Fruit is another of Kashmir's important products which may be expected to largely increase in the future. Kashmir apples are renowned all over India. They are large, red, and attractive looking, and sell well as far down as Calcutta and Bombay. But they are not of really good flavour, and the apples from European stock now being grown are sure to have a large sale in the future. In the autumn months thousands of cart-loads are carried down the roads to the railway at Rawal Pindi. The apple grows wild in Kashmir, and the villagers uproot the wild trees and plant them in their orchards. But the State also now supplies them with young trees. Near Srinagar there are large State nurseries stocked with the best kinds from Europe, and every year thousands of young trees are given out free to the villagers, so that the valley may gradually be filled with the best available trees. The State also to a small extent grows apples for sale, and their trees are extraordinarily prolific. In the autumn one sees these apple trees weighed down to the ground with fruit, and M. Peychaud, the director in charge, says that he has taken as many as 30,000 from one tree. The apples also grow to an enormous size. And when the railway comes to Kashmir, and carriage is easier and cheaper, the export of apples and other fruit should increase to striking dimensions, and not only be one of the best means of making the railway pay, but bring great profits to the cultivators. The apple of Kashmir has a great future before him.
So has the pear. He is not so much to the fore at present, because he does not stand carriage as well; but the railway will remove that drawback, and he will run the apple hard. Like the apple, the pear also is found wild and transplanted into orchards. But good stock is now being grown in the State orchard and distributed from there. Some of these, and some that have been imported by European residents, have taken so kindly to Kashmir, that I believe their present products are not surpassed anywhere. From Major Wigram's garden comes a famous pear, so large, and soft, and luscious, as scarcely to support its own weight. Other winter pears keep right through to the early summer.