FRUIT IN TONS.
It is said not to be a good year for many sorts of fruit. Gooseberries, strawberries, which in the south suffered from the drought, late apples have all suffered from various causes. But England is a various country. I saw this week the biggest crop of gooseberries I ever saw, and they were being gathered on a modern fruit farm—in Suffolk—that might stand as a model. The farm is of sixty acres under apples, pears, plums, gooseberries, and strawberries. A good deal of sugar beet was being grown between the widely spaced younger apple trees. The scale of production may be gathered from one detail. Two tons of gooseberries were despatched to Manchester on Monday morning—and this is only one event in a con- tinuous harvest. The pickers—mostly women—brought their big baskets to the foreman and his weighing machine, who registered the weight, leaves and other rubbish. After weighing, the gooseberries are tipped into a "blower," which rids the fruit of these superfluities, and the neighbourhood of the machine is a Vallombrosa indeed. The increase in the yield of fruit both small and large is doubtless dile in great measure to the use of the new tar-distillate sprays.
* * * *
Previous page
