31 AUGUST 1951, Page 13

In the Garden

The gardener's headache is now the ripening of his plums. No difficulty about my cherry-plum and greengage trees: eat and give away and leave the rest to the wasps. But I have two valuable -trees of oom- • mercial plums stippled purple among, the dark green leaves. By 'our insensate economic system I have never received more than 2d. a .pound for them, if I do the picking. The price is an outrage and for dqwestic use I only need a tenth of the crop. Hence waste is made obligatory. H. J. MASSINONAhl.