The Following article is taken from a local newspaper.

“The weather always has a part to play

1956 The rainfall in the past week has been playing havoc with the heavy raspberry crop in the Arbroath and Carnoustie districts. In the inland parts Of Angus the crop is patchy, but around the Arbroath area it is of a very high standard. Growers were all set to pick a clean, heavy crop. Despite the rain, pickers have made steady progress. There is a certain scarcity of pickers in the district. The twice for the fruit this year is good. Given reasonable weather this should he a fairly successful season in the Arbroath area. A ” Guide ” reporter went this week to Brax Cottage Farm and saw pickers at work there on one of the fields of Mr D. McIntyre, whose family have been in the rasp-berry-growing business for generations. Mr McIntyre’s family came to the district from Blairgowrie 18 years ago. They brought to Brax the benefit of their experience gained in Perthshire, and in a brand of farming such as berry picking this is all-important. Raspberry growing is a costly : business. Experts estimate it takes £150 to establish an acre of rasps before any return is gained. The cost of production is high, possibly £60) per acre, which does not include labour costs in the picking season. The need to be fully conversant with the problems of the industry, the possible diseases to crop, and the effects of had weather is obvious. Mr McIntyre has this advantage, and in addition, like every good fruit grower, he keeps in close touch with the horticultural research stations.

Good crop

Mr McIntyre stated that in his various fields, in which he grows around inn acres of rasps, the crop is good, and far better than last year. But rain was hindering picking. The types of rasp bushes he uses are Mailing Promise, Mailing Jewels, Mailing Marvellous, and l new variety. Mulling Exploit. Pro mist., and Exploit are not suitable for canning, but satisfactory for the preserve trade, From an acre of rasps Mr McIntyre estimates an average yield of two tons ten hundredweights to three tons. Pickers seen by the reporter were filling their buckets and having them weighed before the rasps were emptied into barrels for despatch to process firms in the south. All the McIntyre crop goes for processing. The rasps are packed in 3 cwt, casks and preserved with three pints sulphur dioxide per cwt. This keeps them for one year in a fresh condition.

Pickers pay

Pickers are paid 2d per lb rising to as much as 3d per lb and a good picker can make as much as £1 per day. In the fields were men, women and children. Some. Mr McIntyre stated, had been there regularly for the 18 years the McIntyre’s has been in the district. In the Arbroath area shout 500 tons of berries will he picked this summer at a cost of £30 per ton for picking. It can be calculated that the fruit picking season offers a considerable addition to the incomes of many Arbroathians. The bushes are picked six times, as the fruit ripens during the season. But it is a mistake to assume that once this is done little happens, until next summer. Rasp growing, costly and only successful if well managed, is a full-year job. After the picking. the strings are cut immediately, and any old cane cut out. The young cane clipped and tied up.

A years work

Then all the bushes have to Be hoed up. Dunged and furrowed. In February the bushes are sprayed with tar oil for raspberry borar, an insect which is one of the pests of the crop. In the spring all bushes are again hoed—it is necessary to keep them clean—and are manured by a percentage of potash helps to give quality fruit. Six weeks before the season starts the bushes are sprayed with DDT miscible powder to keep down the rasp beetle, another curse to any crop’s success. Following this, the stage is all set for picking. So the cycle goes. Picking. cutting down, manuring, spraying. hoeing, spraying and back to picking. A fascinating work, but one, which is successful only if the-grower knows his work from A to Z.

Heavy berries

At McIntyre’s fruit farm they most certainly do. The heavy, rich berries on the bushes bear testimony to that. The same can said at most of the other fruit farms in the Arbroath district. Bairgowrie may he termed the mother country of rasp-growing,. But experts state the rasps grown in the Arbroath district are far ahead in excellence of quality and quantity. The milder coastal climate seems to have a favourable effect on the crop.”