FRAGRANT FREIGHT

Evening Post, Volume CXXIII, Issue 59, 11 March 1937, Page 25

FRAGRANT FREIGHT

FLOWERS FOR LONDON

FAST RAIL TRANSPORTATION

(From "The Post's" Representative.) '.' LONDON, February 3.

Cut flowers are pouring into London and the chief provincial cities as well as into Scotland and Ireland from Scilly Islands, the West of England, and Guernsey. They began just before Christmas and will continue to increase.in volume until Easter, when the peak of the traffic will be reached and over. 100 tons, representing 6,000,000 blooms,.'will be arriving , in. a single evening. at "Paddington alone. Last year the". .Great Western Railway carried a record traffic of -cut flowers. From the Scillies came 1245 tonsdouble the- quantity of eight years ago; from the mainland, round about Penzance, 3700 .tons, as compared wtih 1682 tons in 1931; from Guernsey 2019 tons as compared with 1568 tons in 1935. Most' of the flowers from the Scilly Islands and Cornwall are grown in the open in the sheltered valleys and ledges of the cliffs that dip to the sea shore. The Scilly Islands flower industry started some sixty years ago and the first consignment was sent to Covent Garden in a;hat box. Since then it has continued to expand, and has, extended to the mainland, where the same mild and equable climate is particularly suited to the growing of early outdoor spring flowers. MOST FRAGILE RAILWAY FREIGHT. The cut flower traffic is the most fragile of the G.W.R. freights, and rapid transport and careful handling are an absolute essential to the success of the industry. Special ventilated eightwheel vans, vacuum fitted to permit, running at express speeds, are pro-" .vided, and these ensure a current of cool fresh air throughout the journey, while keeping the flowers free from frost. ; ■' Train schedules have been most carefully, arranged so as to give a departure time in the afternoon and early evening and yet ensure an arrival at markets in the early hours of the next morning. This enables the mainland flowers being picked, packed, and dispatched on the same day and for the previous evening's flowers from the islands to connect with these trains.. At the peak of the season special flower expresses are run, the schedule in some cases for the 305 miles journey from Penzance to London being only 45 minutes longer, than that allowed for the "Cornish Riviera Limited."

The flowers are picked in the bud and carried in baskets or wheelbarrows to the packing sheds. Here they are placed in jars of water prior to packing, and conveyed by almost every type of vehicle—-motor, horse, donkey, and even perambulator—to the dispatching point.- En route in the train they begin to open out and-to scent the vans with the fragrance of daffodils, narcissi, anemones, and Violets. Shortly after midnight the floral expresses glide under the roofs of the big stations, where convoys of motorlorries are waiting to speed the flowers to the markets. At the break of dawn the flowers are off again to all points of the compass, there to brighten florist window, coster barrow, house, and hospital, and to carry to all that "spirit of spring," not 24 hours old, despite sea voyages of 40 to 70 miles and train journeys across the length and breadth of the country.

Peter the Great laid a tax on beards about the year 1700. A man had to pay roubles if he wished to keep his beard, and the lower class was assessed a kopeck for the- same privilege.