Year.Acres.Year.Acres.Year.Acres.
189046,234189468,415189869,753
189158,704189574,547189971,526
189262,148189676,245190073,780
189365,487189769,792190174,999

Table IV.—Areas under Small Fruit in England, Wales and Scotland—Acres.

Year.England.Wales.Scotland.Great Britain.
189863,4381044527169,753
189964,8671106555371,526
190066,7491109592273,780
190167,8281092607974,999
190875,7501200793084,880

There has undoubtedly been a considerable expansion, rather than a contraction, of small fruit plantations since 1896. The acreage of small fruit in Great Britain is about one-third that of the orchards. As may be seen in Table IV., it is mainly confined to England, though Scotland has over 4000 more acres of small fruit than of orchards. About one-third of the area of small fruit in England belongs to Kent alone, that county having returned 24,137 acres in 1908. Cambridge now ranks next with 6878 acres, followed by Norfolk with 5876 acres, Worcestershire with 4852 acres, Middlesex with 4163 acres, Hants with 3320 acres and Essex with 2150 acres. It should be remarked that between 1900 and 1908 Cambridgeshire had almost doubled its area of small fruits, from 3740 to 6878 acres; whilst both Norfolk and Worcestershire in 1908 had larger areas devoted to small fruits than Middlesex—in which county there had been a decrease of about 400 acres during the same period. The largest county area of small fruit in Wales is 806 acres in Denbighshire, and in Scotland 2791 acres in Perthshire, 2259 acres in Lanarkshire, followed by 412 acres in Forfarshire. The only counties in Great Britain which make no return under the head of small fruit are Orkney and Shetland; and Sutherland only gives 2½ acres. It is hardly necessary to say that considerable areas of small fruit, in kitchen gardens and elsewhere, find no place in the official returns, which, however, include small fruit grown between and under orchard trees.

Gooseberries are largely grown in most small fruit districts. Currants are less widely cultivated, but the red currant is more extensively grown than the black, the latter having suffered seriously from the ravages of the black currant mite. Kent is the great centre for raspberries and for strawberries, though, in addition, the latter fruit is largely grown in Cambridgeshire (2411 acres), Hampshire (2327 acres), Norfolk (2067 acres) and Worcestershire (1273 acres). Essex, Lincolnshire, Cheshire, Cornwall and Middlesex each has more than 500 acres devoted to strawberry cultivation.

The following statement from returns for 1908 shows the area under different kinds of fruit in 1907 and 1908 in Great Britain, and also whether there had been an increase or decrease:

1907.1908.Increase or
Decrease.
Acres.Acres.Acres.
Small Fruit—
  Strawberries27,82728,815+ 988
  Raspberries8,8789,323+ 445
  Currants and Gooseberries25,59026,241+ 651
  Other kinds19,88020,501+ 621
82,17584,880+2705
Orchards—
  Apples172,643172,751+ 108
  Pears8,9119,604+ 693
  Cherries12,02711,868− 159
  Plums14,90115,683+ 782
  Other kinds41,69440,391−1303
250,176250,297+ 121

It appears from the Board of Agriculture returns that 27,433 acres of small fruit was grown in orchards, so that the total extent of land under fruit cultivation in Great Britain at the end of 1908 was about 308,000 acres.

There are no official returns as to the acreage devoted to orchard cultivation in Ireland. The figures relating to small fruit, moreover, extend back only to 1899, when the area under this head was returned as 4809 acres, which became 4359 acres in 1900 and 4877 acres in 1901. In most parts of the country there are districts favourable to the culture of small fruits, such as strawberries, raspberries, gooseberries and currants, and of top fruits, such as apples, pears, plums and damsons. The only localities largely identified with fruit culture as an industry are the Drogheda district and the Armagh district. In the former all the kinds named are grown except strawberries, the speciality being raspberries, which are marketed in Dublin, Belfast and Liverpool. In the Armagh district, again, all the kinds named are grown, but in this case strawberries are the speciality, the markets utilized being Richhill, Belfast, and those in Scotland. In the Drogheda district the grower bears the cost of picking, packing and shipping, but he cannot estimate his net returns until his fruit is on the market. Around Armagh the Scottish system prevails—that is, the fruit is sold while growing, the buyer being responsible for the picking and marketing.

The amount of fruit imported into the United Kingdom has such an important bearing on the possibilities of the industry that the following figures also may be useful: