Page 273 - The_story_of_the_C._W._S._The_jubilee_history_of_the_cooperative_wholesale_society,_limited._1863-1913_(IA_storyofcwsjubill00redf) (1)_Neat

In the Apple Country.
Hereford, which pleasant cathedral city is some three miles distant.
From the station a narrow lane winds and doubles as if to dodge the
old apple trees in cottage gardens, but goes generally north and east
to the fruit farm of Burmarsh, near the village of Harden. Hereford-
shire apples have come mainly from the orchards almost everywhere
attached to the general farms of the county, and the planting of
Burmarsh as a fruit farm in 1887 was a novelty in the district.
About 1899 the jam works became an increasingly important
customer of this farm, and upon the owner eventually (1904) desiring
to sell the entire property the C.W.S. Committee agreed to purchase.
The area was a little over 123 acres, freehold except for half an acre,
with five cottages, stabhng, sheds for the temporary housing of
fruit pickers, 22,000 plum trees, 4,500 apple trees, and 125,000
gooseberry bushes; and the agreed price was £17,000. This last
figure caused some discussion when the proposal came before the
delegates in December, 1903, but no opposition was raised to the
recommendation itself. Accordingly the farm was taken over.
During the negotiations the work had fallen into arrear, and the
first labour was to cleanse the ground of weeds and get the land mto
a businesslike condition. Afterwards came the tasks of protecting
the growing fruit by a systematic spraying of the trees, of waging
war against the winter moth, of grafting and plantmg, of picking,
weighing, and despatching fruit, and, in short, of carrymg on all the
manifold work behind the delightful spring and summer aspect of a
great and fruitful orchard. Apart from this diligent farming fewer
evidences of the C.W.S. have appeared than at Roden. The space
enclosed by glass has been extended and a little cottage building
done, while the wages of the regular workers have been lifted a little
above their previous level. Two small purchases have also added
slightly to the original area of the farm, which is now 127 acres.
The Roden land, having absorbed capital from year to year in the
process of development, has generally shown an excess of expenditure
over income ; but at Marden a fair return has been realised.
The history of C.W.S. farming now cames us from West to East,
In 1908 the Society opened a purchasing depot for vegetables, fruit,
and cereals at Wisbech, in the fertile fen country. Recently (1912)
an opportunity arose of purchasing two fairly large estates in the
neighbourhood, and, this being taken, the Society became possessed
of the larger part of each. The freehold land acquired amounted
to about 820 acres, and the cost, with farmhouses, cottages, and
buildings, reached £45,310. Considered to include some of the
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