The Fruit Growers' Year Book. (Cable Printing Company. ls. net.)—This
annual, now in its seventeenth year, is full of useful information. The work of each month in planting, pruning, protection against harmful agencies, &c., is given. There are instructions and suggestions in the matter of assessment, and, still more important, hints in the matter of profitable marketing. We see in the very useful calendar a return of Covent Garden prices. Some of these, it must be owned, are a little surprising. And it would be well to give in a precise and concentrated form information which the grower has to bring together for himself. The important question that the fruit-grower has to ask is,— "What net returns shall I get for the produce that I send up to Covent Garden P " Here are some figures which may be taken as absolutely trustworthy ; they refer to the 1908 season. Fifty bushels of apples, after deducting carriage to and on the railway and dealer's commission, brought in £2 14s, 6d. net, working out at about 14d. the bushel, or, taking the bushel as about equal to forty pounds, at about threo pounds for a penny. The fruit was not of tho best quality, though some first-class samples, sent by way of experiment, fared very little better. But it was all marketable, and would be priced in the greengrocers' shops at from 2d. to 3d. the pound, or in some cases even higher.
Previous page
