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Brogdale
News:
Thursday
9th of February 1989
Speech
made by HRH the Prince of Wales at the Annual Banquet of the Worshipful
Company of Fruiterers’ at Plaisterers Hall, London.
I bottle the plums that I grow from some of your trees, and every
day for breakfast I eat them. During the winter, and when they are
finished, I start eating the rhubarb that I grow in forcing pots
in another part of the garden, and I bottle the pears and, I hope,
give great pleasure to the many guests that we entertain for lunch
and dinner. So I can assure you it is greatly appreciated.
At the same time I have discovered that there are all sorts of problems
that occur like endless leaf curls, which I find difficult to deal
with despite light spraying, and also a slight touch of cancour,
which seems to occur from time to time. But, that I hope will be
rectified in due course using the expert advice and assistance of
various people belonging to the Fruiters Company.
Ladies and Gentleman, as I said my garden gives me an enormous amount
of pleasure.
There is a famous quotation from Buddha that the two things that
are important and bring merit to those who do them are planting
trees and arranging gardens. It’s absolutely true, and I’m
sure we would all endorse this particular aspect of Eastern philosophy
and want to put it into practice. Particularly in respect of those
varieties which are decreasingly available in our shops. I don’t
know about you, but I am horrified at what I learned of the disappearance
of traditional strains of produce.
I do acknowledge that the market is of course a better judge of
what the consumer actually wants. But there is a risk in the operations
of the market that if certain varieties of produce are not in demand,
they will not be developed or cultivated and they will probably
die out. The fact is that in terms of available fruit varieties
in the market place we are down to a mere handful. Some 6000 varieties
have been recorded between the 19th century and the present day.
But all too often the range of varieties on display to customers
is disappointingly small. Apart from the ubiquitous French Golden
Delicious, you are unlikely to find more than a couple of types
of apple. With pears it is Conference or Comice, whilst plums are
simply classified into red, yellow and green.
In a supermarket you might encounter a specialist fruit section
offering a little more choice. This is usually expressed as exotic
foreign imports and you will look in vain for a greater range of
traditional English fruit varieties. This phenomenon appears to
be a particularly British problem. It doesn’t seem to affect
others in quite the same way. For instance the growers in New Zealand
have profited very well by sending at least ten different varieties
of apples in commercial quantities to our markets each summer.
Yet in Kent, I understand, one liveryman, a highly professional
grower, has seen a reduction in the types he markets from sixteen
dessert and eight culinary, three years ago, to just two varieties
today. But it wasn’t always like this. Our Victorian forefathers
were great fruit enthusiasts and many hundreds of varieties were
cultivated both in private gardens and commercially.
Apples such as Baumann's
Reinette, Chelmsford
Wonder and Royal Jubilee,
wonderful names, were commonplace then. And what, I ask, has become
of the ‘Prince of Wales’ apple – recorded in 1862,
thought to be existence in Belgium, maybe in Holland now, but the
whereabouts are otherwise unknown.
Although there is little commercial interest in the old varieties,
there is, I think, a growing demand from private quarters and organisations
such as the National Trust, Country Museums and other conservation
bodies that are trying very hard to recreate historically authentic
period gardens. This along with the current interest in organic
production and more traditional forms of production is likely to
lead to a demand for fruit trees which are naturally resistant to
pests and diseases and therefore do not need chemical sprays to
the same extent. But for this to happen the source material needs
to be made available. Where is it, I ask you, to come from? Most
of the specialist fruit tree nurseries have long since gone. Giants
of bygone years such as Thomas Rivers and Sons of Sawbrigde and
Worth and Laxton Brothers of Bedford are no more. Only a handful
remain, and if old and unusual fruit varieties were to be revived,
we must look to private collections. Those at the RHS gardens at
Wisley and perhaps most importantly the National Fruit Trials are
a vital living record of our fruit heritage, as Mr Mack was saying.
It is virtually impossible to exaggerate their importance, I believe,
for if they disappear our heritage goes with them. Over 2,000 different
apple varieties alone are grown – arguably the most comprehensive
collection of apple varieties anywhere in the world and of international
importance. The collection also contains some 500 pear cultivars,
350 different types of plums and numerous other bush and fruit tree
varieties. It seems to me essential that collections such as these
are maintained.
I am aware that under your authority, Lady Trumpington, a working
group is currently examining the organisation of horticultural research
and that it will amongst others consider the future of the National
Gene bands. I very much hope that all those here tonight will in
the end find its conclusions welcome.
But it is not as some sort of fruit antiquarian that I emphasise
the importance of these gene banks. Museum collections have a much
more vital role. We are entering an era of environmental uncertainty.
Greenhouse warming, Ultra Violet Radiation as a result of Ozone
depletion and Acid rain are bringing about various types of climatic
change as far as we can make out. We can only guess at the consequent
effects on crop production. Yields may be depressed or increased,
pests and diseases may become more or less of a problem, we just
don’t really know. Varieties and cultivation today may be useless
under such changed circumstances. Given the uncertainty, it is surely
essential that collections be maintained to provide the necessary
genetic diversity that will allow us tackle problems of the future.
However unlikely it may seem at present, source material from currently
unfashionable varieties may be the key to the long-term survival
of the sources of nourishment on which we depend. So, Ladies and
Gentlemen don’t let’s repeat the mistakes of the Sixties
when so much was destroyed unnecessarily and the baby was thrown
out with the bath water, and so I hope Ladies and Gentlemen that
the company will address these important issues and that the Livery
Company will make a substantial contribution to the community by
broadening the scope of its interests to embrace such issues.
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