grading, packing and storing fruit, as well as in marketing it. A
larger quantity of fruit is now carefully stored, and sent to selected
markets as it ripens, or when there is an ascertained demand, as it
is found that if it is consigned to market direct from the trees there
must frequently be forced sales and competition with foreign fruit
that is fully matured and in good order. It was customary formerly
for Kentish growers to consign all their fruit to the London markets;
now a good deal of it is sent to Manchester, Birmingham, Liverpool,
Sheffield, Newcastle and other large cities. Some is sent even to
Edinburgh and Glasgow. Many large growers send no fruit to
London now. It is by no means uncommon for growers to sell
their fruit crops on the trees or bushes by auction or private treaty,
or to contract to supply a stipulated quantity of specified fruit, say
of currants, raspberries or strawberries, to jam manufacturers. There
is a considerable quantity of fruit, such as grapes, peaches, nectarines,
grown under glass, and this kind of culture tends to increase.
Filberts and cob-nuts are a special product of Kent, in the neighbourhood of Maidstone principally, and upon the Ragstone soils, certain conditions of soil and situation being essential for their profitable production. A part of the filbert and cob-nut crop is picked green in September, as they do well for dessert, though their kernels are not large or firm, and it pays to sell them green, as they weigh more heavily. One grower in Mid Kent has 100 acres of nuts, and has grown 100 tons in a good year. The average price of late years has been about 5d. per ℔, which would make the gross return of the 100 acres amount to £4660. Kentish filberts have long been proverbial for their excellence. Cobs are larger and look better for dessert, though their flavour is not so fine. They are better croppers, and are now usually planted. This cultivation is not much extending, as it is very long before the trees come into full bearing. The London market is supplied entirely with these nuts from Kent, and there is some demand in America for them. Filbert and cob trees are most closely pruned. All the year’s growth is cut away except the very finest young wood, which the trained eye of the tree-cutter sees at a glance is blossom-bearing. The trees are kept from 5½ to 7 ft. high upon stems from 1½ to 2 ft. high, and are trained so as to form a cup of from 7 to 8 ft. in diameter.
There seems no reason to expect any decrease in the acreage of fruit land in Kent, and if the improvement in the selection of varieties and in the general management continues it will yet pay. A hundred years ago every one was grubbing fruit land in order that hops might be planted, and for this many acres of splendid cherry orchards were sacrificed. Now the disposition is to grub hop plants and substitute apples, plums, or small fruit or cherry trees.
Fruit-growing in other Districts.—The large fruit plantations in the vicinity of London are to be found mostly in the valley of the Thames, around such centres as Brentford, Isleworth, Twickenham, Heston, Hounslow, Cranford and Southall. All varieties of orchard trees, but mostly apples, pears, and plums and small fruit, are grown in these districts, the nearness of which to the metropolitan fruit market at Covent Garden is of course an advantage. Some of the orchards are old, and are not managed on modern principles. They contain, moreover, varieties of fruit many of which are out of date and would not be employed in establishing new plantations. In the better-managed grounds the antiquated varieties have been removed, and their places taken by newer and more approved types. In addition to apples, pears, plums, damsons, cherries and quinces as top fruit, currants, gooseberries and raspberries are grown as bottom fruit. Strawberries are extensively grown in some of the localities, and in favourable seasons outdoor tomatoes are ripened and marketed.
Fruit is extensively grown in Cambridgeshire and adjacent counties in the east of England. A leading centre is Cottenham, where the Lower Greensand crops out and furnishes one of the best of soils for fruit-culture. In Cottenham about a thousand acres are devoted to fruit, and nearly the same acreage to asparagus, which is, however, giving place to fruit. Currants, gooseberries and strawberries are the most largely grown, apples, plums and raspberries following. Of varieties of plums the Victoria is first in favour, and then Rivers’s Early Prolific, Tsar and Gisborne. London is the chief market, as it receives about half the fruit sent away, whilst a considerable quantity goes to Manchester, and some is sent to a neighbouring jam factory at Histon, where also a moderate acreage of fruit is grown. Another fruit-growing centre in Cambridgeshire is at Willingham, where—besides plums, gooseberries and raspberries—outdoor tomatoes are a feature. Greengages are largely grown near Cambridge. Wisbech is the centre of an extensive fruit district, situated partly in Cambridgeshire and partly in Norfolk. Gooseberries, strawberries and raspberries are largely grown, and as many as 80 tons of the first-named fruit have been sent away from Wisbech station in a single day. In the fruit-growing localities of Huntingdonshire apples, plums and gooseberries are the most extensively grown, but pears, greengages, cherries, currants, strawberries and raspberries are also cultivated. As illustrating variations in price, it may be mentioned that about the year 1880 the lowest price for gooseberries was £10 per ton, whereas it has since been down to £4. Huntingdonshire fruit is sent chiefly to Yorkshire, Scotland and South Wales, but railway freights are high.
Essex affords a good example of successful fruit-farming at Tiptree Heath, near Kelvedon, where under one management about 260 acres out of a total of 360 are under fruit. The soil, a stiff loam, grows strawberries to perfection, and 165 acres are allotted to this fruit. The other principal crops are 43 acres of raspberries and 30 acres of black currants, besides which there are small areas of red currants, gooseberries, plums, damsons, greengages, cherries, apples, quinces and blackberries. The variety of strawberry known as the Small Scarlet is a speciality here, and it occupies 55 acres, as it makes the best of jam. The Paxton, Royal Sovereign and Noble varieties are also grown. Strawberries stand for six or seven years on this farm, and begin to yield well when two years old. A jam factory is worked in conjunction with the fruit farm. Pulp is not made except when there is a glut of fruit. Perishable fruit intended for whole-fruit preserves is never held over after it is gathered. The picking of strawberries begins at 4 A.M., and the first lot is made into jam by 6 A.M.
Hampshire, like Cambridgeshire and Norfolk, are the only counties in which the area of small fruit exceeds that of orchards. The returns for 1908 show that Hampshire had 3320 acres of small fruit to 2236 acres of orchards; Cambridge had 6878 acres of small fruit to 5221 of orchards; and Norfolk had 5876 acres of small fruit against 5188 acres of orchards. Compared with twenty years previously, the acreage of small fruit had trebled. This is largely due in Hampshire to the extension of strawberry culture in the Southampton district, where the industry is in the hands of many small growers, few of whom cultivate more than 20 acres each. Sarisbury and Botley are the leading parishes in which the business is carried on. Most of the strawberry holdings are from half an acre to 5 acres in extent, a few are from 5 to 10 acres, fewer still from 10 to 20 acres and only half-a-dozen over that limit. Runners from one-year plants are used for planting, being found more fruitful than those from older plants. Peat-moss manure from London stables is much used, but artificial manures are also employed with good results. Shortly after flowering the plants are bedded down with straw at the rate of about 25 cwt. per acre. Picking begins some ten days earlier than in Kent, at a date between 1st June and 15th June. The first week’s gathering is sent mostly to London, but subsequently the greater part of the fruit goes to the Midlands and to Scotland and Ireland.
In recent years fruit-growing has much increased in South Worcestershire, in the vicinity of Evesham and Pershore. Hand-lights are freely used in the market gardens of this district for the protection of cucumbers and vegetable marrows, besides which tomatoes are extensively grown out of doors. At one time the egg plum and the Worcester damson were the chief fruit crops, apples and cherries ranking next, pears being grown to only a moderate extent. According to the 1908 returns, however, apples come first, plums second, pears third and cherries fourth. In a prolific season a single tree of the Damascene or Worcester damson will yield from 400 to 500 ℔ of fruit. There is a tendency to grow plum trees in the bush shape, as they are less liable than standards to injury from wind. The manures used include soot, fish guano, blood manure and phosphates—basic slag amongst the last-named. In the Pershore district, where there is a jam factory, plums are the chief tree fruit, whilst most of the orchard apples and pears are grown for cider and perry. Gooseberries are a feature, as are also strawberries, red and black currants and a few white, but raspberries are little grown. The soil, a strong or medium loam of fair depth, resting on clay, is so well adapted to plums that trees live for fifty years. In order to check the ravages of the winter moth, plum and apple trees are grease-banded at the beginning of October and again at the end of March. The trees are also sprayed when necessary with insecticidal solutions. Pruning is done in the autumn. An approved distance apart at which to grow plum trees is 12 ft. by 12 ft. In the Earl of Coventry’s fruit plantation, 40 acres in extent, at Croome Court, plums and apples are planted alternately, the bottom fruit being black currants, which are less liable to injury from birds than are red currants or gooseberries. Details concerning the methods of cultivation of fruit and flowers in various parts of England, the varieties commonly grown, the expenditure involved, and allied matters, will be found in Mr W.E. Bear’s papers in the Journal of the Royal Agricultural Society in 1898 and 1899.
Apart altogether from market gardening and commercial fruit-growing, it must be borne in mind that an enormous business is done in the raising of young fruit-trees every year. Hundreds of thousands of apples, pears, plums, cherries, peaches, nectarines and apricots are budded or grafted each year on suitable stocks. They are trained in various ways, and are usually fit for sale the third year. These young trees replace old ones in private and commercial gardens, and are also used to establish new plantations in different parts of the kingdom.
The Woburn Experimental Fruit Farm.—The establishment in 1894 of the experimental fruit farm at Ridgmont, near Woburn, Beds, has exercised a healthy influence upon the progress and development of fruit-farming in England. The farm was founded and carried on by the public-spirited enterprise of the Duke of Bedford and Mr Spencer U. Pickering, the latter acting as director. The main object of the experimental station was “to ascertain facts relative to the culture of fruit, and to increase our knowledge of, and to improve our practice in, this industry.” The farm is 20 acres in extent, and occupies a field which up to June 1894 had been used as
