Country Life
ENGLISH Faure I spent some time last week in visiting various farms in the fruit districts, especially of Evesham and Pershore, partly to investigate the truth of the cry : "We are ruined by Chinese cheap labour "—by imports so cheap that rivalry is impossible. There have always been complaints in" bumper years" of "fruit left to rot on the trees." It was so long before the days of copious imports. This year I have come upon particular instances where some ten tons of gooseberries were left unpicked, where pickers were told to take what plums they like and go, where the trees were just shaken and the fallen fruit left where it fell and where many tons of blackcurrants were sold considerably below the cost of production. It is, I believe, true that in some few gardens small fruit bushes are being grubbed up. More generally there is no doubt that improved methods of pulping and juicing fruit make the produce much more portable than it was even two years ago, and so our fruit-growers have now to compete even in so-called perishable fruits with still more distant producers.' Cider apples, as'ivell as material for the cheaper jams, arc imported in this formless state.
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