  such 
will  find  strong  plants  to  produce  it  in  great  abundance. — A.  D, 
