Mexborough & Swinton Times Friday, February 11, 1927

Wombwell, it is said, is noted for pretty girls and international sportsman. That statement may be correct as far as it goes, but a representative of the “Times” has discovered that it does not go far enough. It requires a rider under the heading of “rhubarb.” The student of commercial geography, when asked, “What do we get from Wombwell?” may reply with confidence, “Rhubarb!”

The centre of the rhubarb industry at Wombwell is in Station Lane. The “farm” occupies an Isthmus between Bulling’s Dyke and the River Dove, and is skirted by a block of cottage property known as “Fattycake” Row.

The land was at one time susceptible to floods, and being “heavy” is especially suited for growing rhubarb. In point of fact, it will grow nothing else. For years it was barren and waterlogged. Reclaimed as a rhubarb plantation, it is now serving a useful purpose. The rhubarb industry at Wombwell is in the real sense of the term a “one man business.” Mr Richard Hutchinson is the man.

A “Times” representative of the privilege of looking over Mr Hutchinson’s nurseries this week. The experience was an interesting one. There is an art in most things, and especially does this apply to the cultivation of rhubarb. First of all, it has to be clearly understood that there are two methods of growing rhubarb, the common or garden way, and the method of the market gardener.

Mr Richardson grows rhubarb for profit. He puts it on the market tons at a time, and gathers his crop in the winter. When Tom, Dick and Harry have got rhubarb he doesn’t want it. He has no more use for rhubarb in summer than to manure his garden with it. The idea of forcing rhubarb is known to most people, where the art comes in is in the method of forcing it. The professional has his own way of doing it.

Mr Hutchinson let our representative into a few of his trade secrets – just sufficient to appreciate his ideas, but not sufficient to copy them. “The secret of successfully forcing,” he said, “is not in the forcing house, but in the process of preparing the roots while they are developing in the open. It’s like everything else. You cannot get more out than you put in. The ground must be specially prepared and the route so charge with potential energy that they will come forward by leaps and bounds. Then the forcing commenced. To grow rhubarb successfully you must grow it quickly – the quicker the better.”

Mr Hutchinson conducted our representative into his forcing out – a low squat building covering a fairly large area and heated to about 70° by steam pipes. On all sides stood row upon row of rhubarb like hosts of ghosts. The leaves were of an ivory cast, and the rhubarb itself a luscious pale pink.

“The colour,” he said, “makes a great difference in the commercial value of the commodity. The fastidious just like what you might call a shell pink.”

He mentioned that in this building alone there was not less and £30 worth of fruit. In another building and adjoining there was an equally valuable crop in an early stage. Stopping a stick to show how fragile and brittle it was, he said, “You can imagine what damage would be done if a cat or a dog got in here. Curiously enough, my own cat never harms it. It will walk between the sticks without breaking one.”

As a specialist in rhubarb Mr Hutchinson grows only two species, “Prince Albert” and “Victoria.” He considers these are the best varieties for forcing.

Ex-soldiers who are anxious to know whether the jam came from during the war will perhaps be interested to learn that during the war Mr Hutchinson supplied rhubarb to firms manufacturing jam for the troops. He has supplied manufacturers with £50 consignments and have sent rhubarb to market as for distant as Blackpool and the Midlands. He is one of the best personalities in the realm of rhubarb, and sent seed to New Zealand.

Born in the rhubarb growing country around Hunslet, Mr Hutchinson served his time with a firm of nursery gardeners. In the Wombwell district he is known by his rhubarb.

He mentioned that a letter posted in London and addressed to “Rhubarb Dick,” Wombwell, found him without difficulty.