WOMAN'S WORLD.

Dominion, Volume 5, Issue 1320, 26 December 1911, Page 9

WOMAN'S WORLD.

TO-DAY'S DINNER. I Specially written for The Dominion.l TUESDAY'. Fried Flounders. Xew Puliiloes. Green I'eus. Huntingdon Pudding. HUNTINGDON PUDDING. Eight ounces Hour, soz. suet (chopped), i teaspoonful baking powder, !!oz. castor sugar, \ egg, about 1 gill of milk, 1 pint gooseberries, pinch of salt, sweet melted butter sauce. Sift the Hour, salt, and baking powder together into a basin. Add tho suet, sugar, and gooseberries (which should have been washed and topped and tailed), mix them together. Beat up the egg, add half the milk, ' and stir them to the other ingredients, nddin? tho rest of the milk by degrees. Put the mixture into a greased basin, cover with greased paper and steam for 2\ hours. Turn out the S udding and servo with sweet melted utter sauce. FOR TO-MORROW. Loin of mutton, new potatoes, broad beans, cherries, pasty.

A BIG INDUSTRY. GROWING CHRLSTMAS TREES. Not many people realkc out here what a very surious business is the growing ot Christmas trees. By far tho greater number of those which arc seen in London, at any rate, are grown on thiit vast tract of sandy country, partly in Surrey and partly in Hampshire, winch has. a≤ its centre, the town of I'arnham (says a writer in an English paper). The trade is very largely in tho hands of two or three firms, and tho writer spent many interesting hours driving round the great plantations, extending over hundreds of acres, which are exclusively devoted to tho Christmas tree culture. Only one kind of tree is grown for this purpose, the neat little 6pruce fir, a species which is noted for its compact habit. Of courso, some of the wild firs aro often sold in poor districts, but these are not recognised by the trade as a marketable article. It is rather a slow business this production of Christmas trees. The little firs are raised from seed, but this part of the business is usually carried out by growers in Scotland, who make a specialty of supplying the Farnham farmers with stock. Considering that after planting the grower will have to wait at least six years before he can gatheri:-' any crop, it 'is fortunate that the most saleable firs are produced on the poorest land. This is owing to the fact that the greatest demand is for those trees which are of a very light green colour. On rich soil the firs are of a dark shade, so that the grower purposely selects the most stony and sandy land that he can command. Even at the end of half-a-dozen years the biggest specimens aro only "small stuff/' such as will command second-rate prices, but at this time the firs will have become unduly crowded and a clearing out becomes essential. If left in their present state the . will rapidly choke one another, nno very serious outcome of this overcrowding being that tho leaves of the lower branches will be dropped. This, of course, would render the firs quite unsaleable. The cleariug- business is an annual affair which must, on no account, -iiieglected, even if a market cannot be found for the uprooted trees. During the black Christmas season of 1899, when so many British homes were filled with sadness owing to the disasters in South Africa, there was hardly any demand for tho firs. The trees had to be disposed of somehow, and huge bonfires were mack- in which thousands upon thousands were destroyed on one estate alone. The. country people around Farnham will long remember the way in which the district was lit up every night by the glare of the great piles of flaming trees. Great as is the' demand for Christmas trees the growers say that the trade has never been quite so good since the South African A\ r ar. Fifteen years ago, the sale of Christmas trees from one of the principal estates in the l-'arnham district reached the huge , total of 80,000; nowadays it is considered to be a good season if as many as 50,000 are dispatched. Perhaps, as time goes on, the trade may recover its former activity, as one can scarcely belicvo that the delightful custom of decorating tho little firs can do other than remain with us.