FRUIT-TRADE. The trade in fruit is divided into two distinct branches—the fresh and the dried fruits. Fresh fruits, such as those which grdw abundantly in England, are sold for London consumption almost entirely at Covent garden market; the sales at the borough and other metropolitan markets being comparatively small. There are many fruit-gardens within 20 m. of the metropolis which depend almost wholly on London consumption; but since the extensive spread of railway accommodation, fruit can now be brought up from distant parts of England with great felicity; and provincial towns and the metropolis can alike be well supplied. Rapid conveyance and prompt sale and delivery are essential conditions to this kind of trade, owing to the the fruit to spoil by keeping. The higher the quality of the fruit, the more certain is the sale in London. There are in the island of Jersey pear-orchards, the produce of which is contracted for at very high prices by some of the Covent garden dealers. The orange and lemon trades are managed in rather a peculiar manner; the produce is brought to England in very swift vessels, and is mostly consigned to fruit merchants in the neigh borhood of Lower Thames street, who sell it to the fruiterers and the street-dealers, as well as to the markets.
Dried fruit comprises raisins, currants, figs, and the like. Grown and dried in fot eign countries, chiefly the Mediterranean, these kinds of fruit mostly arrive in cases and casks; 'and the dealings connected with them are conducted much in the same way as those with what is called colonial produce, such as grocery.
Of raisins, currants, oranges, and lemons, the quantity and value imported into the United Kingdom in 1875 were as follows: Raisins, 551,504 cwt. £1,040,648 Currants, 1.062,811 cwt 1,412,337 Oranges and lemons, 2,861,719 bushels. . ' 1,336,247 We present the numbers for one year, but it was a year of more than average activity in this branch of trade. Of other kinds of fruit, the official tables present the following quantities, in round numbers, in one average year—Almonds, 34,744 cwt.; apples, 385,046 bushels; figs, 46,040 cwt.; grapes. 19,557 bushels; chestnuts, 57,048 bushels; cocoa-nuts, 2,484,423 no.; hazel-nuts, 220,386 bushels; walnuts, 68,363 bushels; pears, 61,055 bushels; plums (French), 8,702 cwt.; prunes, 16.030 cwt.; tamarinds, 634,697 lbs.
Some years ago, statistical papers in the Morning Chronicle gave returns concerning the quantity of fruit sold in Covent Garden and other London markets annually, esti mated in the usual way by bushels, cwts., pottles, etc. About the same period, Mr. Braithwaite Poole, goods-manager on the London and North-western railway, gave tables of the amount, estimated in tons, of the fruit brought to London generally. The sources of information arc not very clearly stated in either case; and as the two accounts are inconsistent ones with another, they need not be given here.