A VERY WIDE SELECTION.

Anyone who takes a stroll through the central avenue of Covent Garden Market cannot fail to be impressed by the wonderful range of choice fruits available for the period of the year. Baskets of English apples, though not so temptingly displayed as the American and Nova Scotian, nor with such care as the French and Swiss, demonstrate the fine quality of fruit we produce and store at home. Canary and West India bananas, grape fruit, English, Belgian, and Spanish grapes, pineapples, Spanish, Jaffa, and Californian oranges, cartons of splendid Tunis dates, and a remarkable show of South African produce are to be seen in profusion. In the South African contribution are splendid specimens of the best pears, including Louise Bonne, Beurré Hardy, Bon Chrétien, Duchesse D’angoulême, Beurré Clairgeau, and Beurré Superfin. There is also a selection of plums, peaches, grapes, and nectarines, the grapes being of very fine quality.

In connection with the proposed branding of imported produce, if it operates and is extended to fruit, South African growers for the English market will have nothing to fear, in fact, would welcome such an enactment, conscious of the quality of their goods. Indeed, the existing regulations, under the Fruit Export Act, enforce proper packing, grading, marking etc. Although it would be impossible to mark each plum, pear, and peach – as is proposed in the case of imported eggs – efficient marking is in operation by way of boxes, description of grade, and the individual wrapping of each fruit. Such strictness at the source is in the growers’ interest as much as the consumers’, and among our own growers those of the Pershore district are making a strong stand on similar lines.

Next to the wonderful show of fruit the eye of the visitor to the market early in the day would be attracted to the enormous quantities of flowers – carnations, daffodils, violets, tulips, wallflowers, marigolds, marguerites, mimosa, narcissus, gaudy anemone, brilliant ranunculus, lilac, lily of the valley, freezia, stocks, and beautiful foliage plants.

PALM SUNDAY.

It is usual to have an increasing supply of flowers at this season of the year, but the show is exceptionally fine just now. A reminder of the approach of Palm Sunday may be seen in the lofty sheaves of palm. These are grown in Elche, a curious corner in the South of Spain, between Murcia and Alicante.

There is no other part of Spain like Elche, which is visited by those desirous of obtaining an idea of what an oasis in the Sahara is like. It has the appearance of an oasis brought across the Mediterranean by a magician from Tunis or Algiers and dropped into sunny Spain. Here the date palm flourishes so far as the magnificent leaves are concerned, though the date does not fully mature, and they are used in La Procession del Domingo de Ramos on Palm Sunday at Seville and other parts of Spain.

Those who tend the trees climb to the top, gather in the open umbrella spread of leaves, and, tying them up in a sheaf, literally close the umbrella and envelop it in a case. This results in the beautiful golden hue of the leaves as we see them in church on Palm Sunday. It is just as natural a process as the partial cutting of the stem of the muscatel grape.

Spain, by the way, has suffered through orange trees being blown down in the Valentia and Denia areas, and a rise in the price of available supplies has naturally resulted. Good supplies, however, are coming, the outlet being less now than before the war to Germany and other parts of the Continent. Lemons are dearer, too, and if the demand of “dry” America in connection with “soit” drinks is maintained, the price is likely to continue high.

Of vegetables there are abundant supplies, homegrown and imported, quantities being above requirements. Canary tomatoes are cheaper, second crop of good quality being on sale. High-class new potatoes are arriving from Guernsey; middle-class from Algeria and the Canary Islands; all good, but the Guernsey providing the best “new potato flavour.” Cucumbers are rapidly increasing in supply, the output of Worthing being supplemented this week by the first from the Lea Valley, and prices are falling. Peas and broad beans from the South of France are available, and the novelty of the week has been a few strawberries, which realised about 25s per lb. Spring greens are extremely plentiful, and forced and natural rhubarb is in good demand.

There is an increasing sale for coconuts, or cokernuts, the spelling being a matter of choice so far as these two variations are concerned, the old form of cocoa-nut having quite gone out of fashion, mainly because of the need, to distinguish it from cocoa, which was itself varied from cacao. The nut was introduced to this country as far back as 1690. There used to be a small sale in London, as the street traders could only sell them “open,” the contents of the shell being such a matter of doubt. For a long period the chief sale by the wholesale trade was to showmen, who used them to “top the sticks,” in other words, for “shies.”

The popularity of this form of “skill” has waned at fairs, and there is a large sale now for cooking purposes, particularly for cakes and confectionery, in addition to those purchased for consumption in a raw state. This trade is being fostered by a regular and uniform supply of fresh nuts from Jamaica right through the year, the reliability as to freshness being strongly in their favour.