THE ENCYCLOPÆDIA BRITANNICA

A DICTIONARY OF ARTS, SCIENCES, LITERATURE AND GENERAL INFORMATION

ELEVENTH EDITION

VOLUME XI SLICE III
Frost to Fyzabad

Articles in This Slice

FROST (a common Teutonic word, cf. Dutch, vorst, Ger. Frost, from the common Teutonic verb meaning “to freeze,” Dutch, vriezen, Ger. frieren; the Indo-European root is seen in Lat. pruina, hoar-frost, cf. prurire, to itch, burn, pruna, burning coal, Sansk. plush, to burn), in meteorology, the act, or agent of the process, of freezing; hence the terms “hoar-frost” and “white-frost” applied to visible frozen vapour formed on exposed surfaces. A frost can only occur when the surface temperature falls below 32° F., the freezing-point of water; if the temperature be between 28° and 32° it is a “light frost,” if below 28° it is a “heavy,” “killing” or “black frost”; the term “black frost” is also used when no hoar-frost is present. The number of degrees below freezing-point is termed “degrees of frost.” As soon as a mass of air is cooled to its dew-point, water begins to be precipitated in the form of rain, dew, snow or hail. Hoarfrost is only formed at the immediate surface of the land if the latter be at a temperature below 32°, and this may occur even when the temperature of the air a few feet above the ground is 12°-16° above the freezing-point. The heaviest hoar-frosts are formed under weather conditions similar to those under which the heaviest summer dews occur, namely, clear and calm nights, when there is no cloud to impede the radiation of heat from the surface of the land, which thereby becomes rapidly and completely cooled. The danger of frost is minimized when the soil is very moist, as for example after 10-12 mm. of rain; and it is a practice in America to flood fields on the receipt of a frost warning, radiation being checked by the light fog sheets which develop over moist soils, just as a cloud-layer in the upper atmosphere impedes radiation on a grand scale. A layer of smoke will also impede radiation locally, and to this end smoky fires are sometimes lit in such positions that the smoke may drift over planted ground which it is desirable to preserve from frost. Similarly, frost may occur in open country when a town, protected by its smoke-cloud above, is free of it. In a valley with fairly high and steep flanks frost sometimes occurs locally at the bottom, because the layer of air cooled by contact with the cold surface of the higher ground is heavier than that not so cooled, and therefore tends to flow or settle downwards along the slope of the land. When meteorological considerations point to a frost, an estimate of the night temperature may be obtained by multiplying the difference between the readings of the wet and dry bulb thermometer by 2.5 and subtracting the result from the dry bulb temperature. This rule applies when the evening air is at about 50° and 30.1 in. pressure, the sky being clear. An instrument has been devised in France for the prediction of frost. It consists of a wet bulb and a dry bulb thermometer, mounted on a board on which is also a scale of lines corresponding to degrees of the dry bulb, and a pointer traversing a scale graduated according to degrees of the wet bulb. Observations for the night are taken about half an hour before sunset. By means of the pointer and scale, the point may be found at which the line of the dry-bulb reading meets the pointer set to the reading of the wet bulb. The scale is further divided by colours so that the observed point may fall within one of three zones, indicating certain frost, probable frost or no probability of frost.

FROSTBITE, a form of mortification (q.v.), due to the action of extreme cold in cutting off the blood-supply from the fingers, toes, nose, ears, &c. In comparatively trifling forms it occurs as “chaps” and “chilblains,” but the term frostbite is usually applied only to more severe cases, where the part affected becomes in danger of gangrene. An immediate application of snow, or ice-water, will restore the circulation; the application of heat would cause inflammation. But if the mortification has gone too far for the circulation to be restored, the part will be lost, and surgical treatment may be necessary.

FROSTBURG, a town of Allegany county, Maryland, U.S.A., 11 m. W. of Cumberland. Pop. (1890) 3804; (1900) 5274 (578 foreign-born and 236 negroes); (1910) 6028. It is served by the Cumberland & Pennsylvania railway and the Cumberland & Westernport electric railway. The town is about 2000 ft. above sea-level on a plateau between the Great Savage and Dans mountains, and its delightful scenery and air have made it attractive as a summer resort. It is the seat of the second state normal school, opened in 1904. Frostburg is in the midst of the coal region of the state, and is itself almost completely undermined; it has planing mills and manufactures large quantities of fire-brick. The municipality owns and operates its waterworks. Natural gas is piped to Frostburg from the West Virginia fields, 120 m. away. Frostburg was first settled in 1812; was called Mount Pleasant until about 1830, when the present name was substituted in honour of Meshech Frost, one of the town’s founders; and was incorporated in 1870.

FROTHINGHAM, OCTAVIUS BROOKS (1822-1895), American clergyman and author, was born in Boston on the 26th of November 1822, son of Nathaniel Langdon Frothingham (1793-1870), a prominent Unitarian preacher of Boston, and through his mother’s family related to Phillips Brooks. He graduated from Harvard College in 1843 and from the Divinity School in 1846. He was pastor of the North Unitarian church of Salem, Massachusetts, in 1847-1855. From 1855 to 1860 he was pastor of a new Unitarian society in Jersey City, where he gave up the Lord’s Supper, thinking that it ministered to self-satisfaction; and it was as a radical Unitarian that he became pastor of another young church in New York City in 1860. Indeed in 1864 he was recognized as leader of the radicals after his reply to Dr Hedge’s address to the graduating students of the Divinity School on Anti-Supernaturalism in the Pulpit. In 1865, when he had practically given up “transcendentalism,” his church building was sold and his congregation began to worship in Lyric Hall under the name of the Independent Liberal Church; in 1875 they removed to the Masonic Temple, but four years later ill-health compelled Frothingham’s resignation, and the church dissolved. Paralysis threatened him and he never fully recovered his health; in 1881 he returned to Boston, where he died on the 27th of November 1895. To this later period of his life belongs his best literary work. While he was in New York he was for a time art critic of the Tribune. Always himself on the unpopular side and an able but thoroughly fair critic of the majority, he habitually under-estimated his own worth; he was not only an anti-slavery leader when abolition was not popular even in New England, and a radical and rationalist when it was impossible for him to stay conveniently in the Unitarian Church, but he was the first president of the National Free Religious Association (1867) and an early and ardent disciple of Darwin and Spencer. To his radical views he was always faithful. It is a mistake to say that he grew more conservative in later years; but his judgment grew more generous and catholic. He was a greater orator than man of letters, and his sermons in New York were delivered to large audiences, averaging one thousand at the Masonic Temple, and were printed each week; in eloquence and in the charm of his spoken word he was probably surpassed in his day by none save George William Curtis. Personally he seemed cold and distant, partly because of his impressive appearance, and partly because of his own modesty, which made him backward in seeking friendships.

His principal published works are: Stories from the Life of the Teacher (1863), A Child’s Book of Religion (1866), and other works of religious teaching for children; several volumes of sermons; Beliefs of Unbelievers (1876), The Cradle of the Christ: a Study in Primitive Christianity (1877), The Spirit of New Faith (1877), The Rising and the Setting Faith (1878), and other expositions of the “new faith” he preached; Life of Theodore Parker (1874), Transcendentalism in New England (1876), which is largely biographical, Gerrit Smith, a Biography (1878), George Ripley (1882), in the “American Men of Letters” series, Memoir of William Henry Channing (1886), Boston Unitarianism, 1820-1850 (1890), really a biography of his father; and Recollections and Impressions, 1822-1890 (1891).

FROUDE, JAMES ANTHONY (1818-1894), English historian, son of R.H. Froude, archdeacon of Totnes, was born at Dartington, Devon, on the 23rd of April 1818. He was educated at Westminster and Oriel College, Oxford, then the centre of the ecclesiastical revival. He obtained a second class and the chancellor’s English essay prize, and was elected a fellow of Exeter College (1842). His elder brother, Richard Hurrell Froude (1803-1836), had been one of the leaders of the High Church movement at Oxford. Froude joined that party and helped J.H. Newman, afterwards cardinal, in his Lives of the English Saints. He was ordained deacon in 1845. By that time his religious opinions had begun to change, he grew dissatisfied with the views of the High Church party, and came under the influence of Carlyle’s teaching. Signs of this change first appeared publicly in his Shadows of the Clouds, a volume containing two stories of a religious sort, which he published in 1847 under the pseudonym of “Zeta,” and his complete desertion of his party was declared a year later in his Nemesis of Faith, an heretical and unpleasant book, of which the earlier part seems to be autobiographical.

On the demand of the college he resigned his fellowship at Oxford, and mainly at least supported himself by writing, contributing largely to Fraser’s Magazine and the Westminster Review. The excellence of his style was soon generally recognized. The first two volumes of his History of England from the Fall of Wolsey to the Defeat of the Spanish Armada appeared in 1856, and the work was completed in 1870. As an historian he is chiefly remarkable for literary excellence, for the art with which he represents his conception of the past. He condemns a scientific treatment of history and disregards its philosophy. He held that its office was simply to record human actions and that it should be written as a drama. Accordingly he gives prominence to the personal element in history. His presentations of character and motives, whether truthful or not, are undeniably fine; but his doctrine that there should be “no theorizing” about history tended to narrow his survey, and consequently he sometimes, as in his remarks on the foreign policy of Elizabeth, seems to misapprehend the tendencies of a period on which he is writing.

Froude’s work is often marred by prejudice and incorrect statements. He wrote with a purpose. The keynote of his History is contained in his assertion that the Reformation was “the root and source of the expansive force which has spread the Anglo-Saxon race over the globe.” Hence he overpraises Henry VIII. and others who forwarded the movement, and speaks too harshly of some of its opponents. So too, in his English in Ireland (1872-1874), which was written to show the futility of attempts to conciliate the Irish, he aggravates all that can be said against the Irish, touches too lightly on English atrocities, and writes unjustly of the influence of Roman Catholicism. A strong anti-clerical prejudice is manifest in his historical work generally, and is doubtless the result of the change in his views on Church matters and his abandonment of the clerical profession. Carlyle’s influence on him may be traced both in his admiration for strong rulers and strong government, which led him to write as though tyranny and brutality were excusable, and in his independent treatment of character. His rehabilitation of Henry VIII. was a useful protest against the idea that the king was a mere sanguinary profligate, but his representation of him as the self-denying minister of his people’s will is erroneous, and is founded on the false theory that the preambles of the acts of Henry’s parliaments represented the opinions of the educated laymen of England. As an advocate he occasionally forgets that sobriety of judgment and expression become an historian. He was not a judge of evidence, and seems to have been unwilling to admit the force of any argument or the authority of any statement which militated against his case. In his Divorce of Catherine of Aragon (1891) he made an unfortunate attempt to show that certain fresh evidence on the subject, brought forward by Dr Gairdner, Dr Friedmann and others, was not inconsistent with the views which he has expressed in his History nearly forty years before. He worked diligently at original manuscript authorities at Simancas, the Record Office and Hatfield House; but he used his materials carelessly, and evidently brought to his investigation of them a mind already made up as to their significance. His Life of Caesar (1879), a glorification of imperialism, betrays an imperfect acquaintance with Roman politics and the life of Cicero; and of his two pleasant books of travel, The English in the West Indies (1888) shows that he made little effort to master his subject, and Oceana (1886), the record of a tour in Australia and New Zealand, among a multitude of other blunders, notes the prosperity of the working-classes in Adelaide at the date of his visit, when, in fact, owing to a failure in the wheat-crop, hundreds were then living on charity. He was constitutionally inaccurate, and seems to have been unable to represent the exact sense of a document which lay before him, or even to copy from it correctly. Historical scholars ridiculed his mistakes, and Freeman, the most violent of his critics, never let slip a chance of hitting at him in the Saturday Review. Froude’s temperament was sensitive, and he suffered from these attacks, which were often unjust and always too savage in tone. The literary quarrel between him and Freeman excited general interest when it blazed out in a series of articles which Freeman wrote in the Contemporary Review (1878-1879) on Froude’s Short Study of Thomas Becket.

Notwithstanding its defects, Froude’s History is a great achievement; it presents an important and powerful account of the Reformation period in England, and lays before us a picture of the past magnificently conceived, and painted in colours which will never lose their freshness and beauty. As with Froude’s work generally, its literary merit is remarkable; it is a well-balanced and orderly narrative, coherent in design and symmetrical in execution. Though it is perhaps needlessly long, the thread of the story is never lost amid a crowd of details; every incident is made subordinate to the general idea, appears in its appropriate place, and contributes its share to the perfection of the whole. The excellence of its form is matched by the beauty of its style, for Froude was a master of English prose. The most notable characteristic of his style is its graceful simplicity; it is never affected or laboured; his sentences are short and easy, and follow one another naturally. He is always lucid. He was never in doubt as to his own meaning, and never at a loss for the most appropriate words in which to express it. Simple as his language is, it is dignified and worthy of its subject. Nowhere perhaps does his style appear to more advantage than in his four series of essays entitled Short Studies on Great Subjects (1867-1882), for it is seen there unfettered by the obligations of narrative. Yet his narrative is admirably told. For the most part flowing easily along, it rises on fit occasions to splendour, picturesque beauty or pathos. Few more brilliant pieces of historical writing exist than his description of the coronation procession of Anne Boleyn through the streets of London, few more full of picturesque power than that in which he relates how the spire of St Paul’s was struck by lightning; and to have once read is to remember for ever the touching and stately words in which he compares the monks of the London Charterhouse preparing for death with the Spartans at Thermopylae. Proofs of his power in the sustained narration of stirring events are abundant; his treatment of the Pilgrimage of Grace, of the sea fight at St Helens and the repulse of the French invasion, and of the murder of Rizzio, are among the most conspicuous examples of it. Nor is he less successful when recording pathetic events, for his stories of certain martyrdoms, and of the execution of Mary queen of Scots, are told with exquisite feeling and in language of well-restrained emotion. And his characters are alive. We may not always agree with his portraiture, but the men and women whom he saw exist for us instinct with the life with which he endows them and animated by the motives which he attributes to them. His successes must be set against his failures. At the least he wrote a great history, one which can never be disregarded by future writers on his period, be their opinions what they may; which attracts and delights a multitude of readers, and is a splendid example of literary form and grace in historical composition.

The merits of his work met with full recognition. Each instalment of his History, in common with almost everything which he wrote, was widely read, and in spite of some adverse criticisms was received with eager applause. In 1868 he was elected rector of St Andrews University, defeating Disraeli by a majority of fourteen. He was warmly welcomed in the United States, which he visited in 1872, but the lectures on Ireland which he delivered there caused much dissatisfaction. On the death of his adversary Freeman in 1892, he was appointed, on the recommendation of Lord Salisbury, to succeed him as regius professor of modern history at Oxford. Except to a few Oxford men, who considered that historical scholarship should have been held to be a necessary qualification for the office, his appointment gave general satisfaction. His lectures on Erasmus and other 16th-century subjects were largely attended. With some allowance for the purpose for which they were originally written, they present much the same characteristics as his earlier historical books. His health gave way in the summer of 1894, and he died on the 20th of October.

His long life was full of literary work. Besides his labours as an author, he was for fourteen years editor of Fraser’s Magazine. He was one of Carlyle’s literary executors, and brought some sharp criticism upon himself by publishing Carlyle’s Reminiscences and the Memorials of Jane Welsh Carlyle, for they exhibited the domestic life and character of his old friend in an unpleasant light. Carlyle had given the manuscripts to him, telling him that he might publish them if he thought it well to do so, and at the close of his life agreed to their publication. Froude therefore declared that in giving them to the world he was carrying out his friend’s wish by enabling him to make a posthumous confession of his faults. Besides publishing these manuscripts he wrote a Life of Carlyle. His earlier study of Irish history afforded him suggestions for a historical novel entitled The Two Chiefs of Dunboy (1889). In spite of one or two stirring scenes it is a tedious book, and its personages are little more than machines for the enunciation of the author’s opinions and sentiments. Though Froude had some intimate friends he was generally reserved. When he cared to please, his manners and conversation were charming. Those who knew him well formed a high estimate of his ability in practical affairs. In 1874 Lord Carnarvon, then colonial secretary, sent Froude to South Africa to report on the best means of promoting a confederation of its colonies and states, and in 1875 he was again sent to the Cape as a member of a proposed conference to further confederation. Froude’s speeches in South Africa were rather injudicious, and his mission was a failure (see [South Africa]: History). He was twice married. His first wife, a daughter of Pascoe Grenfell and sister of Mrs Charles Kingsley, died in 1860; his second, a daughter of John Warre, M.P. for Taunton, died in 1874.

Froude’s Life, by Herbert Paul, was published in 1905.

(W. Hu.)

FRUCTOSE, Laevulose, or Fruit-Sugar, a carbohydrate of the formula C6H12O6. It is closely related to ordinary d-glucose, with which it occurs in many fruits, starches and also in honey. It is a hydrolytic product of inulin, from which it may be prepared; but it is more usual to obtain it from “invert sugar,” the mixture obtained by hydrolysing cane sugar with sulphuric acid. Cane sugar then yields a syrupy mixture of glucose and fructose, which, having been freed from the acid and concentrated, is mixed with water, cooled in ice and calcium hydroxide added. The fructose is precipitated as a saccharate, which is filtered, suspended in water and decomposed by carbon dioxide. The liquid is filtered, the filtrate concentrated, and the syrup so obtained washed with cold alcohol. On cooling the fructose separates. It may be obtained as a syrup, as fine, silky needles, a white crystalline powder, or as a granular crystalline, somewhat hygroscopic mass. When anhydrous it melts at about 95° C. It is readily soluble in water and in dilute alcohol, but insoluble in absolute alcohol. It is sweeter than cane sugar and is more easily assimilated. It has been employed under the name diabetin as a sweetening agent for diabetics, since it does not increase the sugar-content of the urine; other medicinal applications are in phthisis (mixed with quassia or other bitter), and for children suffering from tuberculosis or scrofula in place of cane sugar or milk-sugar.

Chemically, fructose is an oxyketone or ketose, its structural formula being CH2OH·(CH·OH)3·CO·CH2OH; this result followed from its conversion by H. Kiliani into methylbutylacetic acid. The form described above is laevo-rotatory, but it is termed d-fructose, since it is related to d-glucose. Solutions exhibit mutarotation, fresh solutions having a specific rotation of −104.0°, which gradually diminishes to −92°. It was synthesized by Emil Fischer, who found the synthetic sugar which he named α-acrose to be (d + l)-fructose, and by splitting this mixture he obtained both the d and l forms. Fructose resembles d-glucose in being fermentable by yeast (it is the one ketose which exhibits this property), and also in its power of reducing alkaline copper and silver solutions; this latter property is assigned to the readiness with which hydroxyl and ketone groups in close proximity suffer oxidation. For the structural (stereochemical) relations of fructose see [Sugar].

FRUGONI, CARLO INNOCENZIO MARIA (1692-1768), Italian poet, was born at Genoa on the 21st of November 1692. He was originally destined for the church and at the age of fifteen, in opposition to his strong wishes, was shut up in a convent; but although in the following year he was induced to pronounce monastic vows, he had no liking for this life. He acquired considerable reputation as an elegant writer both of Latin and Italian prose and verse; and from 1716 to 1724 he filled the chairs of rhetoric at Brescia, Rome, Genoa, Bologna and Modena successively, attracting by his brilliant fluency a large number of students at each university. Through Cardinal Bentivoglio he was recommended to Antonio Farnese, duke of Parma, who appointed him his poet laureate; and he remained at the court of Parma until the death of Antonio, after which he returned to Genoa. Shortly afterwards, through the intercession of Bentivoglio, he obtained from the pope the remission of his monastic vows, and ultimately succeeded in recovering a portion of his paternal inheritance. After the peace of Aix-la-Chapelle he returned to the court of Parma, and there devoted the later years of his life chiefly to poetical composition. He died on the 20th of December 1768. As a poet Frugoni was one of the best of the school of the Arcadian Academy, and his lyrics and pastorals had great facility and elegance.

His collected works were published at Parma in 10 vols. in 1799, and a more complete edition appeared at Lucca in the same year in 15 vols. A selection from his works was published at Brescia in 1782, in 4 vols.

FRUIT (through the French from the Lat. fructus; frui, to enjoy), in its widest sense, any product of the soil that can be enjoyed by man or animals; the word is so used constantly in the Bible, and extended, as a Hebraism, to offspring or progeny of man and of animals, in such expressions as “the fruit of the body,” “of the womb,” “fruit of thy cattle” (Deut. xxviii. 4), &c., and generally to the product of any action or effort. Between this wide and frequently figurative use of the word and its application in the strict botanical sense treated below, there is a popular meaning, regarding the objects denoted by the word entirely from the standpoint of edibility, and differentiating them roughly from those other products of the soil, which, regarded similarly, are known as vegetables. In this sense “fruit” is applied to such seed-envelopes of plants as are edible, either raw or cooked, and are usually sweet, juicy or of a refreshing flavour. But applications of the word in this sense are apt to be loose and shifting according to the fashion of the time.

Fruit, in the botanical sense, is developed from the flower as the result of fertilization of the ovule. After fertilization various changes take place in the parts of the flower. Those more immediately concerned in the process, the anther and stigma, rapidly wither and decay, while the filaments and style often remain for some time; the floral envelopes become dry, the petals fall, and the sepals are either deciduous, or remain persistent in an altered form; the ovary becomes enlarged, forming the pericarp; and the ovules are developed as the seeds, containing the embryo-plant. The term fruit is strictly applied to the mature pistil or ovary, with the seeds in its interior; but it often includes other parts of the flower, such as the bracts and floral envelopes. Thus the fruit of the hazel and oak consists of the ovary enveloped by the bracts; that of the apple and pear, of the ovary and floral receptacle; and that of the pine-apple, of the whole inflorescence. Such fruits are sometimes distinguished as pseudocarps. In popular language, the fruit includes all those parts which exhibit a striking change as the result of fertilization. In general, the fruit is not ripened unless fertilization has been effected; but cases occur as the result of cultivation in which the fruit swells and becomes to all appearance perfect, while no seeds are produced. Thus, there are seedless oranges, grapes and pineapples. When the ovules are unfertilized, it is common to find that the ovary withers and does not come to maturity; but in the case of bananas, plantains and bread-fruit, the non-development of seeds seems to lead to a larger growth and a greater succulence of fruit.

The fruit, like the ovary, may be formed of a single carpel or of several. It may have one cell or cavity, being unilocular; or many, multilocular, &c. The number and nature of the divisions depend on the number of carpels and the extent to which their edges are folded inwards. The appearances presented by the ovary do not always remain permanent in the fruit. Great changes are observed to take place, not merely as regards the increased size of the ovary, its softening or hardening, but also in its internal structure, owing to the suppression, additional formation or enlargement of parts. Thus, in the ash (fig. 1) an ovary with two cells, each containing an ovule attached to a central placenta, is changed into a unilocular fruit with one seed; one ovule becomes abortive, while the other, g, gradually enlarging until the septum is pushed to one side, unites with the walls of the cell, and the placenta appears to be parietal. In the oak and hazel, an ovary with three and two cells respectively, and two ovules in each, produces a one-celled fruit with one seed. In the coco-nut, a trilocular and triovular ovary produces a one-celled, one-seeded fruit. This abortion may depend on the pressure caused by the development of certain ovules, or it may proceed from non-fertilization of all the ovules and consequent non-enlargement of the carpels. Again, by the growth of the placenta, or the folding inwards of parts of the carpels, divisions occur in the fruit which did not exist in the ovary. In Cathartocarpus Fistula a one-celled ovary is changed into a fruit having each of its seeds in a separate cell, in consequence of spurious dissepiments being produced horizontal from the inner wall of the ovary. In flax (Linum) by the folding inwards of the back of the carpels a five-celled ovary becomes a ten-celled fruit. In Astragalus the folding inwards of the dorsal suture converts a one-celled ovary into a two-celled fruit; and in Oxytropis the folding of the ventral suture gives rise to a similar change. The development of cellular or pulpy matter, and the enlargement of parts not forming whorls of the flower, frequently alter the appearance of the fruit, and render it difficult to discover its formation. In the gooseberry (fig. 29), grape, guava, tomato and pomegranate, the seeds nestle in pulp formed by the placentas. In the orange the pulpy matter surrounding the seeds is formed by succulent cells, which are produced from the inner partitioned lining of the pericarp. In the strawberry the receptacle becomes succulent, and bears the mature carpels on its convex surface (fig. 2); in the rose there is a fleshy hollow receptacle which bears the carpels on its concave surface (fig. 3). In the juniper the scaly bracts grow up round the seeds and become succulent, and in the fig (fig. 4) the receptacle becomes succulent and encloses an inflorescence.

Fig. 1.—Samara or winged fruit of Ash (Fraxinus). 1, Entire, with its wing a; 2, lower portion cut transversely, to show that it consists of two cells; one of which, l, is abortive, and is reduced to a very small cavity, while the other is much enlarged and filled with a seed g.

Fig. 2.—Fruit of the Strawberry (Fragaria vesca), consisting of an enlarged succulent receptacle, bearing on its surface the small dry seed-like fruits (achenes). (After Duchartre.)

From Strasburger’s Lehrbuch der Botanik, by permission of Gustav Fischer.

Fig. 3.—Fruit of the Rose cut vertically. s’, Fleshy hollowed receptacle; s, persistent sepals; fr, ripe carpels; e, stamens, withered.

Fig. 4.—Peduncle of Fig (Ficus Carica), ending in a hollow receptacle enclosing numerous male and female flowers.

Fig. 5.—Fruit of Cherry (Prunus Cerasus) in longitudinal section. ep, Epicarp; m, mesocarp; en, endocarp.

From Strasburger’s Lehrbuch der Botanik, by permission of Gustav Fischer.

The pericarp consists usually of three layers, the external, or epicarp (fig. 5, ep); the middle, or mesocarp, m; and the internal, or endocarp, en. These layers are well seen in such a fruit as the peach, plum or cherry, where they are separable one from the other; in them the epicarp forms what is commonly called the skin; the mesocarp, much developed, forms the flesh or pulp, and hence has sometimes been called sarcocarp; while the endocarp, hardened by the production of woody cells, forms the stone or putamen immediately covering the kernel or seed. The pulpy matter found in the interior of fruits, such as the gooseberry, grape and others, is formed from the placentas, and must not be confounded with the sarcocarp. In some fruits, as in the nut, the three layers become blended together and are indistinguishable. In bladder senna (Colutea arborescens) the pericarp retains its leaf-like appearance, but in most cases it becomes altered both in consistence and in colour. Thus in the date the epicarp is the outer brownish skin, the pulpy matter is the mesocarp or sarcocarp, and the thin papery-like lining is the endocarp covering the hard seed. In the medlar the endocarp becomes of a stony hardness. In the melon the epicarp and endocarp are very thin, while the mesocarp forms the bulk of the fruit, differing in texture and taste in its external and internal parts. The rind of the orange consists of epicarp and mesocarp, while the endocarp forms partitions in the interior, filled with pulpy cells. The part of the pericarp attached to the peduncle is the base, and the point where the style or stigma existed is the apex. This latter is not always the apparent apex, as in the case of the ovary; it may be lateral or even basilar. The style sometimes remains in a hardened form, rendering the fruit apiculate; at other times it falls off, leaving only traces of its existence. The presence of the style or stigma serves to distinguish certain single-seeded pericarps from seeds.

When the fruit is mature and the seeds are ripe, the carpels usually give way either at the ventral or dorsal suture or at both, and so allow the seeds to escape. The fruit in this case is dehiscent. But some fruits are indehiscent, falling to Dehiscence of fruits. the ground entire, and the seeds eventually reaching the soil by their decay. By dehiscence the pericarp becomes divided into different pieces, or valves, the fruit being univalvular, bivalvular or multivalvular, &c., according as there are one, two or many valves. The splitting extends the whole length of the fruit, or is partial, the valves forming teeth at the apex, as in the order Caryophyllaceae (fig. 6). Sometimes the valves are detached only at certain points, and thus dehiscence takes place by pores at the apex, as in poppy (fig. 7), or at the base, as in Campanula. Indehiscent fruits are either dry, as the nut, or fleshy, as the cherry and apple. They are formed of one or several carpels. In the former case they usually contain only a single seed, which may become so incorporated with the pericarp as to appear to be naked, as in the grain of wheat and generally in grasses. In such cases the presence of the remains of style or stigma determines their true nature.

Fig. 8.—Dry dehiscent fruit. The pod (legume) of the Pea; r, the dorsal suture; b, the ventral; c, calyx; s, seeds.

From Vines’ Students’ Text-Book of Botany, by permission of Swan Sonnenschein & Co.

Fig. 9.—(1) Fruit or capsule of Meadow Saffron (Colchicum autumnale), dehiscing along the septa (septicidally); (2) same cut across, showing the three chambers with the seeds attached along the middle line (axile placentation).

Fig. 10.—Diagram to illustrate the septicidal dehiscence in a pentalocular capsule. The loculaments l correspond to the number of the carpels, which separate by splitting through the septa, s.

Fig. 11.—The seed vessel (capsule) of the Flower-de-Luce (Iris), opening in a loculicidal manner. The three valves bear the septa in the centre, and the opening takes place through the back of the loculaments. Each valve is formed by the halves of contiguous carpels.

Fig. 12.—Diagram to illustrate loculicidal dehiscence. The loculaments l, split at the back, and the valves separate, bearing the septa s on their centres.

Fig. 13.—Diagram to illustrate septifragal dehiscence, in which the dehiscence takes place through the back of the loculaments l, and the valves separate from the septa s, which are left attached to the placentas in the centre.

Dehiscent fruits, when composed of single carpels, may open by the ventral suture only, as in the paeony, hellebore, Aquilegia (fig. 28) and Caltha; by the dorsal suture only, as in magnolias and some Proteaceae, or by both together, as in the pea (fig. 8) and bean; in these cases the dehiscence is sutural. When composed of several united carpels, two types of dehiscence occur—a longitudinal and a transverse. In the longitudinal the separation may take place by the dissepiments throughout their length, so that the fruit is resolved into its original carpels, and each valve represents a carpel, as in rhododendron, Colchicum, &c.; this dehiscence, in consequence of taking place through the septum, is called septicidal (figs. 9, 10). The valves separate from their commissure, or central line of union, carrying the placentas with them, or they leave the latter in the centre, so as to form with the axis a column of a cylindrical, conical or prismatic shape. Dehiscence is loculicidal when the union between the edges of the carpels is persistent, and they dehisce by the dorsal suture, or through the back of the loculaments, as in the lily and iris (figs. 11, 12). In these cases each valve consists of a half of each of two contiguous carpels. The placentas either remain united to the axis, or they separate from it, being attached to the septa on the valves. When the outer walls of the carpels break off from the septa, leaving them attached to the central column, the dehiscence is said to be septifragal (fig. 13), and where, as in Linum catharticum and Calluna, the splitting takes place first of all in a septicidal manner, the fruit is described as septicidally septifragal; while in other cases, as in thorn apple (Datura Stramonium), where the splitting is at first loculicidal, the dehiscence is loculicidally septifragal. In all those forms the separation of the valves takes place either from above downwards or from below upwards. In Saxifraga a splitting for a short distance of the ventral sutures of the carpels takes place, so that a large apical pore is formed. In the fruit of Cruciferae, as wallflower (fig. 14), the valves separate from the base of the fruit, leaving a central replum, or frame, which supports the false septum formed by a prolongation from the parietal placentas on opposite sides of the fruit, extending between the ventral sutures of the carpels. In Orchidaceae (fig. 15) the pericarp, when ripe, separates into three valves in a loculicidal manner, but the midribs of the carpels, to which the placentas are attached, often remain adherent to the axis both at the apex and base after the valves bearing the seeds have fallen. The other type of dehiscence is transverse, or circumscissile, when the upper part of the united carpels falls off in the form of a lid or operculum, as in Anagallis and in henbane (Hyoscyamus) (fig. 16).

Fig. 14.—Siliqua or seed-vessel of Wallflower (Cheiranthus Cheiri), opening by two valves, which separate from the base upwards, leaving the seeds attached to the dissepiment which is supported by the replum.

From Strasburger’s Lehrbuch der Botanik, by permission of Gustav Fischer.

Fig. 15.—Capsule of an Orchid (Xylobium). v, valve.

Fig. 16.—Seed-vessel of Anagallisarvensis, opening by circumscissile dehiscence.

From Strasburger’s Lehrbuch der Botanik, by permission of Gustav Fischer.

Fig. 17.—Lomentum of Hedysarum which, when ripe, separates transversely into single-seeded portions or mericarps.

Fig. 18.—Fruit of Geranium pratense, after splitting.

Sometimes the axis is prolonged beyond the base of the carpels, as in the mallow and castor-oil plant, the carpels being united to it throughout their length by their faces, and separating from it without opening. In the Umbelliferae the two carpels separate from the lower part of the axis, and remain attached by their apices to a prolongation of it, called a carpophore or podocarp, which splits into two (fig. 25) and suspends them; hence the fruit is termed a cremocarp, which divides into two mericarps. The general term schizocarp is applied to all dry fruits, which break up into two or more one-seeded indehiscent mericarps, as in Hedysarum (fig. 17). In the order Geraniaceae the styles remain attached to a central column, and the mericarps separate from below upwards, before dehiscing by their ventral suture (fig. 18). Carpels which separate one from another in this manner are called cocci. They are well seen in the order Euphorbiaceae, where there are usually three such carpels, and the fruit is termed tricoccus. In many of them, as Hura crepitans, the cocci separate with great force and elasticity. In many leguminous plants, such as Ornithopus, Hedysarum (fig. 17), Entada, Coronilla and the gum-arabic plant (Acacia arabica), the fruit becomes a schizocarp by the formation of transverse partitions from the folding in of the sides of the pericarp, and distinct separations taking place at these partitions.

Fruits are formed by one flower, or are the product of several flowers combined. In the former case they are either apocarpous, of one mature carpel or of several separate free carpels; or syncarpous, of several carpels, more or less completely united. When the fruit is composed of the ovaries of several flowers united, it is usual to find the bracts and floral envelopes also joined with them, so as to form one mass; hence such fruits are known as multiple, confluent or anthocarpous. The term simple is applied to fruits which are formed by the ovary of a single flower, whether they are composed of one or several carpels, and whether these carpels are separate or combined.

From Vines’ Students’ Text-Book of Botany, by permission of Swan Sonnenschein & Co.

Fig. 19.—Dry one-seeded fruit of dock (Rumex) cut vertically. ov, Pericarp formed from ovary wall; s, seed; e, endosperm; pl, embryo with radicle pointing upwards and cotyledons downwards—enlarged.

Fig. 20.—Achene of Ranunculus arvensis in longitudinal section; e, endosperm; pl, embryo. (After Baillon, enlarged.)

From Strasburger’s Lehrbuch der Botanik, by permission of Gustav Fischer.

Fig. 21.—Fruit of Common Sycamore (Acer Pseudoplatanus), dividing into two mericarps m; s, pedicel; fl, wings (nat. size).

The object of the fruit in the economy of the plant is the protection and nursing of the developing seed and the dispersion of the ripe seeds. Hence, generally, one-seeded fruits are indehiscent, while fruits containing more than one seed open to allow Dispersal of fruit or seed. of the dispersal of the seeds over as wide an area as possible. The form, colour, structure and method of dehiscence of fruits and the form of the contained seeds are intimately associated with the means of dispersal, which fall into several categories. (1) By a mechanism residing in the fruit. Thus many fruits open suddenly when they are dry, and the seeds are ejected by the twisting or curving of the valves, or in some other way; e.g. in gorse, by the spiral curving of the valves; in Impatiens, by the twisting of the cocci; in squirting cucumber, by the pressure exerted on the pulpy contents by the walls of the pericarp. (2) By aid of various external agencies such as water. Fruits or seeds are sometimes sufficiently buoyant to float for a long time on sea- or fresh-water; e.g. coco-nut, by means of its thick, fibrous coat (mesocarp), is carried hundreds of miles in the sea, the tough, leathery outer coat (epicarp) preventing it from becoming water-soaked. Fruits and seeds of West Indian plants are thrown up on the coasts of north-west Europe, having been carried by the Gulf Stream, and will often germinate; many are rendered buoyant by air-containing cavities, and the embryo is protected from the seawater by the tough coat of fruit or seed. Water-lily seeds are surrounded with a spongy tissue when set free from the fruit, and float for some distance before dropping to the bottom. (3) The most general agent in the dispersal of seeds is the wind or currents of air—the fruit or seed being rendered buoyant by wing-developments as in fruits of ash (fig. 1) or maple (fig. 21), seeds of pines and firs, or many members of the order Bignoniaceae; or hair-developments as in fruits of clematis, where the style forms a feathery appendage, fruits of many Compositae (dandelion, thistle, &c.), which are crowned by a plumose pappus, or seeds of willow and poplar, or Asclepias (fig. 36), which bear tufts of silky hairs; to this category belong bladder-like fruits, such as bladder-senna, which are easily rolled by the wind, or cases like the so-called rose of Jericho, a small cruciferous plant (Anastatica hierocuntica), where the plant dries up after developing its fruits and becomes detached from the ground; the branches curl inwards, and the whole plant is rolled over the dry ground by the wind. The wind also aids the dispersal of the seeds in the case of fruits which open by small teeth (many Caryophyllaceae [fig. 6]) or pores (poppy [fig. 7], Campanula, &c.); the seeds are in these cases small and numerous, and are jerked through the pores when the capsules, which are generally borne on long, dry stems or stalks, are shaken by the wind. (4) In other cases members of the animal world aid in seed-dispersal. Fruits often bear stiff hairs or small hooks, which cling to the coat of an animal or the feathers of a bird; such are fruits of cleavers (Galium Aparine), a common hedge-row plant, Ranunculus arvensis (fig. 20), carrot, Geum, &c.; or the fruit or seed has an often bright-coloured, fleshy covering, which is sought by birds as food, as in stone-fruits such as plum, cherry (fig. 5), &c., where the seed is protected from injury in the mouth or stomach of the animal by the hard endocarp; or the hips of the rose (fig. 3), where the succulent scarlet “fruit” (the swollen receptacle) envelops a number of small dry true fruits (achenes), which cling by means of stiff hairs to the beak of the bird.

Fig. 22.—Vertical section of a grain of wheat, showing embryo below at the base of the endosperm e; s, scutellum separating embryo from endosperm; f.l, foliage leaf; p.s, sheath of plumule; p.r, primary root; s.p.r, sheath of primary root.

Fig. 23.—Fruit of Comfrey (Symphytum) surrounded by persistent calyx, c. The style s appears to arise from the base of the carpels, enlarged.

Fig. 24.—Ovary of Foeniculum officinale with pendulous ovules, in longitudinal section. (After Berg and Schmidt, magnified.)

From Strasburger’s Lehrbuch der Botanik, by permission of Gustav Fischer.

Fig. 25.—Fruit of Carum Carui. A, Ovary of the flower; B, ripe fruit. The two carpels have separated so as to form two mericarps (m). Part of the septum constitutes the carpophore (a). p, Top of flower-stalk; d, disk on top of ovary; n, stigma.

From Vines’ Students’ Text-Book of Botany, by permission of Swan Sonnenschein & Co.

Simple fruits have either a dry or succulent pericarp. The achene is a dry, one-seeded, indehiscent fruit, the pericarp of which is closely applied to the seed, but separable from it. It is solitary, forming a single fruit, as in the dock (fig. 19) and in the Forms of fruit. cashew, where it is supported on a fleshy peduncle; or aggregate, as in Ranunculus (fig. 20), where several achenes are placed on a common elevated receptacle. In the strawberry the achenes (fig. 2) are aggregated on a convex succulent receptacle. In the rose they are supported on a concave receptacle (fig. 3), and in the fig the succulent receptacle completely encloses the achenes (fig. 4). In Dorstenia the achenes are situated on a flat or slightly concave receptacle. Hence what in common language are called the seeds of the strawberry, rose and fig, are in reality ripe carpels. The styles occasionally remain attached to the achenes in the form of feathery appendages, as in Clematis. In Compositae, the fruit is an inferior achene (cypsela), to which the pappus (modified calyx) remains adherent. Such is also the nature of the fruit in Dipsacaceae (e.g. scabious). When the pericarp is thin, and appears like a bladder surrounding the seed, the achene is termed a utricle, as in Amarantaceae. When the pericarp is extended in the form of a winged appendage, a samara or samaroid achene is produced, as in the ash (fig. 1) and common sycamore (fig. 21). In these cases there are usually two achenes united, one of which, however, as in Fraxinus (fig. 1), may be abortive. The wing surrounds the fruit longitudinally in the elm. When the pericarp becomes so incorporated with the seed as to be inseparable from it, as in grains of wheat (fig. 22), maize, oats and other grasses, then the name caryopsis is given. The one-seeded portions (mericarps) of schizocarps often take the form of achenes, e.g. the mericarps of the mallows or of umbellifers (figs. 24, 25). In Labiatae and Boraginaceae (e.g. comfrey, fig. 23), where the bicarpellary ovary becomes our one-seeded portions in the fruit, the partial fruits are of the nature of achenes or nutlets according to the texture (leathery or hard) of the pericarp.

The nut or glans is a dry one-celled indehiscent fruit with a hardened pericarp, often surrounded by bracts at the base, and, when mature, containing only one seed. In the young state the ovary often contains two or more ovules, but only one comes to maturity. It is illustrated by the fruits of the hazel and chestnut, which are covered by leafy bracts, in the form of a husk, and by the acorn, in which the bracts and receptacle form a cupula or cup (fig. 26). The parts of the pericarp of the nut are united so as to appear one. In common language the term nut is very vaguely applied both to fruit and seeds.

The drupe is a succulent usually one-seeded indehiscent fruit, with a pericarp easily distinguishable into epicarp, mesocarp and endocarp. This term is applied to such fruits as the cherry (fig. 5), peach, plum, apricot or mango. The endocarp is usually hard, forming the stone (putamen) of the fruit, which encloses the kernel or seed. The mesocarp is generally pulpy and succulent, so as to be truly a sarcocarp, as in the peach, but it is sometimes of a tough texture, as in the almond, and at other times is more or less fibrous, as in the coco-nut. In the almond there are often two ovules formed, only one of which comes to perfection. In the raspberry and bramble several small drupes or drupels are aggregated so as to constitute an etaerio.

The follicle is a dry unilocular many-seeded fruit, formed from one carpel and dehiscing by the ventral suture. It is rare to meet with a solitary follicle forming the fruit. There are usually several aggregated together, either in a whorl on a shortened receptacle, as in hellebore, aconite, larkspur, columbine (figs. 27, 28) or the order Crassulaceae, or in a spiral manner on an elongated receptacle, as in Magnolia and Banksia. Occasionally, follicles dehisce by the dorsal suture, as in Magnolia grandiflora and Banksia.

Fig. 27.—Fruit of Columbine (Aquilegia), formed of five follicles.

Fig. 28.—Single follicle, showing dehiscence by the ventral suture.

Fig. 29.—Transverse section of berry of Gooseberry, showing the seeds attached to the parietal placentas and immersed in pulp, which is formed partly from the endocarp, partly from the seed-coat.

Fig. 30.—Section of the fruit of the Apple (Pyrus Malus), or pome, consisting of a fleshy covering formed by the floral receptacle and the true fruit or core with five cavities with seeds.

The legume or pod is a dry monocarpellary unilocular many-seeded fruit, formed from one carpel, dehiscing both by the ventral and the dorsal suture. It characterizes leguminous plants, as the bean and pea (fig. 8). In the bladder-senna it forms an inflated legume. In some Leguminosae, as Arachis, Cathartocarpus Fistula and the tamarind, the fruit must be considered a legume, although it does not dehisce. The first of these plants produces its fruit underground, and is called earth-nut; the second has a partitioned legume and is schizocarpic; and both the second and third have pulpy matter surrounding the seeds. Some legumes are schizocarpic by the formation of constrictions externally. Such a form is the lomentum or lomentaceous legume of Hedysarum (fig. 17), Coronilla, Ornithopus, Entada and of some Acacias. In Medicago the legume is twisted like a snail, and in Caesalpinia coriaria, or Divi-divi, it is vermiform or curved like a worm. Sometimes the number of seeds is reduced, as in Erythrina monosperma and Geoffroya superba, which are one-seeded, and in Pterocarpus and Dalbergia, which are two-seeded.

The berry (bacca) is a term applied generally to all fruits with seeds immersed in pulp, and includes fruits of very various origin. In Actaea (baneberry) or Berberis (barberry) it is derived from a single free carpel; generally, however, it is the product of a syncarpous ovary, which is superior, as in grape or potato, or inferior, as in gooseberry (fig. 29) or currant. In the pomegranate there is a peculiar baccate many-celled inferior fruit, having a tough rind, enclosing two rows of carpels placed one above the other. The seeds are immersed in pulp, and are attached irregularly to the wall, base and centre of the loculi. In the baobab there is a multilocular syncarpous fruit, in which the seeds are immersed in pulp.

The pepo, another indehiscent syncarpous fruit, is illustrated by the fruit of the gourd, melon (fig. 31) and other Cucurbitaceae. It is formed of three carpels, surmounted by the calyx; the rind is thick and fleshy, and there are three or more seed-bearing parietal placentas, either surrounding a central cavity or prolonged inwards into it. The fruit of the papaw resembles the pepo, but the calyx is not superior.

The hesperidium is the name given to such indehiscent fleshy syncarpous fruits as the orange, lemon and shaddock, in which the epicarp and mesocarp form a separable rind, and the endocarp sends prolongations inwards, forming triangular divisions, to the inner angle of which the seeds are attached, pulpy cells being developed around them from the wall. Both pepo and hesperidium may be considered as modifications of the berry.

The pome (fig. 30), seen in the apple, pear, quince, medlar and hawthorn, is a fleshy indehiscent syncarpous fruit, in the formation of which the receptacle takes part. The outer succulent part is the swollen receptacle, the horny core being the true fruit developed from the usually five carpels and enclosing the seeds. In the medlar the core (or true pericarp) is of a stony hardness, while the outer succulent covering is open at the summit. The pome somewhat resembles the fruit of the rose (fig. 3), where the succulent receptacle surrounds a number of separate achenes.

The name capsule is applied generally to all dry syncarpous fruits, which dehisce by valves. It may thus be unilocular or multilocular, one- or many-seeded. The true valvular capsule is observed in Colchicum (fig. 9), lily and iris (fig. 11). The porose capsule is seen in the poppy (fig. 7), Antirrhinum and Campanula. In Campanula the pores occur at the base of the capsule, which becomes inverted when ripe. When the capsule opens by a lid, or by circumscissile dehiscence, it is called a pyxidium, as in pimpernel (Anagallis arvensis) (fig. 16), henbane and monkey-pot (Lecythis). The capsule assumes a screw-like form in Helicteres, and a star-like form in star-anise (Illicium anisatum). In certain instances the cells of the capsule separate from each other, and open with elasticity to scatter the seeds. This kind of capsule is met with in the sandbox tree (Hura crepitans) and other Euphorbiaceae, where the cocci, containing each a single seed, burst asunder with force; and in Geraniaceae, where the cocci, each containing, when mature, usually one seed, separate from the carpophore, become curved upwards by their adherent styles, and open by the ventral suture (fig. 18).

The siliqua is a dry syncarpous bilocular many-seeded fruit, formed from two carpels, with a false septum, dehiscing by two valves from below upwards, the valves separating from the placentas and leaving them united by the septum (fig. 32). The seeds are attached on both sides of the septum, either in one row or in two. When the fruit is long and narrow it is a siliqua (fig. 14); when broad and short, silicula (fig. 33). It occurs in cruciferous plants, as wallflower, cabbage and cress. In Glaucium and Eschscholtzia (Papaveraceae) the dissepiment is of a spongy nature. It may become transversely constricted (lomentaceous), as in radish (Raphanus) and sea-kale, and it may be reduced, as in woad (Isatis), to a one-seeded condition.

It sometimes happens that the ovaries of two flowers unite so as to form a double fruit (syncarp). This may be seen in many species of honeysuckle. But the fruits which are now to be considered consist usually of the floral envelopes, as well as the ovaries of several flowers united into one, and are called multiple or confluent. The term anthocarpous has also been applied as indicating that the floral envelopes as well as the carpels are concerned in the formation of the fruit.

The sorosis is a succulent multiple fruit formed by the confluence of a spike of flowers, as in the fruit of the pine-apple (fig. 34), the bread-fruit and jack-fruit. Similarly the fruit of the mulberry represents a catkin-like inflorescence.

The syconus is an anthocarpous fruit, in which the receptacle completely encloses numerous flowers and becomes succulent. The fig (fig. 4) is of this nature, and what are called its seeds are the achenes of the numerous flowers scattered over the succulent hollowed receptacle. In Dorstenia the axis is less deeply hollowed, and of a harder texture, the fruit exhibiting often very anomalous forms.

The strobilus, or cone, is a seed-bearing spike, more or less elongated, covered with scales, each of which may be regarded as representing a separate flower, and has often two seeds at its base; the seeds are naked, no ovary being present. This fruit is seen in the cones of firs, spruces, larches and cedars, which have received the name of Coniferae, or cone-bearers, on this account. Cone-like fruit is also seen in most Cycadaceae. The scales of the strobilus are sometimes thick and closely united, so as to form a more or less angular and rounded mass, as in the cypress; while in the juniper they become fleshy, and are so incorporated as to form a globular fruit like a berry. The dry fruit of the cypress and the succulent fruit of the juniper have received the name of galbulus. In the hop the fruit is called also a strobilus, but in it the scales are thin and membranous, and the seeds are not naked but are contained in pericarps.

Fig. 32.—Honesty (Lunaria biennis), showing the septum after the carpels have fallen away.

From Strasburger’s Lehrbuch der Botanik, by permission of Gustav Fischer.

Fig. 33.—Silicula or pouch of shepherd’s purse (Capsella), opening by two folded valves, which separate from above downwards. The partition is narrow, hence the silicula is angustiseptal.

From Strasburger’s Lehrbuch der Botanik, by permission of Gustav Fischer.

Fig. 34.—Fruit of the pine-apple (Ananassa sativa), developed from a spike of numerous flowers with bracts, united so as to form a collective or anthocarpous fruit. The crown of the pine-apple, c, consists of a series of empty bracts prolonged beyond the fruit.

The same causes which produce alterations in the other parts of the flower give rise to anomalous appearances in the fruit. The carpels, in place of bearing seeds, are sometimes changed into leaves, with lobes at their margins. Leaves are sometimes produced from the upper part of the fruit. In the genus Citrus, to which the orange and lemon belong, it is very common to meet with a separation of the carpels, so as to produce what are called horned oranges and fingered citrons. In this case a syncarpous fruit has a tendency to become apocarpous. In the orange we occasionally find a supernumerary row of carpels produced, giving rise to the appearance of small and imperfect oranges enclosed within the original one; the navel orange is of this nature. It sometimes happens that, by the union of flowers, double fruits are produced. Occasionally a double fruit is produced, not by the incorporation of two flowers, but by the abnormal development of a second carpel in the flower.

Arrangement of Fruits.

A. True fruits—developed from the ovary alone.

1. Pericarp not fleshy or fibrous.

i. Indehiscent—not opening to allow the escape of the seeds—generally one-seeded. Achene; caryopsis; cypsela; nut; schizocarp.

ii. Dehiscent—the pericarp splits to allow the escape of the seeds—generally many-seeded. Follicle; legume; siliqua; capsule.

2. Pericarp generally differentiated into distinct layers, one of which is succulent or fibrous. Drupe; berry.

B. Pseudocarps—the development extends beyond the ovary. Pome; syconus; sorosis.

The Seed.—The seed is formed from the ovule as the result of fertilization. It is contained in a seed-vessel formed from the ovary in the plants called angiospermous; while in gymnospermous plants, such as Coniferae and Cycadaceae, it is naked, or, in other words, has no true pericarp. It sometimes happens in Angiosperms, that the seed-vessel is ruptured at an early period of growth, so that the seeds become more or less exposed during their development; this occurs in mignonette, where the capsule opens at the apex, and in Cuphea, where the placenta bursts through the ovary and floral envelopes, and appears as an erect process bearing the young seeds. After fertilization the ovule is greatly changed, in connexion with the formation of the embryo. In the embryo-sac of most Angiosperms (q.v.) there is a development of cellular tissue, the endosperm, more or less filling the embryo-sac. In Gymnosperms (q.v.) the endosperm is formed preparatory to fertilization. The fertilized egg enlarges and becomes multicellular, forming the embryo. The embryo-sac enlarges greatly, displacing gradually the surrounding nucellus, which eventually forms merely a thin layer around the sac, or completely disappears. The remainder of the nucellus and the integuments of the ovules form the seed-coats. In some cases (fig. 35) a delicate inner coat or tegmen can be distinguished from a tougher outer coat or testa; often, however, the layers are not thus separable. The consistency of the seed-coat, its thickness, the character of its surface, &c., vary widely, the variations being often closely associated with the environment or with the means of seed-dispersal. An account of the development of the seed from the ovule will be found in the article [Angiosperms]. When the pericarp is dehiscent the seed-covering is of a strong and often rough character; but when the pericarp is indehiscent and encloses the seed for a long period, the outer seed-coat is thin and soft. The cells of the testa are often coloured, and have projections and appendages of various kinds. Thus in Abrus precatorius and Adenanthera pavonina it is of a bright red colour; in French beans it is beautifully mottled; in the almond it is veined; in the tulip and primrose it is rough; in the snapdragon it is marked with depressions; in cotton and Asclepias (fig. 36) it has hairs attached to it; and in mahogany, Bignonia, and the pines and firs it is expanded in the form of wing-like appendages (fig. 37). In Collomia, Acanthodium, Cobaea scandens and other seeds, it contains spiral cells, from which, when moistened with water, the fibres uncoil in a beautiful manner; and in flax (Linum) and others the cells are converted into mucilage. These structural peculiarities of the testa in different plants have relation to the scattering of the seed and its germination upon a suitable nidus. But in some plants the pericarps assume structures which subserve the same purpose; this especially occurs in small pericarps enclosing single seeds, as achenes, caryopsides, &c. Thus in Compositae and valerian, the pappose limb of the calyx forms a parachute to the pericarp; in Labiatae and some Compositae spiral cells are formed in the epicarp; and the epicarp is prolonged as a wing in Fraxinus (fig. 1) and Acer (fig. 21).

Fig. 35.—Seed of Pea (Pisum) with one cotyledon removed. c, Remaining cotyledon; ch, chalaza-point at which the nourishing vessels enter; e, tegmen or inner coat; f, funicle or stalk; g, plumule of embryo; m, micropyle; pl, placenta; r, radicle of embryo; t, tigellum or stalk between root and plumule; te, testa.

Fig. 36.—Seed of Asclepias, with a cluster of hairs arising from the edges of the micropyle.

Sometimes there is an additional covering to the seed, formed after fertilization, to which the name arillus has been given (fig. 38). This is seen in the passion-flower, where the covering arises from the placenta or extremity of the funicle at the base of the ovule and passes upwards towards the apex, leaving the micropyle uncovered. In the nutmeg and spindle tree this additional coat is formed from above downwards, constituting in the former case a laciniated scarlet covering called mace. In such instances it has been called an arillode (fig. 39). This arillode, after growing downwards, may be reflected upwards so as to cover the micropyle. The fleshy scarlet covering formed around the naked seed in the yew is by some considered of the nature of an aril. On the testa, at various points, there are produced at times other cellular bodies, to which the name of strophioles, or caruncles, has been given, the seeds being strophiolate or carunculate. These tumours may occur near the base of the seed, as in Polygala, or at the apex, as in Castor-oil plant (Ricinus); or they may occur in the course of the raphe, as in blood-root (Sanguinaria) and Asarabacca. The funicles of the ovules frequently attain a great length in the seed, and in some magnolias, when the fruit dehisces, they appear as long scarlet cords suspending the seeds outside. The hilum or umbilicus of the seed is usually well marked, as a scar of varying size; in the calabar bean and in some species of Mucuna and Dolichos it extends along a large portion of the edge of the seed; it frequently exhibits marked colours, being black in the bean, white in many species of Phaseolus, &c. The micropyle (fig. 35, m) of the seed may be recognizable by the naked eye, as in the pea and bean tribe, Iris, &c., or it may be very minute or microscopic. It indicates the true apex of the seed, and is important as marking the point to which the root of the embryo is directed. At the micropyle in the bean is observed a small process of integument, which, when the young plant sprouts, is pushed up like a lid; it is called the embryotega. The chalaza (fig. 38, ch) is often of a different colour from the rest of the seed. In the orange (fig. 40) it is of a reddish-brown colour, and is easily recognized at one end of the seed when the integuments are carefully removed. In anatropal seeds the raphe forms a distinct ridge along one side of the seed (fig. 41).

The position of the seed as regards the pericarp resembles that of the ovule in the ovary, and the same terms are applied—erect, ascending, pendulous, suspended, curved, &c. These terms have no reference to the mode in which the fruit is attached to the axis. Thus the seed may be erect while the fruit itself is pendent, in the ordinary meaning of that term. The part of the seed next the axis or the ventral suture is its face, the opposite side being the back. Seeds exhibit great varieties of form. They may be flattened laterally (compressed), or from above downwards (depressed). They may be round, oval, triangular, polygonal, rolled up like a snail, as in Physostemon, or coiled up like a snake, as in Ophiocaryon paradoxum.

Fig. 37.—Seed of Pine (Pinus), with a membranous appendage w to the testa, called a wing.

Fig. 38.—Young anatropal seed of the white Water-lily (Nymphaea alba), cut vertically. It is attached to the placenta by the funicle f, cellular prolongations from which form an aril a a. The vessels of the cord are prolonged to the base of the nucellus n by means of the raphe r. The base of the nucellus is indicated by the chalaza ch, while the apex is at the micropyle m. The covering of the seed is marked i. n is the nucellus or perisperm, enclosing the embryo-sac es, in which the endosperm is formed. The embryo e, with its suspensor, is contained in the sac, the radicle pointing to the micropyle m.

Fig. 39.—Arillode a, or false aril, of the Spindle-tree (Euonymus), arising from the micropyle f.

Fig. 40.—Anatropal seed of the Orange (Citrus Aurantium) opened to show the chalaza c, which forms a brown spot at one end.

Fig. 41.—Entire anatropal seed of the Orange (Citrus Aurantium), with its rugose or wrinkled testa, and the raphe r ramifying in the thickness of the testa on one side.

The endosperm formed in the embryo-sac of angiosperms after fertilization, and found previous to it in gymnosperms, consists of cells containing nitrogenous and starchy or fatty matter, destined for the nutriment of the embryo. It occupies the whole cavity of the embryo-sac, or is formed only at certain portions of it, at the apex, as in Rhinanthus, at the base, as in Vaccinium, or in the middle, as in Veronica. As the endosperm increases in size along with the embryo-sac and the embryo, the substance of the original nucellus of the ovule is gradually absorbed. Sometimes, however, as in Musaceae, Cannaceae, Zingiberaceae, no endosperm is formed; the cells of the original nucellus, becoming filled with food-materials for the embryo, are not absorbed, but remain surrounding the embryo-sac with the embryo, and constitute the perisperm. Again, in other plants, as Nymphaeaceae (fig. 38) and Piperaceae, both endosperm and perisperm are present. It was from observations on cases such as these that old authors, imagining a resemblance betwixt the plant-ovule and the animal ovum, applied the name albumen to the outer nutrient mass or perisperm, and designated the endosperm as vitellus. The term albumen is very generally used as including all the nutrient matter stored up in the seed, but it would be advisable to discard the name as implying a definite chemical substance. There is a large class of plants in which although at first after fertilization a mass of endosperm is formed, yet, as the embryo increases in size, the nutrient matter from the endospermic cells passes out from them, and is absorbed by the cells of the embryo plant. In the mature seed, in such cases, there is no separate mass of tissue containing nutrient food-material apart from the embryo itself. Such a seed is said to be exalbuminous, as in Compositae, Cruciferae and most Leguminosae (e.g. pea, fig. 35). When either endosperm or perisperm or both are present the seed is said to be albuminous.

The albumen varies much in its nature and consistence, and furnishes important characters. It may be farinaceous or mealy, consisting chiefly of cells filled with starch, as in cereal grains, where it is abundant; fleshy or cartilaginous, consisting of thicker cells which are still soft, as in the coco-nut, and which sometimes contain oil, as in the oily albumen of Croton, Ricinus and poppy; horny, when the cell-walls are slightly thickened and capable of distension, as in date and coffee; the cell-walls sometimes become greatly thickened, filling up the testa as a hard mass, as in vegetable ivory (Phytelephas). The albumen may be uniform throughout, or it may present a mottled appearance, as in the nutmeg, the seeds of Anonaceae and some Palms, where it is called ruminated. This mottled appearance is due to a protrusion of a dark lamella of the integument between folded protuberances of albumen. A cavity is sometimes left in the centre which is usually filled with fluid, as in the coco-nut. The relative size of the embryo and of the endosperm varies much. In Monocotyledons the embryo is usually small, and the endosperm large, and the same is true in the case of coffee and many other plants amongst Dicotyledons. The opposite is the case in other plants, as in the Labiatae, Plumbaginaceae, &c.

The embryo consists of an axis bearing the cotyledons (fig. 42, c), or the first leaves of the plant. To that part of this axis immediately beneath the cotyledons the terms hypocotyl, caulicle or tigellum (t) have been applied, and continuous backwards with it is the young root or radicle (r), the descending axis, their point of union being the collar or neck. The terminal growing bud of the axis is called the plumule or gemmule (g), and represents the ascending axis. The radicular extremity points towards the micropyle, while the cotyledonary extremity is pointed towards the base of the ovule or the chalaza. Hence, by ascertaining the position of the micropyle and chalaza, the two extremities of the embryo can in general be discovered. It is in many cases difficult to recognize the parts in an embryo; thus in Cuscuta, the embryo appears as an elongated axis without divisions; and in Caryocar the mass of the embryo is made up by the radicular extremity and hypocotyl, in a groove of which the cotyledonary extremity lies embedded (fig. 52). In some monocotyledonous embryos, as in Orchidaceae, the embryo is a cellular mass showing no parts. In parasitic plants also which form no chlorophyll, as Orobanche, Monotropa, &c., the embryo remains without differentiation, consisting merely of a mass of cells until the ripening of the seed. When the embryo is surrounded by the endosperm on all sides except its radicular extremity it is internal (see figs. 19, 20); when lying outside the endosperm, and only coming into contact with it at certain points, it is external, as in grasses (e.g. wheat, fig. 22). When the embryo follows the direction of the axis of the seed, it is axile or axial (fig. 43); when it is not in the direction of the axis, it becomes abaxile or abaxial. In campylotropal seeds the embryo is curved, and in place of being embedded in endosperm, is frequently external to it, following the concavity of the seed (fig. 44), and becoming peripherical, with the chalaza situated in the curvature of the embryo, as in Caryophyllaceae.

It has been already stated that the radicle of the embryo is directed to the micropyle, and the cotyledons to the chalaza. In some cases, by the growth of the integuments, the former is turned round so as not to correspond with the apex of the nucellus, and then the embryo has the radicle directed to one side, and is called excentric, as is seen in Primulaceae, Plantaginaceae and many palms, especially the date. The position of the embryo in different kinds of seeds varies. In an orthotropal seed the embryo is inverted or antitropal, the radicle pointing to the apex of the seed, or to the part opposite the hilum. Again, in an anatropal seed the embryo is erect or homotropal (fig. 43), the radicle being directed to the base of the seed. In curved or campylotropal seeds the embryo is folded so that its radicular and cotyledonary extremities are approximated, and it becomes amphitropal (fig. 44). In this instance the seed may be exalbuminous, and the embryo may be folded on itself; or albuminous, the embryo surrounding more or less completely the endosperm and being peripherical. According to the mode in which the seed is attached to the pericarp, the radicle may be directed upwards or downwards, or laterally, as regards the ovary. In an orthotropal seed attached to the base of the pericarp it is superior, as also in a suspended anatropal seed. In other anatropal seeds the radicle is inferior. When the seed is horizontal as regards the pericarp, the radicle is either centrifugal, when it points to the outer wall of the ovary; or centripetal, when it points to the axis or inner wall of the ovary. These characters are of value for purposes of classification, as they are often constant in large groups of genera.

Plants in which there are two cotyledons produced in the embryo are dicotyledonous. The two cotyledons thus formed are opposite to each other (figs. 42 and 45), but are not always of the same size. Thus, in Abronia and other members of the order Nyctaginaceae, one of them is smaller than the other (often very small), and in Carapa guianensis there appears to be only one, in consequence of the intimate union which takes place between the two. The union between the cotyledonary leaves may continue after the young plant begins to germinate. Such embryos have been called pseudomonocotyledonous. The texture of the cotyledons varies. They may be thick, as in the pea (fig. 42), exhibiting no traces of venation, with their flat internal surfaces in contact, and their backs more or less convex; or they may be in the form of thin and delicate laminae, flattened on both sides, and having distinct venation, as in Ricinus, Jatropha, Euonymus, &c. The cotyledons usually form the greater part of the mature embryo, and this is remarkably well seen in such exalbuminous seeds as the bean and pea.

Fig. 43.—Seed of Pansy (Viola tricolor) cut vertically. The embryo pl is axial, in the midst of fleshy endosperm al. The seed is anatropal, and the embryo is homotropal; the cotyledons co point to the base of the nucellus or chalaza ch, while the radicle, or the other extremity of the embryo, points to the micropyle, close to the hilum h. The hilum or base of the seed, and the chalaza or base of the nucellus are united by means of the raphe r.

Fig. 44.—Seed of the Red Campion (Lychnis), cut vertically, showing the peripheral embryo, with its two cotyledons and its radicle. The embryo is curved round the albumen, so that its cotyledons and radicle both come near the hilum (amphitropal).

Fig. 45.—Mature dicotyledonous embryo of the Almond, with one of the cotyledons removed. r, Radicle; t, young stem or caulicle; c, one of the cotyledons left; i, line of insertion of the cotyledon which has been removed; g, plumule.

Fig. 46.—Exalbuminous seed of Wallflower (Cheiranthus) cut vertically. The radicle r is folded on the edges of the cotyledons c which are accumbent.

Fig. 47.—Transverse section of the seed of the Wallflower (Cheiranthus), showing the radicle r folded on the edges of the accumbent cotyledons c.

Fig. 48.—Transverse section of the seed of the Dame’s Violet (Hesperis). The radicle r is folded on the back of the cotyledons c, which are said to be incumbent.

Cotyledons are usually entire and sessile. But they occasionally become lobed, as in the walnut and the lime; or petiolate, as in Geranium molle; or auriculate, as in the ash. Like leaves in the bud, cotyledons may be either applied directly to each other, or may be folded in various ways. In geranium the cotyledons are twisted and doubled; in convolvulus they are corrugated; and in the potato and in Bunias, they are spiral,—the same terms being applied as to the foliage leaves. The radicle and cotyledons are either straight or variously curved. Thus, in some cruciferous plants, as the wallflower, the cotyledons are applied by their faces, and the radicle (figs. 46, 47) is folded on their edges, so as to be lateral; the cotyledons are here accumbent. In others, as Hesperis, the cotyledons (fig. 48) are applied to each other by their faces, and the radicle, r, is folded on their back, so as to be dorsal, and the cotyledons are incumbent. Again, the cotyledons are conduplicate when the radicle is dorsal, and enclosed between their folds. In other divisions the radicle is folded in a spiral manner, and the cotyledons follow the same course.

In many gymnosperms more than two cotyledons are present, and they are arranged in a whorl. This occurs in Coniferae, especially in the pine, fir (fig. 49), spruce and larch, in which six, nine, twelve and even fifteen have been observed. They are linear, and resemble in their form and mode of development the clustered or fasciculated leaves of the larch. Plants having numerous cotyledons are termed polycotyledonous. In species of Streptocarpus the cotyledons are permanent, and act the part of leaves. One of them is frequently largely developed, while the other is small or abortive.

Fig. 49.—Polycotylodonous embryo of the Pine (Pinus) beginning to sprout. t, Hypocotyl; r, radicle. The cotyledons c are numerous. Within the cotyledons the primordial leaves are seen, constituting the plumule or first bud of the plant.

Fig. 50.—Embryo of a species of Arrow-grass (Triglochin), showing a uniform conical mass, with a slit s near the lower part. The cotyledon c envelops the young bud, which protrudes at the slit during germination. The radicle is developed from the lower part of the axis r.

Fig. 51.—Grain of wheat (Triticum) germinating, showing (b) the cotyledon and (c) the rootlets surrounded by their sheaths (coleorrhizae).

Fig. 52.—Embryo of Caryocar. t, Thick hypocotyl, forming nearly the whole mass, becoming narrowed and curved at its extremity, and applied to the groove s. In the figure this narrowed portion is slightly separated from the groove; c, two rudimentary cotyledons.

In those plants in which there is only a single cotyledon in the embryo, hence called monocotyledonous, the embryo usually has a cylindrical form more or less rounded at the extremities, or elongated and fusiform, often oblique. The axis is usually very short compared with the cotyledon, which in general encloses the plumule by its lower portion, and exhibits on one side a small slit which indicates the union of the edges of the vaginal or sheathing portion of the leaf (fig. 50). In grasses, by the enlargement of the embryo in a particular direction, the endosperm is pushed on one side, and thus the embryo comes to lie outside at the base of the endosperm (figs. 22, 51). The lamina of the cotyledon is not developed. Upon the side of the embryo next the endosperm and enveloping it is a large shield-shaped body, termed the scutellum. This is an outgrowth from the base of the cotyledon, enveloping more or less the cotyledon and plumule, in some cases, as in maize, completely investing it; in other cases, as in rice, merely sending small prolongations over its anterior face at the apex. By others this scutellum is considered as the true cotyledon, and the sheathing structure covering the plumule is regarded as a ligule or axillary stipule (see [Grasses]). In many aquatic monocotyledons (e.g. Potamogeton, Ruppia and others) there is a much-developed hypocotyl, which forms the greater part of the embryo and acts as a store of nutriment in germination; these are known as macropodous embryos. A similar case is that of Caryocar among Dicotyledons, where the swollen hypocotyl occupies most of the embryo (fig. 52). In some grasses, as oats and rice, a projection of cellular tissue is seen upon the side of the embryo opposite to the scutellum, that is, on the anterior side. This has been termed the epiblast. It is very large in rice. This by some was considered the rudimentary second cotyledon; but is now generally regarded as an outgrowth of the sheath of the true cotyledon.

(A. B. R.)

FRUIT AND FLOWER FARMING. The different sorts of fruits and flowers are dealt with in articles under their own headings, to which reference may be made; and these give the substantial facts as to their cultivation. See also the article [Horticulture].

Great Britain

Table I.—Extent of Orchards in Great Britain in each Year, 1887 to 1901.

Table II.—Areas under Orchards in England, Wales and Scotland—Acres.

The extent of the fruit industry may be gathered from the figures for the acreage of land under cultivation in orchards and small fruit plantations. The Board of Agriculture returns concerning the orchard areas of Great Britain showed a continuous expansion year by year from 199,178 acres in 1888 to 234,660 acres in 1901, as will be learnt from Table I. There was, it is true, an exception in 1892, but the decline in that year is explained by the circumstance that since 1891 the agricultural returns have been collected only from holdings of more than one acre, whereas they were previously obtained from all holdings of a quarter of an acre or more. As there are many holdings of less than an acre in extent upon which fruit is grown, and as fruit is largely raised also in suburban and other gardens which do not come into the returns, it may be taken for granted that the actual extent of land devoted to fruit culture exceeds that which is indicated by the official figures. In the Board of Agriculture returns up to June 1908, 308,000 acres are stated to be devoted to fruit cultivation of all kinds in Great Britain. Table II. shows that the expansion of the orchard area of Great Britain is mainly confined to England, for it has slightly decreased in Wales and Scotland. The acreage officially returned as under orchards is that of arable or grass land which is also used for fruit trees of any kind. Conditions of soil and climate determine the irregular distribution of orchards in Great Britain. The dozen counties which possess the largest extent of orchard land all lie in the south or west of the island. According to the returns for 1908 (excluding small fruit areas) they were the following:—

Leaving out of consideration the county of Kent, which grows a greater variety of fruit than any of the others, the counties of Devon, Hereford, Somerset, Worcester and Gloucester have an aggregate orchard area of 124,872 acres. These five counties of the west and south-west of England—constituting in one continuous area what is essentially the cider country of Great Britain—embrace therefore rather less than half of the entire orchard area of the island, while Salop, Monmouth and Wilts have about 300 less than they had a few years ago. Five English counties have less than 1000 acres each of orchards, namely, the county of London, and the northern counties of Cumberland, Westmorland, Northumberland and Durham. Rutland has just over 100 acres. The largest orchard areas in Wales are in the two counties adjoining Hereford—Brecon with 1136 acres and Radnor with 727 acres; at the other extreme is Anglesey, with a decreasing orchard area of only 22 acres. Of the Scottish counties, Lanark takes the lead with 1285 acres, Perth, Stirling and Haddington following with 684 and 129 acres respectively. Ayr and Midlothian are the only other counties possessing 100 acres or more of orchards, whilst Kincardine, Orkney and Shetland return no orchard area, and Banff, Bute, Kinross, Nairn, Peebles, Sutherland and Wigtown return less than 10 acres each. It may be added that in 1908 Jersey returned 1090 acres of orchards, Guernsey, &c., 144 acres, and the Isle of Man, 121 acres; the two last-named places showing a decline as compared with eight years previously.

Outside the cider counties proper of England, the counties in which orchards for commercial fruit-growing have increased considerably in recent years include Berks, Buckingham, Cambridge, Essex, Lincoln, Middlesex, Monmouth, Norfolk, Oxford, Salop, Sussex, Warwick and Wilts. Apples are the principal fruit grown in the western and south-western counties, pears also being fairly common. In parts of Gloucestershire, however, and in the Evesham and Pershore districts of Worcestershire, plum orchards exist. Plums are almost as largely grown as apples in Cambridgeshire. Large quantities of apples, plums, damsons, cherries, and a fair quantity of pears are grown for the market in Kent, whilst apples, plums and pears predominate in Middlesex. In many counties damsons are cultivated around fruit plantations to shelter the latter from the wind.

Of small fruit (currants, gooseberries, strawberries, raspberries, &c.) no return was made of the acreage previous to 1888, in which year it was given as 36,724 acres for Great Britain. In 1889 it rose to 41,933 acres.

Later figures are shown in Table III. It will be observed that, owing to corrections made in the enumeration in 1897, a considerable reduction in the area is recorded for that year, and presumably the error then discovered existed in all the preceding returns. The returns for 1907 gave the acreage of small fruit as 82,175 acres, and in 1908 at 84,880 acres—an area more than double that of 1889.

Table III.—Areas of Small Fruit in Great Britain.

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

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:

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:

The quantities of apples, pears, plums, cherries and grapes imported in the raw condition into the United Kingdom in each year, 1892 to 1901, are shown in Table V. Previous to 1892 apples only were separately enumerated. Up to 1899 inclusive the quantities were given in bushels, but in 1900 a change was made to hundred-weights. This renders the quantities in that and subsequent years not directly comparable with those in earlier years, but the comparison of the values, which are also given in the table, continues to hold good. The figures for 1908 have been added to show the increase that had taken place. In some years the value of imported apples exceeds the aggregate value of the pears, plums, cherries and grapes imported. The extreme values for apples shown in the table are £844,000 in 1893 and £2,079,000 in 1908. Grapes rank next to apples in point of value, and over the seventeen years the amount ranged between £394,000 in 1892 and £728,000 in 1908. On the average, the annual outlay on imported pears is slightly in excess of that on plums. The extremes shown are £167,000 in 1895 and £515,000 in 1908. In the case of plums, the smallest outlay tabulated is £166,000 in 1895, whilst the largest is £498,000 in 1897. The amounts expended upon imported cherries varied between £96,000 in 1895 and £308,000 in 1900. In 1900 apricots and peaches, imported raw, previously included with raw plums, were for the first time separately enumerated, the import into the United Kingdom for that year amounting to 13,689 cwt., valued at £25,846; in 1901 the quantity was 13,463 cwt. and the value £32,350. The latter rose in 1908 to £60,000. In 1900, also, currants, gooseberries and strawberries, hitherto included in unenumerated raw fruit, were likewise for the first time separately returned. Of raw currants the import was 64,462 cwt., valued at £87,170 (1908, £121,850); of raw gooseberries 26,045 cwt., valued at £14,626 (1908, £25,520); and of raw strawberries, 52,225 cwt., valued at £85,949. In 1907 only 44,000 cwt. of strawberries were imported. In 1901 the quantities and values were respectively—currants, 70,402 cwt., £75,308; gooseberries, 21,735 cwt., £11,420; strawberries, 38,604 cwt., £51,290. Up to 1899 the imports of tomatoes were included amongst unenumerated raw vegetables, so that the quantity was not separately ascertainable. For 1900 the import of tomatoes was 833,032 cwt., valued at £792,339, which is equivalent to a fraction under 2½d. per ℔. For 1901 the quantity was 793,991 cwt., and the value £734,051; for 1906, there were 1,124,700 cwt., valued at £953,475; for 1907, 1,135,499 cwt., valued at £1,020,805; and for 1908, 1,160,283 cwt., valued at £955,983.

Table V.—Imports of Raw Apples, Pears, Plums, Cherries and Grapes into the United Kingdom, 1892 to 1901. Quantities in Thousands of Bushels (thousands of cwt. in 1900 and 1901). Values in Thousands of Pounds Sterling.

In 1908 the outlay of the United Kingdom upon imported raw fruits, such as can easily be produced at home, was £4,195,654, made up as follows:

In addition about £280,000 was spent upon “unenumerated” raw fruit, and £560,000 on nuts other than almonds “used as fruit,” which would include walnuts and filberts, both produced at home. It is certain, therefore, that the expenditure on imported fruits, such as are grown within the limits of the United Kingdom, exceeds four millions sterling per annum. The remainder of the outlay on imported fruit in 1908, amounting to over £5,000,000, was made up of £2,269,651 for oranges, £471,713 for lemons, £1,769,249 for bananas, and £560,301 for almond-nuts; these cannot be grown on an industrial scale in the British Isles.

It may be interesting to note the source of some of these imported fruits. The United States and Canada send most of the apples, the quantity for 1907 being 1,413,000 cwt. and 1,588,000 cwt. respectively, while Australia contributes 280,000 cwt. Plums come chiefly from France (200,000 cwt.), followed with 38,000 cwt. from Germany and 28,000 cwt. from the Netherlands. Pears are imported chiefly from France (204,000 cwt.) and Belgium (176,000); but the Netherlands send 52,000 cwt., and the United States 24,000 cwt. The great bulk of imported tomatoes comes from the Canary Islands, the quantity in 1907 being 604,692 cwt. The Channel Islands also sent 223,800 cwt., France 115,500 cwt., Spain 169,000 cwt., and Portugal a long way behind with 11,700 cwt. Most of the strawberries imported come from France (33,800 cwt.) and the Netherlands (10,300 cwt.).

Fruit-growing in Kent.—Kent is by far the largest fruit-growing county in England. For centuries that county has been famous for its fruit, and appears to have been the centre for the distribution of trees and grafts throughout the country. The cultivation of fruit land upon farms in many parts of Kent has always been an important feature in its agriculture. An excellent description of this noteworthy characteristic of Kentish farming is contained in a comprehensive paper on the agriculture of Kent by Mr Charles Whitehead,[1] whose remarks, with various additions and modifications, are here reproduced.

Where the conditions are favourable, especially in East and Mid Kent, there is a considerable acreage of fruit land attached to each farm, planted with cherry, apple, pear, plum and damson trees, and with bush fruits, or soft fruits as they are sometimes called, including gooseberries, currants, raspberries, either with or without standard trees, and strawberries, and filberts and cob-nuts in Mid Kent. This acreage has largely increased, and will no doubt continue to increase, as, on the whole, fruit-growing has been profitable and has materially benefited those fortunate enough to have fruit land on their farms. There are also cultivators who grow nothing but fruit. These are principally in the district of East Kent, between Rochester and Canterbury, and in the district of Mid Kent near London, and they manage their fruit land, as a rule, better than farmers, as they give their undivided attention to it and have more technical knowledge. But there has been great improvement of late in the management of fruit land, especially of cherry and apple orchards, the grass of which is fed off by animals having corn or cake, or the land is well manured. Apple trees are grease-banded and sprayed systematically by advanced fruit-growers to prevent or check the attacks of destructive insects. Far more attention is being paid to the selection of varieties of apples and pears having colour, size, flavour, keeping qualities, and other attributes to meet the tastes of the public, and to compete with the beautiful fruit that comes from the United States and Canada.

Of the various kinds of apples at present grown in Kent mention should be made of Mr Gladstone, Beauty of Bath, Devonshire Quarrenden, Lady Sudely, Yellow Ingestre and Worcester Pearmain. These are dessert apples ready to pick in August and September, and are not stored. For storing, King of the Pippins, Cox’s Orange Pippin (the best dessert apple in existence), Cox’s Pomona, Duchess, Favourite, Gascoyne’s Scarlet Seedling, Court Pendu Plat, Baumann’s Red Reinette, Allington Pippin, Duke of Devonshire and Blenheim Orange. Among kitchen apples for selling straight from the trees the most usually planted are Lord Grosvenor, Lord Suffield, Keswick Codlin, Early Julian, Eclinville Seedling, Pott’s Seedling, Early Rivers, Grenadier, Golden Spire, Stirling Castle and Domino. For storing, the cooking sorts favoured now are Stone’s or Loddington, Warner’s King, Wellington, Lord Derby, Queen Caroline, Tower of Glamis, Winter Queening, Lucombe’s Seedling, Bismarck, Bramley’s Seedling, Golden Noble and Lane’s Prince Albert. Almost all these will flourish equally as standards, pyramids and bushes. Among pears are Hessle, Clapp’s Favourite, William’s Bon Chrétien, Beurré de Capiaumont, Fertility, Beurré Riche, Chissel, Beurré Clairgeau, Louise Bonne of Jersey, Doyenne du Comice and Vicar of Winkfield. Among plums, Rivers’s Early Prolific, Tsar, Belgian Purple, Black Diamond, Kentish Bush Plum, Pond’s Seedling, Magnum Bonum and Victoria are mainly cultivated. The damson known as Farleigh Prolific, or Crittenden’s, is most extensively grown throughout the county, and usually yields large crops, which make good prices. As a case in point, purchasers were offering to contract for quantities of this damson at £20 per ton in May of 1899, as the prospects of the yield were unsatisfactory. On the other hand, in one year recently when the crop was abnormally abundant, some of the fruit barely paid the expenses of sending to market. The varieties of cherries most frequently grown are Governor Wood, Knight’s Early Black, Frogmore Blackheart, Black Eagle, Waterloo, Amberheart, Bigarreau, Napoleon Bigarreau and Turk. A variety of cherry known as the Kentish cherry, of a light red colour and fine subacid flavour, is much grown in Kent for drying and cooking purposes. Another cherry, similar in colour and quality, which comes rather late, known as the Flemish, is also extensively cultivated, as well as the very dark red large Morello, used for making cherry brandy. These three varieties are grown extensively as pyramids, and the last-named also on walls and sides of buildings. Sometimes the cherry crop is sold by auction to dealers, who pick, pack and consign the fruit to market. Large prices are often made, as much as £80 per acre being not uncommon. The crop on a large cherry orchard in Mid Kent has been sold for more than £100 per acre.

Where old standard trees have been long neglected and have become overgrown by mosses and lichens, the attempts made to improve them seldom succeed. The introduction of bush fruit trees dwarfed by grafting on the Paradise stock has been of much advantage to fruit cultivators, as they come into bearing in two or three years, and are more easily cultivated, pruned, sprayed and picked than standards. Many plantations of these bush trees have been formed in Kent of apples, pears and plums. Half standards and pyramids have also been planted of these fruits, as well as of cherries. Bushes of gooseberries and currants, and clumps or stools of raspberry canes, have been planted to a great extent in many parts of the East and Mid divisions of Kent, but not much in the Weald, where apples are principally grown. Sometimes fruit bushes are put in alternate rows with bush of standard trees of apple, pear, plum or damson, or they are planted by themselves. The distances apart for planting are generally for cherry and apple trees on grass 30 ft. by 30 ft.; for standard apples and pear trees from 20 ft. to 24 ft. upon arable land, with bush fruit, as gooseberries and currants, under them. These are set 6 ft. by 6 ft. apart, and 5 ft. by 2 ft. for raspberries, and strawberries 2 ft. 6 in. to 3 ft. by 1 ft. 6 in. to 1 ft. 3 in. apart. On some fruit farms bush or dwarf trees—apples, pears, plums—are planted alone, at distances varying from 8 ft. to 10 ft. apart, giving from 485 to 680 bush trees per acre, nothing being grown between them except perhaps strawberries or vegetables during the first two or three years. It is believed that this is the best way of ensuring fruit of high quality and colour. Another arrangement consists in putting standard apple or pear trees 30 ft. apart (48 trees per acre), and setting bush trees of apples or pears 15 ft. apart between them; these latter come quickly into bearing, and are removed when the standards are fully grown. Occasionally gooseberry or currant bushes, or raspberry canes or strawberry plants, are set between the bush trees, and taken away directly they interfere with the growth of these. Half standard apple or plum trees are set triangularly 15 ft. apart, and strawberry plants at a distance of 1½ ft. from plant to plant and 2½ ft. from row to row. Or currant or gooseberry bushes are set between the half standards, and strawberry plants between these.

These systems involve high farming. The manures used are London manure, where hops are not grown, and bone meal, super-phosphate, rags, shoddy, wool-waste, fish refuse, nitrate of soda, kainit and sulphate of ammonia. Where hops are grown the London manure is wanted for them. Fruit plantations are always dug by hand with the Kent spud. Fruit land is never ploughed, as in the United States and Canada. The soil is levelled down with the “Canterbury” hoe, and then the plantations are kept free from weeds with the ordinary draw or “plate” hoe. The best fruit farmers spray fruit trees regularly in the early spring, and continue until the blossoms come out, with quassia and soft soap and paraffin emulsions, and a very few with Paris green only, where there is no under fruit, in order to prevent and check the constant attacks of the various caterpillars and other insect pests. This is a costly and laborious process, but it pays well, as a rule. The fallacy that fruit trees on grass land require no manure, and that the grass may be allowed to grow up to their trunks without any harm, is exploding, and many fruit farmers are well manuring their grass orchards and removing the grass for some distance round the stems, particularly where the trees are young.

Strawberries are produced in enormous quantities in the northern part of the Mid Kent district round the Crays, and from thence to Orpington; also near Sandwich, and to some extent near Maidstone. Raspberry canes have been extensively put in during the last few years, and in some seasons yield good profits. There is a very great and growing demand for all soft fruits for jam-making, and prices are fairly good, taking an average of years, notwithstanding the heavy importations from France, Belgium, Holland, Spain and Italy. The extraordinary increase in the national demand for jam and other fruit preserves has been of great benefit to Kent fruit producers. The cheapness of duty-free sugar, as compared with sugar paying duty in the United States and other large fruit-producing countries, afforded one of the very few advantages possessed by British cultivators, but the reimposition of the sugar duty in the United Kingdom in 1901 has modified the position in this respect. Jam factories were established in several parts of Kent about 1889 or 1890, but most of them collapsed either from want of capital or from bad management. There are still a few remaining, principally in connexion with large fruit farms. One of these is at Swanley, whose energetic owners farm nearly 2000 acres of fruit land in Kent. The fruit grown by them that will not make satisfactory prices in a fresh raw state is made into jam, or if time presses it is first made into pulp, and kept until the opportunity comes for making it into jam. In this factory there are fifteen steam-jacketed vats in one row, and six others for candied peel. A season’s output on a recent occasion comprised about 3500 tons of jam, 850 tons of candied peel and 750 gross (108,000 bottles) of bottled fruit. A great deal of the fruit preserved is purchased, whilst much of that grown on the farms is sold. A strigging machine is employed, which does as much work as fifty women in taking currants off their strigs or stalks. Black currant pulp is stored in casks till winter, when there is time to convert it into jam. Strawberries cannot be pulped to advantage, but it is otherwise with raspberries, the pulp of which is largely made. Apricots for jam are obtained chiefly from France and Spain. There is another flourishing factory near Sittingbourne worked on the same lines. It is very advantageous to fruit farmers to have jam factories in connexion with their farms or to have them near, as they can thoroughly grade their fruit, and send only the best to market, thus ensuring a high reputation for its quality. Carriage is saved, which is a serious charge, though railway rates from Kent to the great manufacturing towns and to Scotland are very much less proportionally than those to London, and consequently Kent growers send increasing quantities to these distant markets, where prices are better, not being so directly interfered with by imported fruit, which generally finds its way to London.

Kentish fruit-growers are becoming more particular in picking, grading, packing and storing fruit, as well as in marketing it. A larger quantity of fruit is now carefully stored, and sent to selected markets as it ripens, or when there is an ascertained demand, as it is found that if it is consigned to market direct from the trees there must frequently be forced sales and competition with foreign fruit that is fully matured and in good order. It was customary formerly for Kentish growers to consign all their fruit to the London markets; now a good deal of it is sent to Manchester, Birmingham, Liverpool, Sheffield, Newcastle and other large cities. Some is sent even to Edinburgh and Glasgow. Many large growers send no fruit to London now. It is by no means uncommon for growers to sell their fruit crops on the trees or bushes by auction or private treaty, or to contract to supply a stipulated quantity of specified fruit, say of currants, raspberries or strawberries, to jam manufacturers. There is a considerable quantity of fruit, such as grapes, peaches, nectarines, grown under glass, and this kind of culture tends to increase.

Filberts and cob-nuts are a special product of Kent, in the neighbourhood of Maidstone principally, and upon the Ragstone soils, certain conditions of soil and situation being essential for their profitable production. A part of the filbert and cob-nut crop is picked green in September, as they do well for dessert, though their kernels are not large or firm, and it pays to sell them green, as they weigh more heavily. One grower in Mid Kent has 100 acres of nuts, and has grown 100 tons in a good year. The average price of late years has been about 5d. per ℔, which would make the gross return of the 100 acres amount to £4660. Kentish filberts have long been proverbial for their excellence. Cobs are larger and look better for dessert, though their flavour is not so fine. They are better croppers, and are now usually planted. This cultivation is not much extending, as it is very long before the trees come into full bearing. The London market is supplied entirely with these nuts from Kent, and there is some demand in America for them. Filbert and cob trees are most closely pruned. All the year’s growth is cut away except the very finest young wood, which the trained eye of the tree-cutter sees at a glance is blossom-bearing. The trees are kept from 5½ to 7 ft. high upon stems from 1½ to 2 ft. high, and are trained so as to form a cup of from 7 to 8 ft. in diameter.

There seems no reason to expect any decrease in the acreage of fruit land in Kent, and if the improvement in the selection of varieties and in the general management continues it will yet pay. A hundred years ago every one was grubbing fruit land in order that hops might be planted, and for this many acres of splendid cherry orchards were sacrificed. Now the disposition is to grub hop plants and substitute apples, plums, or small fruit or cherry trees.

Fruit-growing in other Districts.—The large fruit plantations in the vicinity of London are to be found mostly in the valley of the Thames, around such centres as Brentford, Isleworth, Twickenham, Heston, Hounslow, Cranford and Southall. All varieties of orchard trees, but mostly apples, pears, and plums and small fruit, are grown in these districts, the nearness of which to the metropolitan fruit market at Covent Garden is of course an advantage. Some of the orchards are old, and are not managed on modern principles. They contain, moreover, varieties of fruit many of which are out of date and would not be employed in establishing new plantations. In the better-managed grounds the antiquated varieties have been removed, and their places taken by newer and more approved types. In addition to apples, pears, plums, damsons, cherries and quinces as top fruit, currants, gooseberries and raspberries are grown as bottom fruit. Strawberries are extensively grown in some of the localities, and in favourable seasons outdoor tomatoes are ripened and marketed.

Fruit is extensively grown in Cambridgeshire and adjacent counties in the east of England. A leading centre is Cottenham, where the Lower Greensand crops out and furnishes one of the best of soils for fruit-culture. In Cottenham about a thousand acres are devoted to fruit, and nearly the same acreage to asparagus, which is, however, giving place to fruit. Currants, gooseberries and strawberries are the most largely grown, apples, plums and raspberries following. Of varieties of plums the Victoria is first in favour, and then Rivers’s Early Prolific, Tsar and Gisborne. London is the chief market, as it receives about half the fruit sent away, whilst a considerable quantity goes to Manchester, and some is sent to a neighbouring jam factory at Histon, where also a moderate acreage of fruit is grown. Another fruit-growing centre in Cambridgeshire is at Willingham, where—besides plums, gooseberries and raspberries—outdoor tomatoes are a feature. Greengages are largely grown near Cambridge. Wisbech is the centre of an extensive fruit district, situated partly in Cambridgeshire and partly in Norfolk. Gooseberries, strawberries and raspberries are largely grown, and as many as 80 tons of the first-named fruit have been sent away from Wisbech station in a single day. In the fruit-growing localities of Huntingdonshire apples, plums and gooseberries are the most extensively grown, but pears, greengages, cherries, currants, strawberries and raspberries are also cultivated. As illustrating variations in price, it may be mentioned that about the year 1880 the lowest price for gooseberries was £10 per ton, whereas it has since been down to £4. Huntingdonshire fruit is sent chiefly to Yorkshire, Scotland and South Wales, but railway freights are high.

Essex affords a good example of successful fruit-farming at Tiptree Heath, near Kelvedon, where under one management about 260 acres out of a total of 360 are under fruit. The soil, a stiff loam, grows strawberries to perfection, and 165 acres are allotted to this fruit. The other principal crops are 43 acres of raspberries and 30 acres of black currants, besides which there are small areas of red currants, gooseberries, plums, damsons, greengages, cherries, apples, quinces and blackberries. The variety of strawberry known as the Small Scarlet is a speciality here, and it occupies 55 acres, as it makes the best of jam. The Paxton, Royal Sovereign and Noble varieties are also grown. Strawberries stand for six or seven years on this farm, and begin to yield well when two years old. A jam factory is worked in conjunction with the fruit farm. Pulp is not made except when there is a glut of fruit. Perishable fruit intended for whole-fruit preserves is never held over after it is gathered. The picking of strawberries begins at 4 A.M., and the first lot is made into jam by 6 A.M.

Hampshire, like Cambridgeshire and Norfolk, are the only counties in which the area of small fruit exceeds that of orchards. The returns for 1908 show that Hampshire had 3320 acres of small fruit to 2236 acres of orchards; Cambridge had 6878 acres of small fruit to 5221 of orchards; and Norfolk had 5876 acres of small fruit against 5188 acres of orchards. Compared with twenty years previously, the acreage of small fruit had trebled. This is largely due in Hampshire to the extension of strawberry culture in the Southampton district, where the industry is in the hands of many small growers, few of whom cultivate more than 20 acres each. Sarisbury and Botley are the leading parishes in which the business is carried on. Most of the strawberry holdings are from half an acre to 5 acres in extent, a few are from 5 to 10 acres, fewer still from 10 to 20 acres and only half-a-dozen over that limit. Runners from one-year plants are used for planting, being found more fruitful than those from older plants. Peat-moss manure from London stables is much used, but artificial manures are also employed with good results. Shortly after flowering the plants are bedded down with straw at the rate of about 25 cwt. per acre. Picking begins some ten days earlier than in Kent, at a date between 1st June and 15th June. The first week’s gathering is sent mostly to London, but subsequently the greater part of the fruit goes to the Midlands and to Scotland and Ireland.

In recent years fruit-growing has much increased in South Worcestershire, in the vicinity of Evesham and Pershore. Hand-lights are freely used in the market gardens of this district for the protection of cucumbers and vegetable marrows, besides which tomatoes are extensively grown out of doors. At one time the egg plum and the Worcester damson were the chief fruit crops, apples and cherries ranking next, pears being grown to only a moderate extent. According to the 1908 returns, however, apples come first, plums second, pears third and cherries fourth. In a prolific season a single tree of the Damascene or Worcester damson will yield from 400 to 500 ℔ of fruit. There is a tendency to grow plum trees in the bush shape, as they are less liable than standards to injury from wind. The manures used include soot, fish guano, blood manure and phosphates—basic slag amongst the last-named. In the Pershore district, where there is a jam factory, plums are the chief tree fruit, whilst most of the orchard apples and pears are grown for cider and perry. Gooseberries are a feature, as are also strawberries, red and black currants and a few white, but raspberries are little grown. The soil, a strong or medium loam of fair depth, resting on clay, is so well adapted to plums that trees live for fifty years. In order to check the ravages of the winter moth, plum and apple trees are grease-banded at the beginning of October and again at the end of March. The trees are also sprayed when necessary with insecticidal solutions. Pruning is done in the autumn. An approved distance apart at which to grow plum trees is 12 ft. by 12 ft. In the Earl of Coventry’s fruit plantation, 40 acres in extent, at Croome Court, plums and apples are planted alternately, the bottom fruit being black currants, which are less liable to injury from birds than are red currants or gooseberries. Details concerning the methods of cultivation of fruit and flowers in various parts of England, the varieties commonly grown, the expenditure involved, and allied matters, will be found in Mr W.E. Bear’s papers in the Journal of the Royal Agricultural Society in 1898 and 1899.

Apart altogether from market gardening and commercial fruit-growing, it must be borne in mind that an enormous business is done in the raising of young fruit-trees every year. Hundreds of thousands of apples, pears, plums, cherries, peaches, nectarines and apricots are budded or grafted each year on suitable stocks. They are trained in various ways, and are usually fit for sale the third year. These young trees replace old ones in private and commercial gardens, and are also used to establish new plantations in different parts of the kingdom.

The Woburn Experimental Fruit Farm.—The establishment in 1894 of the experimental fruit farm at Ridgmont, near Woburn, Beds, has exercised a healthy influence upon the progress and development of fruit-farming in England. The farm was founded and carried on by the public-spirited enterprise of the Duke of Bedford and Mr Spencer U. Pickering, the latter acting as director. The main object of the experimental station was “to ascertain facts relative to the culture of fruit, and to increase our knowledge of, and to improve our practice in, this industry.” The farm is 20 acres in extent, and occupies a field which up to June 1894 had been used as arable land for the ordinary rotation of farm crops. The soil is a sandy loam 9 or 10 in. deep, resting on a bed of Oxford Clay. Although it contains a large proportion of sand, the land would generally be termed very heavy, and the water often used to stand on it in places for weeks together in a wet season. The tillage to which the ground was subjected for the purposes of the fruit farm much improved its character, and in dry weather it presents as good a tilth as could be desired. Chemical analyses of the soil from different parts of the field show such wide differences that it is admitted to be by no means an ideal one for experimental purposes. Without entering upon further details, it may be useful to give a summary of the chief results obtained.

Apples have been grown and treated in a variety of ways, but of the different methods of treatment careless planting, coupled with subsequent neglect, has given the most adverse results, the crop of fruit being not 5% of that from trees grown normally. Of the separate deleterious items constituting total neglect, by far the most effective was the growth of weeds on the surface; careless planting, absence of manure, and the omission of trenching all had comparatively little influence on the results. A set of trees that had been carelessly planted and neglected, but subsequently tended in the early part of 1896, were in the autumn of that year only 10% behind their normally-treated neighbours, thus demonstrating that the response to proper attention is prompt. The growth of grass around young apple trees produced a very striking effect, the injury being much greater than that due to weeds. It is possible, however, that in wet years the ill-effects of both grass and weeds would be less than in dry seasons. Nevertheless, the grass-grown trees, after five years, were scarcely bigger than when planted, and the actual increase in weight which they showed during that time was about eighteen times smaller than in the case of similar trees in tilled ground. It is believed that one of the main causes of the ill-effects is the large increase in the evaporation of water from the soil which is known to be produced by grass, the trees being thereby made to suffer from drought, with constant deprivation of other nourishment as well. That grass growing round young apple trees is deleterious was a circumstance known to many horticulturists, but the extent to which it interferes with the development of the trees had never before been realized. Thousands of pounds are annually thrown away in England through want of knowledge of this fact. Yet trees will flourish in grass under certain conditions. Whether the dominant factor is the age (or size) of the tree has been investigated by grassing over trees which have hitherto been in the open ground, and the results appear to indicate that the grass is as deleterious to the older trees as it was to the younger ones. Again, it appears to have been demonstrated that young apple trees, at all events in certain soils, require but little or no manure in the early stages of their existence, so that in this case also large sums must be annually wasted upon manurial dressings which produce no effects. The experiments have dealt with dwarf trees of Bramley, Cox and Potts, six trees of each variety constituting one investigation. Some of the experiments were repeated with Stirling Castle, and others with standard trees of Bramley, Cox and Lane’s Prince Albert. All were planted in 1894-1895, the dwarfs being then three years old and the standards four. In each experiment the “normal” treatment is altered in some one particular, this normal treatment consisting of planting the trees carefully in trenched ground, and subsequently keeping the surface clean; cutting back after planting, pruning moderately in autumn, and shortening the growths when it appeared necessary in summer; giving in autumn a dressing of mixed mineral manures, and in February one of nitrate of soda, this dressing being probably equivalent to one of 12 tons of dung per acre. In the experiments on branch treatment, the bad effects of omitting to cut the trees back on planting, or to prune them subsequently, is evident chiefly in the straggling and bad shape of the resulting trees, but such trees also are not so vigorous as they should be. The quantity of fruit borne, however, is in excess of the average. The check on the vigour and growth of a tree by cutting or injuring its roots is in marked contrast with the effects of a similar interference with the branches. Trees which had been root-pruned each year were in 1898 little more than half as big as the normal trees, whilst those root-pruned every second year were about two-thirds as big as the normal. The crops borne by these trees were nevertheless heavy in proportion to the size of the trees. Such frequent root-pruning is not, of course, a practice which should be adopted. It was found that trees which had been carefully lifted every other year and replanted at once experienced no ill-effects from the operation; but in a case where the trees after being lifted had been left in a shed for three days before replanting—which would reproduce to a certain extent the conditions experienced when trees are sent out from a nursery—material injury was suffered, these trees after four years being 28% smaller than similar ones which had not been replanted. Sets of trees planted respectively in November, January and March have, on the whole, shown nothing in favour of any of these different times for planting purposes. Some doubt is thrown on the accepted view that there is a tendency, at any rate with young apple and pear trees, to fruit in alternate seasons.

Strawberries of eighty-five different varieties have been experimented with, each variety being represented in 1900 by plants of five different ages, from one to five years. In 1896 and 1898 the crops of fruit were about twice as heavy as in 1897 and 1899, but it has not been found possible to correlate these variations with the meteorological records of the several seasons. Taking the average of all the varieties, the relative weights of crop per plant, when these are compared with the two-year-old plants in the same season, are, for the five ages of one to five years, 31, 100, 122, 121 and 134, apparently showing that the bearing power increases rapidly up to two years, less rapidly up to three years, after which age it remains practically constant. The relative average size of the berries shows a deterioration with the age of the plant. The comparative sizes from plants of one to five years old were 115, 100, 96, 91 and 82 respectively. If the money value of the crop is taken to be directly dependent on its total weight, and also on the size of the fruits, the relative values of the crop for the different ages would be 34, 100, 117, 111 and 110, so that, on the Ridgmont ground, strawberry plants could be profitably retained up to five years and probably longer. As regards what may be termed the order of merit of different varieties of strawberries, it appears that even small differences in position and treatment cause large variations, not only in the features of the crop generally, but also in the relative behaviour of the different varieties. The relative cropping power of the varieties under apparently similar conditions may often be expressed by a number five or tenfold as great in one case as in the other. A comparison of the relative behaviour of the same varieties in different seasons is attended by similar variations. The varying sensitiveness of different varieties of strawberry plants to small and undefinable differences in circumstances is indeed one of the most important facts brought to light in the experiments.

Fruit Culture in Ireland.—The following figures have been kindly supplied by the Irish Board of Agriculture, and deal with the acreage under fruit culture in Ireland up to the end of the year 1907.

It therefore appears that while Ireland grows only about one-thirty-third the quantity of apples that England does, it is nevertheless nearly 5000 acres ahead of Scotland and about 2000 acres ahead of Wales. It grows 41 times fewer pears than England, but still is ahead of Scotland and a long way ahead of Wales in this fruit. There are 70 times fewer plums grown in Ireland than in England, and about the same in Scotland, while Wales does very little indeed. In small fruit Ireland is a long way behind Scotland in the culture of strawberries and raspberries, although with currants and gooseberries it is very close. Considering the climate, and the fact that there are, according to the latest available returns, over 62,000 holdings above 1 acre but not exceeding 5 acres (having a total of 224,000 acres), it is possible fruit culture may become more prevalent than it has been in the past.

The Flower-growing Industry.—During the last two or three decades of the 19th century a very marked increase in flower production occurred in England. Notably was this the case in the neighbourhood of London, where, within a radius of 15 or 20 m., the fruit crops, which had largely taken the place of garden vegetables, were themselves ousted in turn to satisfy the increasing demand for land for flower cultivation. No flower has entered more largely into the development of the industry than the narcissus or daffodil, of which there are now some 600 varieties. Comparatively few of these, however, are grown for market purposes, although all are charming from the amateur point of view. On some flower farms a dozen or more acres are devoted to narcissi alone, the production of bulbs for sale as well as of flowers for market being the object of the growers.

In the London district the country in the Thames valley west of the metropolis is as largely occupied by flower farms as it is by fruit farms—in fact, the cultivation of flowers is commonly associated with that of fruit. In the vicinity of Richmond narcissi are extensively grown, as they also are more to the west in the Long Ditton district, and likewise around Twickenham, Isleworth, Hounslow, Feltham and Hampton. Roses come more into evidence in the neighbourhood of Hounslow, Cranford, Hillingdon and Uxbridge, and in some gardens daffodils and roses occupy alternate rows. In this district also such flowers as herbaceous paeonies, Spanish irises, German irises, Christmas roses, lilies of the valley, chrysanthemums, foxgloves, hollyhocks, wallflowers, carnations, &c., are extensively grown in many market gardens. South of London is the Mitcham country, long noted for its production of lavender. The incessant growth of the lavender plant upon the same land, however, has led to the decline of this industry, which has been largely transferred to districts in the counties of Bedford, Essex and Hertford. At Mitcham, nevertheless, mixed flowers are very largely grown for the supply of the metropolis, and one farm alone has nearly 100 acres under flowers and glass-houses. Chrysanthemums, asters, Iceland poppies, gaillardias, pansies, bedding calceolarias, zonal pelargoniums and other plants are cultivated in immense quantities. At Swanley and Eynsford, in Kent, flowers are extensively cultivated in association with fruit and vegetables. Narcissi, chrysanthemums, violets, carnations, campanulas, roses, pansies, irises, sweet peas, and many other flowers are here raised, and disposed of in the form both of cut flowers and of plants.

The Scilly Isles are important as providing the main source of supply of narcissi to the English markets in the early months of the year. This trade arose almost by accident, for it was about the year 1865 that a box of narcissi sent to Covent Garden Market, London, realized £1; and the knowledge of this fact getting abroad, the farmers of the isles began collecting wild bulbs from the fields in order to cultivate them and increase their stocks. Some ten years, however, elapsed before the industry promised to become remunerative. In 1885 a Bulb and Flower Association was established to promote the industrial growth of flowers. The exports of flowers in that year reached 65 tons, and they steadily increased until 1893, when they amounted to 450 tons. A slight decline followed, but in 1896 the quantity exported was no less than 514 tons. This would represent upwards of 3½ million bunches of flowers, chiefly narcissi and anemones. Rather more than 500 acres are devoted to flower-growing in the isles, by far the greater part of this area being assigned to narcissi, whilst anemones, gladioli, marguerites, arum lilies, Spanish irises, pinks and wallflowers are cultivated on a much smaller scale. The great advantage enjoyed by the Scilly flower-growers is earliness of production, due to climatic causes; the soil, moreover, is well suited to flower culture and there is an abundance of sunshine. The long journey to London is somewhat of a drawback, in regard to both time and freight, but the earliness of the flowers more than compensates for this. Open-air narcissi are usually ready at the beginning of January, and the supply is maintained in different varieties up to the middle or end of May. The narcissus bulbs are usually planted in October, 4 in. by 3 in. apart for the smaller sorts and 6 in. by 4 to 6 in. for the larger. A compost of farmyard manure, seaweed, earth and road scrapings is the usual dressing, but nitrate of soda, guano and bones are also occasionally employed. A better plan, perhaps, is to manure heavily the previous crop, frequently potatoes, no direct manuring then being needed for the bulbs, these not being left in the ground more than two or three years. The expenses of cultivation are heavy, the cost of bulbs alone—of which it requires nearly a quarter of a million of the smaller varieties, or half as many of the largest, to plant an acre—being considerable. The polyanthus varieties of narcissus are likely to continue the most remunerative to the flower-growers of Scilly, as they flourish better in these isles than on the mainland.

In the district around the Wash, in the vicinity of such towns as Wisbech, Spalding and Boston, the industrial culture of bulbs and flowers underwent great expansion in the period between 1880 and 1909. At Wisbech one concern alone has a farm of some 900 acres, devoted chiefly to flowers and fruit, the soil being a deep fine alluvium. Roses are grown here, one field containing upwards of 100,000 trees. Nearly 20 acres are devoted to narcissi, which are grown for the bulbs and also, together with tulips, for cut flowers. Carnations are cultivated both in the field and in pots. Cut flowers are sent out in large quantities, neatly and effectively packed, the parcel post being mainly employed as a means of distribution. In the neighbourhood of Spalding crocuses and snowdrops are less extensively grown than used to be the case. On one farm, however, upwards of 20 acres are devoted to narcissi alone, whilst gladioli, lilies and irises are grown on a smaller scale. Around Boston narcissi are also extensively grown for the market, both bulbs and cut blooms being sold. The bulbs are planted 3 in. apart in rows, the latter being 9 in. apart, and are allowed to stand from two to four years.

The imports of fresh flowers into the United Kingdom were not separately shown prior to 1900. In that year, however, their value amounted to £200,585, in 1901 to £225,011, in 1906 to £233,884, in 1907 to £233,641, and in 1908 to £229,802, so that the trade showed a fairly steady condition. From the monthly totals quoted in Table VI. it would appear that the trade sinks to its minimum dimensions in the four months July to October inclusive, and that after September the business continually expands up to April, subsequent to which contraction again sets in. About one-half of the trade belongs practically to the three months of February, March and April.

Table VI.—Values of Fresh Flowers imported into the United Kingdom.

Hothouse Culture of Fruit and Flowers.—The cultivation of fruit and flowers under glass has increased enormously since about the year 1880, especially in the neighbourhood of London, where large sums of money have been sunk in the erection and equipment of hothouses. In the parish of Cheshunt, Herts, alone there are upwards of 130 acres covered with glass, and between that place on the north and London on the south extensive areas of land are similarly utilized. In Middlesex, in the north, in the districts of Edmonton, Enfield, Ponders End and Finchley, and in the west from Isleworth to Hampton, Feltham, Hillingdon, Sipson and Uxbridge, many crops are now cultivated under glass. At Erith, Swanley, and other places in Kent, as also at Worthing, in Sussex, glass-house culture has much extended. A careful estimate puts the area of industrial hothouses in England at about 1200 acres, but it is probably much more than this. Most of the greenhouses are fixtures, but in some parts of the kingdom structures that move on rails and wheels are used, to enable the ground to be prepared in the open for one crop while another is maturing under glass. The leading products are grapes, tomatoes and cucumbers, the last-named two being true fruits from the botanist’s point of view, though commercially included with vegetables. To these may be added on the same ground dwarf or French beans, and runner or climbing beans. Peaches, nectarines and strawberries are largely grown under glass, and, in private hothouses—from which the produce is used mainly for household consumption, and which are not taken into consideration here—pineapples, figs and other fruit. Conservative estimates indicate the average annual yield of hothouse grapes to be about 12 tons per acre and of tomatoes 20 tons. The greater part of the space in the hothouses is assigned to fruit, but whilst some houses are devoted exclusively to flowers, in others, where fruit is the main object, flowers are forced in considerable quantities in winter and early spring. The flowers grown under glass include tulips, hyacinths, primulas, cyclamens, spiraeas, mignonettes, fuchsias, calceolarias, roses, chrysanthemums, daffodils, arum lilies or callas, liliums, azaleas, eucharises, camellias, stephanotis, tuberoses, bouvardias, gardenias, heaths or ericas, poinsettias, lilies of the valley, zonal pelargoniums, tuberous and fibrous rooted begonias, and many others. There is an increasing demand for foliage hothouse plants, such as ferns, palms, crotons, aspidistras, araucarias, dracaenas, India-rubber plants, aralias, grevilleas, &c. Berried plants like solanums and aucubas also find a ready sale, while the ornamental kinds of asparagus such as sprengeri and plumosus nanus, are ever in demand for trailing decorations, as well as myrsiphyilum. Special mention must be made of the winter or perpetual flowering carnations which are now grown by hundreds of thousands in all parts of the kingdom for decorative work during the winter season. The converse of forcing plants into early blossom is adopted with such an important crop as lily of the valley. During the summer season the crowns are placed in refrigerators with about 2 degrees of frost, and quantities are taken out as required every week and transferred to the greenhouse to develop. Tomatoes are grown largely in houses exclusively occupied by them, in which case two and sometimes three crops can be gathered in the year. In the Channel Islands, where potatoes grown under glass are lifted in April and May, in order to secure the high prices of the early markets, tomato seedlings are planted out from boxes into the ground as quickly as the potatoes are removed, the tomato planter working only a few rows behind the potato digger. The trade in imported tomatoes is so considerable that home growers are well justified in their endeavours to meet the demand more fully with native produce, whether raised under glass or in the open. Tomatoes were not separately enumerated in the imports previous to 1900. It has already been stated that in 1900 the raw tomatoes imported amounted to 833,032 cwt., valued at £792,339, and in 1901 to 793,991 cwt., valued at £734,051. From the monthly quantities given in Table VII., it would appear that the imports are largest in June, July and August, about one-half of the year’s total arriving during those three months. It is too early in June and July for home-grown outdoor tomatoes to enter into competition with the imported product, but home-grown hothouse tomatoes should be qualified to challenge this trade.

Table VII.—Quantities of Tomatoes imported into the United Kingdom.

An important feature of modern flower growing is the production and cultivation of what are known as “hardy herbaceous perennials.” Some 2000 or 3000 different species and varieties of these are now raised in special nurseries; and during the spring, summer and autumn seasons magnificent displays are to be seen not only in the markets but at the exhibitions in London and at the great provincial shows held throughout the kingdom. The production of many of these perennials is so easy that amateurs in several instances have taken it up as a business hobby; and in some cases, chiefly through advertising in the horticultural press, very lucrative concerns have been established.

Ornamental flowering trees and shrubs constitute another feature of modern gardening. These are grown and imported by thousands chiefly for their sprays of blossom or foliage, and for planting in large or small gardens, public parks, &c., for landscape effect. Indeed there is scarcely an easily grown plant from the northern or southern temperate zones that does not now find a place in the nursery or garden, provided it is sufficiently attractive to sell for its flowers, foliage or appearance.

Conditions of the Fruit and Flower growing Industries.—As regards open-air fruit-growing, the outlook for new ventures is perhaps brighter than in the hothouse industry, not—as Mr Bear has pointed out—because the area of fruit land in England is too small, but because the level of efficiency, from the selection of varieties to the packing and marketing of the produce, is very much lower in the former than in the latter branch of enterprise. In other words, whereas the practice of the majority of hothouse nurserymen is so skilled, so up-to-date, and so entirely under high pressure that a new competitor, however well trained, will find it difficult to rise above mediocrity, the converse is true of open-air fruit-growers. Many, and an increasing proportion, of the latter are thoroughly efficient in all branches of their business, and are in possession of plantations of the best market varieties of fruit, well cultivated, pruned and otherwise managed. But the extent of fruit plantations completely up to the mark in relation to varieties and treatment of trees and bushes, and in connexion with which the packing and marketing of the produce are equally satisfactory, is small in proportion to the total fruit area of the country. Information concerning the best treatment of fruit trees has spread widely in recent years, and old plantations, as a rule, suffer from the neglect or errors of the past, however skilful their present holders may be. Although the majority of professional market fruit-growers may be well up to the standard in skill, there are numerous contributors to the fruit supply who are either ignorant of the best methods of cultivation and marketing or careless in their application. The bad condition of the great majority of farm orchards is notorious, and many landowners, farmers and amateur gardeners who have planted fruit on a more or less extensive scale have mismanaged their undertakings. For these reasons new growers of open-air fruit for market have opportunities of succeeding by means of superiority to the majority of those with whom they will compete, provided that they possess the requisite knowledge, energy and capital. It has been asserted on sound authority that there is no chance of success for fruit-growers except in districts favourable as regards soil, climate and nearness to a railway or a good market; and, even under these conditions, only for men who have had experience in the industry and are prepared to devote their unremitting attention to it. Most important is it to a beginner that he should ascertain the varieties of fruit that flourish best in his particular district. Certain kinds seem to do well or fairly well in all parts of the country; others, whilst heavy croppers in some localities, are often unsatisfactory in others.

As has been intimated, there is probably in England less room for expansion of fruit culture under glass than in the open. The large increase of glass-houses in modern times appears to have brought the supply of hothouse produce, even at greatly reduced prices, at least up to the level of the demand; and as most nurserymen continue to extend their expanse of glass, the prospect for new competitors is not a bright one. Moreover, the vast scale upon which some of the growers conduct the hothouse industry puts small producers at a great disadvantage, not only because the extensive producers can grow grapes and other fruit more economically than small growers—with the possible exception of those who do all or nearly all their own work—but also, and still more, because the former have greater advantages in transporting and marketing their fruit. There has, in recent years, been a much greater fall in the prices of hothouse than of open-air fruit, especially under the existing system of distribution, which involves the payment by consumers of 50 to 100% more in prices than growers receive. The best openings for new nurseries are probably not where they are now to be found in large groups, and especially not in the neighbourhood of London, but in suitable spots near the great centres of population in the Midlands and the North, or big towns elsewhere not already well supplied with nurseries. By such a selection of a locality the beginner may build up a retail trade in hothouse fruit, or at least a trade with local fruiterers and grocers, thus avoiding railway charges and salesmen’s commissions to a great extent, though it may often be advantageous to send certain kinds of produce to a distant market. Above all, a man who has no knowledge of the hothouse industry should avoid embarking his capital in it, trusting himself in the hands of a foreman, as experience shows that such a venture usually leads to disaster. Some years of training in different nurseries are desirable for any young man who is desirous of becoming a grower of hothouse fruits or flowers.

There can be no doubt that flower-growing is greatly extending in England, and that competition among home growers is becoming more severe. Foreign supplies of flowers have increased, but not nearly as greatly in proportion as home supplies, and it seems clear that home growers have gained ground in relation to their foreign rivals, except with respect to flowers for the growth of which foreigners have extraordinary natural advantages. There seems some danger of the home culture of the narcissus being over-done, and the florists’ chrysanthemum appears to be produced in excess of the demand. Again, in the production of violets the warm and sunny South of France has an advantage not possessed by England, whilst Holland, likewise for climatic reasons, maintains her hold upon the hyacinth and tulip trade. Whether the production of flowers as a whole is gaining ground upon the demand or not is a difficult question to answer. It is true that the prices of flowers have fallen generally; but production, at any rate under glass, has been cheapened, and if a fair profit can be obtained, the fall in prices, without which the existing consumption of flowers would be impossible, does not necessarily imply over-production. There is some difference of opinion among growers upon this point; but nearly all agree that profits are now so small that production on a large scale is necessary to provide a fair income. Industrial flower-growing affords such a wide scope for the exercise of superior skill, industry and alertness, that it is not surprising to find some who are engaged in it doing remarkably well to all appearance, while others are struggling on and hardly paying their way. That a man with only a little capital, starting in a small way, has many disadvantages is certain; also, that his chance of saving money and extending his business quickly is much smaller than it was. To the casual looker-on, who knows nothing of the drudgery of the industry, flower-growing seems a delightful method of getting a living. That it is an entrancing pursuit there is no doubt; but it is equally true that it is a very arduous one, requiring careful forethought, ceaseless attention and abundant energy. Fortunately for those who might be tempted, without any knowledge of the industry, to embark capital in it, flower-growing, if at all comprehensive in scope, so obviously requires a varied and extensive technical knowledge, combined with good commercial ability, that any one can see that a thorough training is necessary to a man who intends to adopt it as a business, especially if hothouse flowers are to be produced.

The market for fruit, and more especially for flowers, is a fickle one, and there is nearly always some uncertainty as to the course of prices. The perishable nature of soft fruit and cut flowers renders the markets very sensitive to anything in the nature of a glut, the occurrence of which is usually attended with disastrous results to producers. Foreign competition, moreover, has constantly to be faced, and it is likely to increase rather than diminish. French growers have a great advantage over the open-air cultivators of England, for the climate enables them to get their produce into the markets early in the season, when the highest prices are obtainable. The geographical advantage which France enjoys in being so near to England is, however, considerably discounted by the increasing facilities for cold storage in transit, both by rail and sea. The development of such facilities permits of the retail sale in England of luscious fruit as fresh and attractive as when it was gathered beneath the sunny skies of California. In the case of flowers, fashion is an element not to be ignored. Flowers much in request in one season may meet with very little demand in another, and it is difficult for the producer to anticipate the changes which caprice may dictate. Even for the same kind of flower the requirements are very uncertain, and the white blossom which is all the rage in one season may be discarded in favour of one of another colour in the next. The sale of fresh flowers for church decoration at Christmas and Easter has reached enormous dimensions. The irregularity in the date of the festival, however, causes some inconvenience to growers. If it falls very early the great bulk of suitable flowers may not be sufficiently forward for sale, whilst a late Easter may find the season too far advanced. The trade in cut flowers, therefore, is generally attended by uncertainty, and often by anxiety.

(W. Fr.; J. Ws.)

United States

In the United States horticulture and market gardening have now assumed immense proportions. In a country of over 3,000,000 sq. m., stretching from the Atlantic to the Pacific on the one hand, and from the Gulf of Mexico to the great northern lakes and the Dominion of Canada on the other, a great variation of climatic conditions is not unnatural. From a horticultural point of view there are practically two well-defined regions: (1) that to the east of the Rocky Mountains across to the Atlantic, where the climate is more like that of eastern Asia than of western Europe so far as rainfall, temperature and seasonable conditions are concerned; (2) that to the west of the Rockies, known as the Pacific coast region, where the climate is somewhat similar to that of western Europe. It may be added that in the northern states—in Washington, Montana, North Dakota, Minnesota, Wisconsin, &c.—the winters are often very severe, while the southern states practically enjoy a temperature somewhat similar to that of the Riviera. Indeed the range of temperature between the extreme northern states and the extreme southern may vary as much as 120° F. The great aim of American gardeners, therefore, has been to find out or to produce the kinds of fruits, flowers and vegetables that are likely to flourish in different parts of this immense country.

Fruit Culture.—There is probably no country in the world where so many different kinds of fruit can be grown with advantage to the nation as in the United States. In the temperate regions apples, pears and plums are largely grown, and orchards of these are chiefly to be found in the states of New York, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Missouri, Colorado, and also in northern Texas, Arkansas and N. California. To these may be added cranberries and quinces, which are chiefly grown in the New England states. The quinces are not a crop of first-rate importance, but as much as 800,000 bushels of cranberries are grown each year. The peach orchards are assuming great proportions, and are chiefly to be found in Georgia and Texas, while grapes are grown throughout the Republic from east to west in all favourable localities. Oranges, lemons and citrons are more or less extensively grown in Florida and California, and in these regions what are known as Japanese or “Kelsey” plums (forms of Prunus triflora) are also grown as marketable crops. Pomegranates are not yet largely grown, but it is possible their culture will develop in southern Texas and Louisiana, where the climate is tempered by the waters of the Gulf of Mexico. Tomatoes are grown in most parts of the country so easily that there is frequently a glut; while the strawberry region extends from Florida to Virginia, Pennsylvania and other states—thus securing a natural succession from south to north for the various great market centres.

Of the fruits mentioned apples are undoubtedly the most important. Not only are the American people themselves supplied with fresh fruit, but immense quantities are exported to Europe—Great Britain alone absorbing as much as 1,430,000 cwt. in 1908. The varieties originally grown were of course those taken or introduced from Europe by the early settlers. Since the middle of the 19th century great changes have been brought about, and the varieties mostly cultivated now are distinctly American. They have been raised by crossing and intercrossing the most suitable European forms with others since imported from Russia. In the extreme northern states indeed, where it is essential to have apple trees that will stand the severest winters, the Russian varieties crossed with the berry crab of eastern Europe (Pyrus baccata) have produced a race eminently suited to that particular region. The individual fruits are not very large, but the trees are remarkably hardy. Farther south larger fruited varieties are grown, and among these may be noted Baldwins, Newton pippins, Spitzenbergs and Rhode Island greening. Apple orchards are numerous in the State of New York, where it is estimated that over 100,000 acres are devoted to them. In the hilly regions of Missouri, Arkansas and Colorado there are also great plantations of apples. The trees, however, are grown on different principles from those in New York State. In the latter state apple trees with ordinary care live to more than 100 years of age and produce great crops; in the other states, however, an apple tree is said to be middle-aged at 20, decrepit at 30 and practically useless at 40 years of age. They possess the advantage, however, of bearing early and heavily.

Until the introduction of the cold-storage system, about the year 1880, America could hardly be regarded as a commercial fruit-growing country. Since then, however, owing to the great improvements made in railway refrigerating vans and storage houses, immense quantities of fruit can be despatched in good condition to any part of the world; or they can be kept at home in safety until such time as the markets of Chicago, New York, Boston, Baltimore, Philadelphia, &c., are considered favourable for their reception.

Apple trees are planted at distances varying from 25 ft. to 30 ft. apart in the middle western states, to 40 ft. to 50 ft. apart in New York State. Here and there, however, in some of the very best orchards the trees are planted 60 ft. apart every way. Each tree thus has a chance to develop to its utmost limits, and as air and light reach it better, a far larger fruit-bearing surface is secured. Actual experience has shown that trees planted at 60 ft. apart—about 28 to the acre—produce more fruit by 43 bushels than trees at 30 ft. apart—i.e. about 48 to the acre.

Until recent years pruning as known to English and French gardeners was practically unknown. There was indeed no great necessity for it, as the trees, not being cramped for space, threw their branches outwards and upwards, and thus rarely become overcrowded. When practised, however, the operation could scarcely be called pruning; lopping or trimming would be more accurate descriptions.

Apple orchards are not immune from insect pests and fungoid diseases, and an enormous business is now done in spraying machines and various insecticides. It pays to spray the trees, and figures have been given to show that orchards that have been sprayed four times have produced an average income of £211 per acre against £103 per acre from unsprayed orchards.

The spring frosts are also troublesome, and in the Colorado and other orchards the process known as “smudging” is now adopted to save the crops. This consists in placing 20 or 30, or even more, iron or tin pots to an acre, each pot containing wooden chips soaked in tar (or pitch) mixed with kerosene. Whenever the thermometer shows 3 or 4 degrees of frost the smudge-pots are lighted. A dense white smoke then arises and is diffused throughout the orchards, enveloping the blossoming heads of the trees in a dense cloud. This prevents the frost from killing the tender pistils in the blossoms, and when several smudge-pots are alight at the same time the temperature of the orchard is raised two or three degrees. This work has generally to be done between 3 and 5 A.M., and the growers naturally have an anxious time until all danger is over. The failure to attend to smudging, even on one occasion, may result in the loss of the entire crop of plums, apples or pears.

Next to apples perhaps peaches are the most important fruit crop. The industry is chiefly carried on in Georgia, Texas and S. Carolina, and on a smaller scale in some of the adjoining states. Peaches thus flourish in regions that are quite unsuitable for apples or pears. In many orchards in Georgia, where over 3,000,000 acres have been planted, there are as many as 100,000 peach trees; while some of the large fruit companies grow as many as 365,000. In one place in West Virginia there is, however, a peach orchard containing 175,000 trees, and in Missouri another company has 3 sq. m. devoted to peach culture. As a rule the crops do well. Sometimes, however, a disease known as the “yellows” makes sad havoc amongst them, and scarcely a fruit is picked in an orchard which early in the season gave promise of a magnificent crop.

Plums are an important crop in many states. Besides the European varieties and those that have been raised by crossing with American forms, there is now a growing trade done in Japanese plums. The largest of these is popularly known as “Kelseys,” named after John Kelsey, who raised the first fruit in 1876 from trees brought to California in 1870. Sometimes the fruits are 3 in. in diameter, and like most of the Japanese varieties are more heart-shaped and pointed than plums of European origin. One apparent drawback to the Kelsey plum is its irregularity in ripening. It has been known in some years to be quite ripe in June, while in others the fruits are still green in October.

Pears are much grown in such states as Massachusetts, New York, Pennsylvania, Missouri and California; while bush fruits like currants, gooseberries and raspberries find large spaces devoted in most of the middle and northern states. Naturally a good deal of crossing and intercrossing has taken place amongst the European and American forms of these fruits, but so far as gooseberries are concerned no great advance seems to have been made in securing varieties capable of resisting the devastating gooseberry mildew.

Other fruits of more or less commercial value are oranges, lemons and citrons, chiefly in Florida. Lemons are practically a necessity to the American people, owing to the heat of the summers, when cool and refreshing drinks with an agreeable acidulous taste are in great demand. The pomelo (grape-fruit) is a kind of lemon with a thicker rind and a more acid flavour. At one time its culture was confined to Florida, but of recent years it has found its way into Californian orchards. Notwithstanding the prevailing mildness of the climate in both California and Florida, the crops of oranges, lemons, citrons, &c., are sometimes severely injured by frosts when in blossom.

Other fruits likely to be heard of in the future are the kaki or persimmon, the loquat, which is already grown in Louisiana, as well as the pomegranate.

Great aid and encouragement are given by the government to the progress of American fruit-growing, and by the experiments that are being constantly carried out and tabulated at Cornell University and by the U.S.A. department of agriculture.

Flower Culture.—So far as flowers are concerned there appears to be little difference between the kinds of plants grown in the United States and in England, France, Belgium, Germany, Holland, &c. Indeed there is a great interchange of new varieties of plants between Europe and America, and modifications in systems of culture are being gradually introduced from one side of the Atlantic to the other. The building of greenhouses for commercial purposes is perhaps on a somewhat different scale from that in England, but there are probably no extensive areas of glass such as are to be seen north of London from Enfield Highway to Broxburne. Hot water apparatus differs merely in detail, although most of the boilers used resemble those on the continent of Europe rather than in England. Great business is done in bulbs—mostly imported from Holland—stove and greenhouse plants, hardy perennials, orchids, ferns of the “fancy” and “dagger” types of Nephrolepis, and in carnations and roses. Amongst the latter thousands of such varieties as Beauty, Liberty, Killarney, Richmond and Bride are grown, and realize good prices as a rule in the markets. Carnations of the winter-flowering or “perpetual” type have long been grown in America, and enormous prices have been given for individual plants on certain occasions, rivalling the fancy prices paid in England for certain orchids. The American system of carnation-growing has quite captivated English cultivators, and new varieties are being constantly raised in both countries. Chrysanthemums are another great feature of American florists, and sometimes during the winter season a speculative grower will send a living specimen to one of the London exhibitions in the hope of booking large orders for cuttings of it later on. Sweet peas, dahlias, lilies of the valley, arum lilies and indeed every flower that is popular in England is equally popular in America, and consequently is largely grown.

Vegetables.—So far as these are concerned, potatoes, cabbages, cauliflowers, beans of all kinds, cucumbers, tomatoes (already referred to under fruits), musk-melons, lettuces, radishes, endives, carrots, &c.; are naturally grown in great quantities, not only in the open air, but also under glass. The French system of intensive cultivation as practised on hot beds of manure round Paris is practically unknown at present. In the southern states there would be no necessity to practise it, but in the northern ones it is likely to attract attention.

(J. Ws.)

[1] Jour. Roy. Agric. Soc., 1899.

FRUMENTIUS (c. 300-c. 360), the founder of the Abyssinian church, traditionally identified in Abyssinian literature with Abba Salama or Father of Peace (but see [Ethiopia]), was a native of Phoenicia. According to the 4th-century historian Rufinus (x. 9), who gives Aedesius himself as his authority, a certain Tyrian, Meropius, accompanied by his kinsmen Frumentius and Aedesius, set out on an expedition to “India,” but fell into the hands of Ethiopians on the shore of the Red Sea and, with his ship’s crew, was put to death. The two young men were taken to the king at Axum, where they were well treated and in time obtained great influence. With the help of Christian merchants who visited the country Frumentius gave Christianity a firm footing, which was strengthened when in 326 he was consecrated bishop by Athanasius of Alexandria, who in his Epistola ad Constantinum mentions the consecration, and gives some details of the history of Frumentius’s mission. Later witnesses speak of his fidelity to the homoousian during the Arian controversies. Aedesius returned to Tyre, where he was ordained presbyter.

FRUNDSBERG, GEORG VON (1473-1528), German soldier, was born at Mindelheim on the 24th of September 1473. He fought for the German king Maximilian I. against the Swiss in 1499, and in the same year was among the imperial troops sent to assist Ludovico Sforza, duke of Milan, against the French. Still serving Maximilian, he took part in 1504 in the war over the succession to the duchy of Bavaria-Landshut, and afterwards fought in the Netherlands. Convinced of the necessity of a native body of trained infantry Frundsberg assisted Maximilian to organize the Landsknechte (q.v.), and subsequently at the head of bands of these formidable troops he was of great service to the Empire and the Habsburgs. In 1509 he shared in the war against Venice, winning fame for himself and his men; and after a short visit to Germany returned to Italy, where in 1513 and 1514 he gained fresh laurels by his enterprises against the Venetians and the French. Peace being made, he returned to Germany, and at the head of the infantry of the Swabian league assisted to drive Ulrich of Württemberg from his duchy in 1519. At the diet of Worms in 1521 he spoke words of encouragement to Luther, and when the struggle between France and the Empire was renewed he took part in the invasion of Picardy, and then proceeding to Italy brought the greater part of Lombardy under the influence of Charles V. through his victory at Bicocca in April 1522. He was partly responsible for the great victory over the French at Pavia in February 1525, and, returning to Germany, he assisted to suppress the Peasant revolt, using on this occasion, however, diplomacy as well as force. When the war in Italy was renewed Frundsberg raised an army at his own expense, and skilfully surmounting many difficulties, joined the constable de Bourbon near Piacenza and marched towards Rome. Before he reached the city, however, his unpaid troops showed signs of mutiny, and their leader, stricken with illness and unable to pacify them, gave up his command. Returning to Germany, he died at Mindelheim on the 20th of August 1528. He was a capable and chivalrous soldier, and a devoted servant of the Habsburgs. His son Caspar (1500-1536) and his grandson Georg (d. 1586) were both soldiers of some distinction. With the latter’s death the family became extinct.

See Adam Reissner, Historia Herrn Georgs und Herrn Kaspars von Frundsberg (Frankfort, 1568). A German translation of this work was published at Frankfort in 1572. F.W. Barthold, Georg von Frundsberg (Hamburg, 1833); J. Heilmann, Kriegsgeschichte von Bayern, Franken, Pfalz und Schwaben (Munich, 1868).

FRUSTUM (Latin for a “piece broken off”), a term in geometry for the part of a solid figure, such as a cone or pyramid, cut off by a plane parallel to the base, or lying between two parallel planes; and hence in architecture a name given to the drum of a column.

FRUYTIERS, PHILIP (1627-1666), Flemish painter and engraver, was a pupil of the Jesuits’ college at Antwerp in 1627, and entered the Antwerp gild of painters without a fee in 1631. He is described in the register of that institution as “illuminator, painter and engraver.” The current account of his life is “that he worked exclusively in water colours, yet was so remarkable in this branch of his art for arrangement, drawing, and especially for force and clearness of colour, as to excite the admiration of Rubens, whom he portrayed with all his family.” The truth is that he was an artist of the most versatile talents, as may be judged from the fact that in 1646 he executed an Assumption with figures of life size, and four smaller pictures in oil, for the church of St Jacques at Antwerp, for which he received the considerable sum of 1150 florins. Unhappily no undoubted production of his hand has been preserved. All that we can point to with certainty is a series of etched plates, chiefly portraits, which are acknowledged to have been powerfully and skilfully handled. If, however, we search the portfolios of art collections on the European continent, we sometimes stumble upon miniatures on vellum, drawn with great talent and coloured with extraordinary brilliancy. In form they quite recall the works of Rubens, and these, it may be, are the work of Philip Fruytiers.

FRY, the name of a well-known English Quaker family, originally living in Wiltshire. About the middle of the 18th century Joseph Fry (1728-1787), a doctor, settled in Bristol, where he acquired a large practice, but eventually abandoned medicine for commerce. He became interested in china-making, soap-boiling and type-founding businesses in Bristol, and in a chemical works at Battersea, all of which ventures proved very profitable. The type-founding business was subsequently removed to London and conducted by his son Edmund. Joseph Fry, however, is best remembered as the founder of the great Bristol firm of J.S. Fry & Sons, chocolate manufacturers. He purchased the chocolate-making patent of William Churchman and on it laid the foundations of the present large business. After his death the Bristol chocolate factory was carried on with increasing success by his widow and by his son, Joseph Storrs Fry (1767-1835).

In 1795 a new and larger factory was built in Union Street, Bristol, which still forms the centre of the firm’s premises, and in 1798 a Watt’s steam-engine was purchased and the cocoa-beans ground by steam. On the death of Joseph Storrs Fry his three sons, Joseph (1795-1879), Francis, and Richard (1807-1878) became partners in the firm, the control being mainly in the hands of Francis Fry (1803-1886). Francis Fry was in every way a remarkable character. The development of the business to its modern enormous proportion was chiefly his work, but this did not exhaust his activities. He took a principal part in the introduction of railways to the west of England, and in 1852 drew up a scheme for a general English railway parcel service. He was an ardent bibliographer, taking a special interest in early English Bibles, of which he made in the course of a long life a large and striking collection, and of the most celebrated of which he published facsimiles with bibliographical notes. Francis Fry died in 1886, and his son Francis J. Fry and nephew Joseph Storrs Fry carried on the business, which in 1896 was for family reasons converted into a private limited company, Joseph Storrs Fry being chairman and all the directors members of the Fry family.

FRY, SIR EDWARD (1827-  ), English judge, second son of Joseph Fry (1795-1879), was born at Bristol on the 4th of November 1827, and educated at University College, London, and London University. He was called to the bar in 1854 and was made a Q.C. in 1869, practising in the rolls court and becoming recognized as a leading equity lawyer. In 1877 he was raised to the bench and knighted. As chancery judge he will be remembered for his careful interpretations and elucidations of the Judicature Acts, then first coming into operation. In 1883 he was made a lord justice of appeal, but resigned in 1892; and subsequently his knowledge of equity and talents for arbitration were utilized by the British government from time to time in various special directions, particularly as chairman of many commissions. He was also one of the British representatives at the Paris North Sea Inquiry Commission (1905), and was appointed a member of the Hague Permanent Arbitration Court. He wrote A Treatise on the Specific Performance of Public Contracts (London, 1858, and many subsequent editions).

FRY, ELIZABETH (1780-1845), English philanthropist, and, after Howard, the chief promoter of prison reform in Europe, was born in Norwich on the 21st of May 1780. Her father, John Gurney, afterwards of Earlham Hall, a wealthy merchant and banker, represented an old family which for some generations had belonged to the Society of Friends. While still a girl she gave many indications of the benevolence of disposition, clearness and independence of judgment, and strength of purpose, for which she was afterwards so distinguished; but it was not until after she had entered her eighteenth year that her religion assumed a decided character, and that she was induced, under the preaching of the American Quaker, William Savery, to become an earnest and enthusiastic though never fanatical “Friend.” In August 1800 she became the wife of Joseph Fry, a London merchant.

Amid increasing family cares she was unwearied in her attention to the poor and the neglected of her neighbourhood; and in 1811 she was acknowledged by her co-religionists as a “minister,” an honour and responsibility for which she was undoubtedly qualified, not only by vigour of intelligence and warmth of heart, but also by an altogether unusual faculty of clear, fluent and persuasive speech. Although she had made several visits to Newgate prison as early as February 1813, it was not until nearly four years afterwards that the great public work of her life may be said to have begun. The association for the Improvement of the Female Prisoners in Newgate was formed in April 1817. Its aim was the much-needed establishment of some of what are now regarded as the first principles of prison discipline, such as entire separation of the sexes, classification of criminals, female supervision for the women, and adequate provision for their religious and secular instruction, as also for their useful employment. The ameliorations effected by this association, and largely by the personal exertions of Mrs Fry, soon became obvious, and led to a rapid extension of similar methods to other places. In 1818 she, along with her brother, visited the prisons of Scotland and the north of England; and the publication (1819) of the notes of this tour, as also the cordial recognition of the value of her work by the House of Commons committee on the prisons of the metropolis, led to a great increase of her correspondence, which now extended to Italy, Denmark and Russia, as well as to all parts of the United Kingdom. Through a visit to Ireland, which she made in 1827, she was led to direct her attention to other houses of detention besides prisons; and her observations resulted in many important improvements in the British hospital system, and in the treatment of the insane. In 1838 she visited France, and besides conferring with many of the leading prison officials, she personally visited most of the houses of detention in Paris, as well as in Rouen, Caen and some other places. In the following year she obtained an official permission to visit all the prisons in that country; and her tour, which extended from Boulogne and Abbeville to Toulouse and Marseilles, resulted in a report which was presented to the minister of the interior and the prefect of police. Before returning to England she had included Geneva, Zürich, Stuttgart and Frankfort-on-Main in her inspection. The summer of 1840 found her travelling through Belgium, Holland and Prussia on the same mission; and in 1841 she also visited Copenhagen. In 1842, through failing health, Mrs Fry was compelled to forgo her plans for a still more widely extended activity, but had the satisfaction of hearing from almost every quarter of Europe that the authorities were giving increased practical effect to her suggestions. In 1844 she was seized with a lingering illness, of which she died on the 12th of October 1845. She was survived by a numerous family, the youngest of whom was born in 1822.

Two interesting volumes of Memoirs, with Extracts from her Journals and Letters, edited by two of her daughters, were published in 1847. See also Elizabeth Fry, by G. King Lewis (1910).

FRYXELL, ANDERS (1795-1881), Swedish historian, was born at Hesselskog, Dalsland, Sweden, on the 7th of February 1795. He was educated at Upsala, took holy orders in 1820, was made a doctor of philosophy in 1821, and in 1823 began to publish the great work of his life, the Stories from Swedish History. He did not bring this labour to a close until, fifty-six years later, he published the forty-sixth and crowning volume of his vast enterprise. Fryxell, as a historian, appealed to every class by the picturesqueness of his style and the breadth of his research; he had the gift of awakening to an extraordinary degree the national sense in his readers. In 1824 he published his Swedish Grammar, which was long without a rival. In 1833 he received the title of professor, and in 1835 he was appointed to the incumbency of Sunne, in the diocese of Karlstad, where he resided for the remainder of his life. In 1840 he was elected to the Swedish Academy in succession to the poet Wallin (1779-1839). In 1847 Fryxell received from his bishop permission to withdraw from all the services of the Church, that he might devote himself without interruption to historical investigation. Among his numerous minor writings are prominent his Characteristics of Sweden between 1592 and 1600 (1830), his Origins of the Inaccuracy with which the History of Sweden in Catholic Times has been Treated (1847), and his Contributions to the Literary History of Sweden. It is now beginning to be seen that the abundant labours of Fryxell were rather of a popular than of a scientific order, and although their influence during his lifetime was unbounded, it is only fair to later and exacter historians to admit that they threaten to become obsolete in more than one direction. On the 21st of March 1881 Anders Fryxell died at Stockholm, and in 1884 his daughter Eva Fryxell (born 1829) published from his MS. an interesting History of My History, which was really a literary autobiography and displays the persistency and tirelessness of his industry.

(E. G.)

FUAD PASHA (1815-1869), Turkish statesman, was the son of the distinguished poet Kechéji-zadé Izzet Molla. He was educated at the medical school and was at first an army surgeon. About 1836 he entered the civil service as an official of the foreign ministry. He became secretary of the embassy in London; was employed on special missions in the principalities and at St Petersburg (1848), and was sent to Egypt as special commissioner in 1851. In that year he became minister for foreign affairs, a post to which he was appointed also on four subsequent occasions and which he held at the time of his death. During the Crimean War he commanded the troops on the Greek frontier and distinguished himself by his bravery. He was Turkish delegate at the Paris conference of 1856; was charged with a mission to Syria in 1860; grand vizier in 1860 and 1861, and also minister of war. He accompanied the sultan Abd-ul-Aziz on his journey to Egypt and Europe, when the freedom of the city of London was conferred on him. He died at Nice (whither he had been ordered for his health) in 1869. Fuad was renowned for his boldness and promptness of decision, as well as for his ready wit and his many bons mots. Generally regarded as the partisan of a pro-English policy, he rendered most valuable service to his country by his able management of the foreign relations of Turkey, and not least by his efficacious settlement of affairs in Syria after the massacres of 1860.

FUCHOW, Fu-Chau, Foochow, a city of China, capital of the province of Fu-kien, and one of the principal ports open to foreign commerce. In the local dialect it is called Hokchiu. It is situated on the river Min, about 35 m. from the sea, in 26° 5′ N. and 119º 20′ E., 140 m. N. of Amoy and 280 S. of Hang-chow. The city proper, lying nearly 3 m. from the north bank of the river, is surrounded by a wall about 30 ft. high and 12 ft. thick, which makes a circuit of upwards of 5 m. and is pierced by seven gateways surrounded by tall fantastic watch-towers. The whole district between the city and the river, the island of Nantai, and the southern banks of the Min are occupied by extensive suburbs; and the river itself bears a large floating population. Communication from bank to bank is afforded by a long stone bridge supported by forty solid stone piers in its northern section and by nine in its southern. The most remarkable establishment of Fuchow is the arsenal situated about 3 m. down the stream at Pagoda Island, where the sea-going vessels usually anchor. It was founded in 1867, and is conducted under the direction of French engineers according to European methods. In 1870 it employed about 1000 workmen besides fifty European superintendents, and between that date and 1880 it turned out about 20 or 30 small gunboats. In 1884 it was partially destroyed by the French fleet, and for a number of years the workshops and machinery were allowed to stand idle and go to decay. On the 1st of August 1895 an attack was made on the English mission near the city of Ku-chang, 120 m. west of Fuchow, on which occasion nine missionaries, of whom eight were ladies, were massacred. The port was opened to European commerce in 1842; and in 1853 the firm of Russell and Co. shipped the first cargoes of tea from Fuchow to Europe and America. The total trade in foreign vessels in 1876 was imports to the value of £1,531,617, and exports to the value of £3,330,489. In 1904 the imports amounted to £1,440,351, and the exports to £1,034,436. The number of vessels that entered in 1876 was 275, and of these 211 were British, 27 German, 11 Danish and 9 American. While in 1904, 480 vessels entered the port, 216 of which were British. A large trade is carried on by the native merchants in timber, paper, woollen and cotton goods, oranges and olives; but the foreign houses mainly confine themselves to opium and tea. Commercial intercourse with Australia and New Zealand is on the increase. The principal imports, besides opium, are shirtings, T-cloths, lead and tin, medicines, rice, tobacco, and beans and peas. Two steamboat lines afford regular communication with Hong-Kong twice a month. The town is the seat of several important missions, of which the first was founded in 1846. That supported by the American board had in 1876 issued 1,3000,000 copies of Chinese books and tracts.

FUCHS, JOHANN NEPOMUK VON (1774-1856), German chemist and mineralogist, was born at Mattenzell, near Brennberg in the Bavarian Forest, on the 15th of May 1774. In 1807 he became professor of chemistry and mineralogy at the university of Landshut, and in 1823 conservator of the mineralogical collections at Munich, where he was appointed professor of mineralogy three years later, on the removal thither of the university of Landshut. He retired in 1852, was ennobled by the king of Bavaria in 1854, and died at Munich on the 5th of March 1856. His name is chiefly known for his mineralogical observations and for his work on soluble glass.

His collected works, including Über den Einfluss der Chemie und Mineralogie (1824), Die Naturgeschichte des Mineralreichs (1842), Über die Theorien der Erde (1844), were published at Munich in 1856.

FUCHS, LEONHARD (1501-1566), German physician and botanist, was born at Wembdingen in Bavaria on the 17th of January 1501. He attended school at Heilbronn and Erfurt, and in 1521 graduated at the university of Ingolstadt. About the same time he espoused the doctrines of the Reformation. Having in 1524 received his diploma as doctor of medicine, he practised for two years in Munich. He became in 1526 professor of medicine at Ingolstadt, and in 1528 physician to the margrave of Anspach. In Anspach he was the means of saving the lives of many during the epidemic locally known as the “English sweating-sickness.” By the duke of Württemberg he was, in 1535, appointed to the professorship of medicine at the university of Tübingen, a post held by him till his death on the 10th of May 1566. Fuchs was an advocate of the Galenic school of medicine, and published several Latin translations of treatises by its founder and by Hippocrates. But his most important publication was De historia stirpium commentarii insignes (Basel, 1542), a work illustrated with more than five hundred excellent outline illustrations, including figures of the common foxglove and of another species of the genus Digitalis, which was so named by him.

FUCHSIA, so named by Plumier in honour of the botanist Leonhard Fuchs, a genus of plants of the natural order Onagraceae, characterized by entire, usually opposite leaves, pendent flowers, a funnel-shaped, brightly coloured, quadripartite, deciduous calyx, 4 petals, alternating with the calycine segments, 8, rarely 10, exserted stamens, a long filiform style, an inferior ovary, and fruit, a fleshy ovoid many-seeded berry. All the members of the genus, with the exception of the New Zealand species, F. excorticata, F. Colensoi and F. procumbens, are natives of Central and South America—occurring in the interior of forests or in damp and shady mountainous situations. The various species differ not a little in size as well as in other characters; some, as F. verrucosa, being dwarf shrubs; others, as F. arborescens and F. apetala, attaining a height of 12 to 16 ft., and having stems several inches in diameter. Plumier, in his Nova plantarum Americanarum genera (p. 14, tab. 14, Paris, 1703), gave a description of a species of fuchsia, the first known, under the name of Fuchsia triphylla, flore coccineo, and a somewhat conventional outline figure of the same plant was published at Amsterdam in 1757 by Burmann. In the Histoire des plantes médicinales of the South American traveller Feuillée (p. 64, pl. XLVII.), written in 1709-1711, and published by him with his Journal, Paris, 1725, the name Thilco is applied to a species of fuchsia from Chile, which is described, though not evidently so figured, as having a pentamerous calyx. The F. coccinea of Alton (fig.) (see J.D. Hooker, in Journal Linnean Soc., Botany, vol. x. p. 458, 1867), the first species of fuchsia cultivated in England, where it was long confined to the greenhouse, was brought from South America by Captain Firth in 1788 and placed in Kew Gardens. Of this species Mr Lee, a nurseryman at Hammersmith, soon afterwards obtained an example, and procured from it by means of cuttings several hundred plants, which he sold at a guinea each. In 1823 F. macrostemma and F. gracilis, and during the next two or three years several other species, were introduced into England; but it was not until about 1837, or soon after florists had acquired F. fulgens, that varieties of interest began to make their appearance. The numerous hybrid forms now existing are the result chiefly of the intercrossing of that or other long-flowered with globose-flowered plants. F. Venus-victrix, raised by Mr Gulliver, gardener to the Rev. S. Marriott of Horsemonden, Kent, and sold in 1822 to Messrs Cripps, was the earliest white-sepalled fuchsia. The first fuchsia with a white corolla was produced about 1853 by Mr Storey. In some varieties the blossoms are variegated, and in others they are double. There appears to be very little limit to the number of forms to be obtained by careful cultivation and selection. To hybridize, the flower as soon as it opens is emasculated, and it is then fertilized with pollen from some different flower.

Ripe seed is sown either in autumn or about February or March in light, rich, well-drained mould, and is thinly covered with sandy soil and watered. A temperature of 70° to 75° Fahr. has been found suitable for raising. The seedlings are pricked off into shallow pots or pans, and when 3 in. in height are transferred to 3-in. pots, and are then treated the same as plants from cuttings. Fuchsias may be grafted as readily as camellias, preferably by the splice or whip method, the apex of a young shoot being employed as a scion; but the easiest and most usual method of propagation is by cuttings. The most expeditious way to procure these is to put plants in heat in January, and to take their shoots when 3 in. in length. For summer flowering in England they are best made about the end of August, and should be selected from the shortest-jointed young wood. They root readily in a compost of loam and silver-sand if kept close and sprinkled for a short time. In from two to three weeks they may be put into 3-in. pots containing a compost of equal parts of rich loam, silver-sand and leaf-mould. They are subsequently moved from the frame or bed, first to a warm and shady, and then to a more airy part of the greenhouse. In January a little artificial heat may be given, to be gradually increased as the days lengthen. The side-shoots are generally pruned when they have made three or four joints, and for bushy plants the leader is stopped soon after the first potting. Care is taken to keep the plants as near the glass as possible, and shaded from bright sunshine, also to provide them plentifully with water, except at the time of shifting, when the roots should be tolerably dry. For the second potting a suitable soil is a mixture of well-rotted cow-dung or old hotbed mould with leaf-mould and sandy peat, and to promote drainage a little peat-moss may be placed immediately over the crocks in the lower part of the pot. Weak liquid manure greatly promotes the advance of the plants, and should be regularly supplied twice or thrice a week during the flowering season. After this, water is gradually withheld from them, and they may be placed in the open air to ripen their wood.

Among the more hardy or half-hardy plants for inside borders are varieties of the Chilean species, F. macrostemma (or F. magellanica), a shrub 6 to 12 ft. high with a scarlet calyx, such as F. m. globosa, F. m. gracilis; one of the most graceful and hardy of these, a hybrid F. riccartoni, was raised at Riccarton, near Edinburgh, in 1830. For inside culture may be mentioned F. boliviana (Bolivia), 2 to 4 ft. high, with rich crimson flowers with a trumpet-shaped tube; F. corymbiflora (Peru), 4 to 6 ft. high, with scarlet flowers nearly 2 in. long in long terminal clusters; F. fulgens (Mexico), 4 to 6 ft., with drooping apical clusters of scarlet flowers; F. microphylla (Central America), with small leaves and small scarlet funnel-shaped flowers, the petals deep red; F. procumbens (New Zealand), a pretty little creeper, the small flowers of which are succeeded by oval magenta-crimson berries which remain on for months; and F. splendens (Mexico), 6 ft. high, with very showy scarlet and green flowers. But these cannot compare in beauty or freedom of blossom with the numerous varieties raised by gardeners. The nectar of fuchsia flowers has been shown to contain nearly 78% of cane sugar, the remainder being fruit sugar. The berries of some fuchsias are subacid or sweet and edible. From certain species a dye is obtainable. The so-called “native fuchsias” of southern and eastern Australia are plants of the genus Correa, natural order Rutaceae.

FUCHSINE, or Magenta, a red dye-stuff consisting of a mixture of the hydrochlorides or acetates of pararosaniline and rosaniline. It was obtained in 1856 by J. Natanson (Ann., 1856, 98, p. 297) by the action of ethylene chloride on aniline, and by A.W. Hofmann in 1858 from aniline and carbon tetrachloride. It is prepared by oxidizing “aniline for red” (a mixture of aniline and ortho- and para-toluidine) with arsenic acid (H. Medlock, Dingler’s Poly. Jour., 1860, 158, p. 146); by heating aniline for red with nitrobenzene, concentrated hydrochloric acid and iron (Coupier, Ber., 1873, 6, p. 423); or by condensing formaldehyde with aniline and ortho-toluidine and oxidizing the mixture. It forms small crystals, showing a brilliant green reflex, and is soluble in water and alcohol with formation of a deep red solution. It dyes silk, wool and leather direct, and cotton after mordanting with tannin and tartar emetic (see [Dyeing]). An aqueous solution of fuchsine is decolorized on the addition of sulphurous acid, the easily soluble fuchsine sulphurous acid being formed. This solution is frequently used as a test reagent for the detection of aldehydes, giving, in most cases, a red coloration on the addition of a small quantity of the aldehyde.

The constitution of the fuchsine bases (pararosaniline and rosaniline) was determined by E. and O. Fischer in 1878 (Ann., 1878, 194, p. 242); A.W. Hofmann having previously shown that oxidation of pure aniline alone or of pure toluidine yielded no fuchsine, whilst oxidation of a mixture of aniline and para-toluidine gave rise to the fine red dye-stuff para-fuchsine (pararosaniline hydrochloride)

A. Rosenstiehl (Jahres., 1869, p. 693) found also that different rosanilines were obtained according to whether ortho- or para-toluidine was oxidized with aniline; and he gave the name rosaniline to the one obtained from aniline and ortho-toluidine, reserving the term pararosaniline for the other. E. and O. Fischer showed that these compounds were derivatives of triphenylmethane and tolyldiphenylmethane respectively. Pararosaniline was reduced to the corresponding leuco compound (paraleucaniline), from which by diazotization and boiling with alcohol, the parent hydrocarbon was obtained

The reverse series of operations was also carried out by the Fischers, triphenylmethane being nitrated, and the nitro compound then reduced to triaminotriphenylmethane or paraleucaniline, which on careful oxidation is converted into the dye-stuff. A similar series of reactions was carried out with rosaniline, which was shown to be the corresponding derivative of tolyldiphenylmethane.

The free pararosaniline, C19H19N3O, and rosaniline, C20H21N3O, may be obtained by precipitating solutions of their salts with a caustic alkali, colourless precipitates being obtained, which crystallize from hot water in the form of needles or plates. The position of the amino groups in pararosaniline was determined by the work of H. Caro and C. Graebe (Ber., 1878, II, p. 1348) and of E. and O. Fischer (Ber., 1880, 13, p. 2204) as follows: Nitrous acid converts pararosaniline into aurin, which when superheated with water yields para-dioxybenzophenone. As the hydroxyl groups in aurin correspond to the amino groups in pararosaniline, two of these in the latter compound must be in the para position. The third is also in the para position; for if benzaldehyde be condensed with aniline, condensation occurs in the para position, for the compound formed may be converted into para-dioxybenzophenone,

but if para-nitrobenzaldehyde be used in the above reaction and the resulting nitro compound NO2.C6H4.CH(C6H4NH2)2 be reduced, then pararosaniline is the final product, and consequently the third amino group occupies the para position. Many derivatives of pararosaniline and rosaniline are known, in which the hydrogen atoms of the amino groups are replaced by alkyl groups; this has the effect of producing a blue or violet shade, which becomes deeper as the number of groups increases (see [Dyeing]).

FUCINO, LAGO DI [Lat. Lacus Fucinus], a lake bed of the Abruzzi, Italy, in the province of Aquila, 2 m. E. of the town of Avezzano. The lake was 37 m. in circumference and 65 ft. deep. From the lack of an outlet, the level of the lake was subject to great variations, often fraught with disastrous consequences. As early as A.D. 52 the emperor Claudius, realizing a project of Julius Caesar, constructed a tunnel 3½ m. long, with 40 shafts at intervals, by which the surplus waters found an outlet to the Liris (or Garigliano). No less than 30,000 workmen were employed for eleven years in driving this tunnel. In the following reign the tunnel was allowed to fall into disrepair, but was repaired by Trajan. When, however, it finally went out of use is uncertain. The various attempts made to reopen it from 1240 onwards were unsuccessful. By 1852 the lake had gradually risen until it was 30 ft. above its original level, and had become a source of danger to the surrounding countryside. A company undertook to drain it on condition of becoming proprietors of the site when dry; in 1854, however, the rights and privileges were purchased by Prince Giulio Torlonia (d. 1886), the great Roman banker, who carried on the work at his own expense until, in 1876, the lake was finally drained at the cost of some £1,700,000. The reclaimed area is 12½ m. long, 7 m. broad, and is cultivated by families from the Torlonia estates. The outlet by which it was drained is 4 m. long and 24 sq. yds. in section.

See A. Brisse and L. de Rotron, Le Desséchement du lac Fucin, exécuté par S.E. le Prince A. Torlonia (Rome, 1876).

(T. As.)

FUEL (O. Fr. feuaile, popular Lat. focalia, from focus, hearth, fire), a term applicable to all substances that can be usefully employed for the production of heat by combustion. Any element or combination of elements susceptible of oxidation may under appropriate conditions be made to burn; but only those that ignite at a moderate initial temperature and burn with comparative rapidity, and, what is practically of more importance, are obtainable in quantity at moderate prices, can fairly be regarded as fuels. The elementary substances that can be so classed are primarily hydrogen, carbon and sulphur, while others finding more special applications are silicon, phosphorus, and the more readily oxidizable metals, such as iron, manganese, aluminium and magnesium. More important, however, than the elements are the carbohydrates or compounds of carbon, oxygen and hydrogen, which form the bulk of the natural fuels, wood, peat and coal, as well as of their liquid and gaseous derivatives—coal-gas, coal-tar, pitch, oil, &c., which have high values as fuel. Carbon in the elementary form has its nearest representative in the carbonized fuels, charcoal from wood and coke from coal.

Solid Fuels.

Wood may be considered as having the following average composition when in the air-dried state: Carbon, 39.6; hydrogen, 4.8; oxygen, 34.8; ash, 1.0; water, 20%. When it is freshly felled, the water may be from 18 to Wood. 50%. Air-dried or even green wood ignites readily when a considerable surface is exposed to the kindling flame, but in large masses with regular or smooth surfaces it is often difficult to get it to burn. When previously torrefied or scorched by heating to a temperature of about 200°, at which incipient charring is set up, it is exceedingly inflammable. The ends of imperfectly charred boughs from the charcoal heaps in this condition are used in Paris and other large towns in France for kindling purposes, under the name of fumerons. The inflammability, however, varies with the density,—the so-called hard woods, oak, beech and maple, taking fire less readily than the softer, and, more especially, the coniferous varieties rich in resin. The calorific power of absolutely dry woods may as an average be taken at about 4000 units, and when air-dried, i.e. containing 25% of water, at 2800 to 3000 units. Their evaporative values, i.e. the quantities of water evaporated by unit weight, are 3.68 and 4.44.

Wood being essentially a flaming fuel is admirably adapted for use with heat-receiving surfaces of large extent, such as locomotive and marine boilers, and is also very clean in use. The absence of all cohesion in the cinders or unburnt carbonized residue causes a large amount of ignited particles to be projected from the chimney, when a rapid draught is used, unless special spark-catchers of wire gauze or some analogous contrivance are used. When burnt in open fireplaces the volatile products given off in the apartment on the first heating have an acrid penetrating odour, which is, however, very generally considered to be agreeable. Owing to the large amount of water present, no very high temperatures can be obtained by the direct combustion of wood, and to produce these for metallurgical purposes it is necessary to convert it previously either into charcoal or into inflammable gas.

Peat includes a great number of substances of very unequal fuel value, the most recently formed spongy light brown kind approximating in composition to wood, while the dense pitchy brown compact substance, obtained from Peat. the bottom of bogs of ancient formation, may be compared with lignite or even in some instances with coal. Unlike wood, however, it contains incombustible matter in variable but large quantity, from 5 to 15% or even more. Much of this, when the amount is large, is often due to sand mechanically intermixed; when air-dried the proportion of water is from 8 to 20%. When these constituents are deducted the average composition may be stated to be—carbon, 52 to 66; hydrogen, 4.7 to 7.4; oxygen, 28 to 39; and nitrogen, 1.5 to 3%. Average air-dried peat may be taken as having a calorific value of 3000 to 3500 units, and when dried at 100° C., and with a minimum of ash (4 to 5%), at about 5200 units, or from a quarter to one-third more than that of an equal weight of wood. The lighter and more spongy varieties of peat when air-dried are exceedingly inflammable, firing at a temperature of 200° C.; the denser pulpy kinds ignite less readily when in the natural state, and often require a still higher temperature when prepared by pulping and compression or partial carbonization. Most kinds burn with a red smoky flame, developing a very strong odour, which, however, has its admirers in the same way that wood smoke has. This arises from the destructive distillation of imperfectly carbonized organic matter. The ash, like that of wood, is light and powdery, except when much sand is present, when it is of a denser character.