ORCHARD PROTECTION

Northern Advocate, 6 February 1934, Page 6

ORCHARD PROTECTION

For many years -past orchardists in America have adopted the use of lieaters as a means of combating frost attacks) and the same practice has been followed in • Australia and some parts of New Zealand. The British orchardist is now taking the same steps to protect his orchard, a special heating process having been evolved. This is only one example of many of the ways in which little by little the character of British fruit farming is changing. The diseases that cultivation brings in its train, for instance, are always under investigation, and for some oi. them the right remedies have been found, and tor others the effective prophylactics.. Continuous experiment at Roth ams ted and elsoAvherc now guides the farmer in his choice of the manure or fertiliser best suited to his laud; and, thanks, to the patient investigations that have long been in progress at the East Mailing Research Station into the vexed question of the relation of stock to scion in this or that variety of apple, the farmer has only to apply to the right quarter* Uht only to learn the most suitable stock of Cox’s Pippin, Blenheim Orange, Bramley’s Seedling, or whatever other apple lie may choose, hut also to be sure of getting it. In new plantations of apples the tendency is all towards hushes and away from trees: and in a generation or two the old fruit-pick-er’s ladder will fall into decay on its hooks in the barn. 'When the apples are picked they are no longer bruised and bundled higgledy-piggledy .into tubs, baskets or sacks, clean or dirty, but are graded and packed as attractively as their foreign rivals and with the added prestige of the National Mark. Or they may he placed in store in late autumn in gas of their own making, and brought out again in April or May as fresh and toothsome as when they wore picked. Science cannot yet indeed determine what the weather shall lie either in England or in any other apple-growing country; but it can do something .to control the effects upon the fruit.