OCR Text |
Show THE JAM TRADE. Gladstone's Wisdom In Advising the Farm era to Cultivate Fruit. A few jears ago, when Mr. Glad-. Etone, in one of his charming bucolic orations at Hawarden. recommended the British farmer to turn his attention to fruit cultivation and the making of jam, hi3 advice was received vrith a good deal of cheap and ignorant ridicule. As usual, the ex-premier has proved a good deal wiser than his critics, and those who gave ear to his counsel in this instance in-stance havehadno reason to regret their confidence. In an interview a famous provider says: "The motive that induced me to take up the jam irade wa3 my knowledge of the fact that within late years the demand de-mand for preserves had been steadily increasing, in-creasing, while that for butter has, no doubt in consequence, shown a tendency rather to decline than otherwise. Catering Cater-ing as I do for some 300,000 daily customers, cus-tomers, I have naturally good opportunity opportu-nity of knowing what the public want in the matter of provisions. "Jam has a great future before it. The people are using it more and more largely every year, and, in my opinion, they are doing wisely, for what could bo cheaper and at the same time healthier health-ier than a good jam made from sound English fruit? ! "I attribute the superiority of English Eng-lish fruit to the nature of the soil and to the fact that the fruit ripens more gradually in our climate than in countries coun-tries where there is more continuous and powerful sunshine. The slower the ripening rip-ening process the better is the flavor of the fruit. "You may not perhaps be aware that strawberries grown in the northern parts of Scotland are vastly superior in all respects re-spects to those grown in southern England, Eng-land, without doubt because they take longer to mature. Australian jams are being pushed largely in India and elsewhere else-where and may very probably come over here before long to compete with our home produce. "In Ireland there is a magnificent future fu-ture for the fruit growing industry if only its opportunities were turned to account. ac-count. Even now most of the blackberries blackber-ries that come to the English markets we grown in Ireland. But there are enormous possibilities there of which no one has yet taken advantage. Properly worked, its fruit trade might yet do much to insure Ireland's commercial prosperity. " Westminster Gazette. |