Stream Corner

The plants are then grown on in a cool greenhouse for a year or so, and then they are planted out in the open a foot apart the following late October or early November.

I am often asked to name a large beautifully coloured apple, and having racked his brain for a few minutes and admitted defeat he discovers that it isn't a known variety at all, but a seedling raised in somebody's garden!

There are also recognized growers of Certified Blackcurrant Bushes, and a register is issued officially of these growers by the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food. There arc registered growers also of Certified Raspberry Canes, and once again there are Special Stock certificates issued. These certificates relate solely to the apparent purity and health of the stocks at the time of inspection. You see, it pays to start with healthy stock, and in a small garden it isn't easy to keep that stock free of viruses. Maybe there's a man next door who doesn't bother about his garden, and who grows strawberries or raspberries which are riddled with different kinds of viruses.

Apart therefore from the amusement of raising the tree from seed, and of the fun of having produced a new variety, there isn't really much point in doing so. First of all, you never can tell whether the variety you raise is going to be of any value at all. My friend the late Edward Laxton-who perhaps raised more new good varieties of apples and pears than anyone in his generation-told me that he had had to throw away literally millions of varieties which were of no value whatsoever. It is therefore a labour of love when a man does set out to try and produce new varieties.

They use tons and tons of well-rotted dung and compost a year, and no purely chemical fertilizers. This doesn't mean to say, as they will admit, that they never get virus diseases, but it does mean that they do grow healthier, sturdier plants, which are therefore less liable to virus trouble-and for that matter other pests and diseases also.

The only other thing to be said in favour of seed sowing is that the trees produced are definitely more healthy and they have the strength and vigour which you never get in quite the same way from plants produced vegetatively. Life, however, in these 'hectic days' is too short to be waiting ten or twelve years for fruit, and most people will be wanting therefore to buy trees and bushes which will come into cropping within a year or two.