In the Orchards The trees now are bi g with fruit,
in spite of the bad season during the flowering time. At the moment it looks as though the dark cherries, such as Early Rivers, will be the more abundant. My own favourite, The Elton (almost a pear-shaped cherry with thin, delicate skin and a white heart) is disappointing, some trees of this variety being almost destitute. The Napoleon Bigarreau. that fat, rosy and almost over- sweet fruit, is still in the green stage, but it promises a' fair crop Picking appears, to the uninitiated, to be an unskilled person's job, but the condition of the tree a year later will coma that impression. If the fruit is roughly torn down, the bud-bearing twigs that should bloom next season will be damaged or removed. The cherries have to be lifted off, where the stalks join the twig. As for the placing of the ladders (long, tapering and splaying out at the foot), that is almost an acrobatic task. Carried at an angle, a ladder becomes an obstinate, wilful demon capable of infinite mischief. It will swing down, crash into trees and bring down branches, plough its nose into the turf, and kick up with its heels and catch its wretched porter under the crutch, almost disembowelling him. Carried vertically, it remains comparatively docile, and can be gently craned down into the tree, so that it persuades out-stretching branches full of fruit to come together, to the hand of the picker. Every' morning, after daybreak, the orchards are noisy with gunfire. I was out this morning listening (for the fusillade prohibited sleep). The dawn being windless, every shot cracked'out and crashed against the opposite wooded slopes; then broke into a dozen echoes that fled along the valley with diminishing recollections of the shock. This retreat appeared to go on for several minutes, and was hardly dispersed before another shot rang out, to send a fresh agitation of echoes through the valley. After one of the shots I saw a flight of wood-pigeons swing out of the orchard and make across the valley. Suddenly one of the birds lagged ; then dropped like a stone into the cornfield below the fruit trees.
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