It is not clear whether independent fruit pickers work in illegal territory. I called the spokesperson for the London Metropolitan Police who officially said they had no comment to make because there is no current record of arrests or complaints and there really is nothing officially recorded, suggesting that melee is an accepted practice unless a landowner files a formal complaint with the police. In the case of the example you gave, I would call the neighbor`s berries Scrumping because she knew the owner. Taking berries from several gardens is still convulsive as the gardens are clearly privately owned. If the berries had been harvested from an abandoned colony where no one lived, it would be foraging. If someone is feeling generous and puts up a sign that says “Free berries – pick them yourself!”, collecting those berries is a melee. If their motivation for setting up the sign that says “Free berries – pick them yourself” is to help the poor on the ground, then it is collecting. Taking overhanging bays that grow outside the perimeter of the neighboring property — including bays that overflow on your side of a shared fence — can be shrill or collector. Taking berries from a bush within the perimeter of your neighbor`s private property is theft unless permission has been given beforehand. While it is not illegal to pick fruit on communal land or community-owned land where they do not grow fruit for food, it is illegal to profit commercially from what you do with the harvested fruit.
If you harvest trees and hedges on private land (such as an overhanging tree or bush in your neighbour`s house), ask their permission beforehand. There are over 2,500 different varieties of apples currently growing on trees across the UK, and many of these can be found in gardens, motorways and hedgerows in our major cities. In the past, much of this fruit has been wasted. However, many city dwellers are aware of the plethora of products available on their doorstep, thanks in large part to the work of organisations such as Abundance Manchester and the London Orchard Project, which help people identify melee sites and educate them about the pleasures of urban fruit. Scrumping is closely related to collection. It`s the collection of something that doesn`t bother the homeowner when you “recycle” or use it. Often, the owner turns a blind eye when you get it back – either because they have a surplus, or because they don`t want it, or because they know you need it. Ruth in the Bible gathered wheat from the fields of her misery – she tried to feed herself and her mother-in-law Naomi (Ruth chapter 2).
This type of picking is still a custom in Syria – farmers deliberately leave some of their crops unharvested so that the poor and foreigners can pick them up. “This year, the harvest has become ballistic,” said Anne-Marie Culhane, co-founder of Abundance in Sheffield, who says her volunteer base has grown from 30 just before the recession to 200. “We legitimized the scrum.” “This gives you the right to remove the branches and if it is the fruit attached to the branches. Councillor David McLachlan, Brisbane City Council`s chair of environment, parks and sustainability, said this is not just a legal issue – the moral code of being a good neighbour should also dictate what you do. But if you don`t own the land it grows on, can you legally pick it? The Theft Act 1968 for England and Wales states: Young people are relatively open about their hobby. But they admit there`s some element of excitement in what they do — especially in areas that aren`t easily accessible to the general public. “Our best scrum mission was near Regents Park a few weeks ago,” says Francois. “The tree was in one of these community gardens, surrounded by railings. He decided to go inside under cover of darkness.
It was great – like something of Danny, world champion – to lie under a tree and wear a hood while someone threw apples at you. Why this sudden revival of interest in the urban melee? “People are more interested in where their food comes from,” says Rowena Ganguli of the London Orchards Project. “They see heavily packaged fruits and vegetables flown into supermarkets from remote corners of the world and wonder why they have to pay stupid amounts for them when they can just collect what they need from the tree around the corner. There is also the whole problem of waste. We had a record harvest of fruit this year and many people are wondering why they should let it rot when it could be harvested and made into delicious chutneys and juices or put in organic fruit and vegetable crates and given to people who need it more than they do. More and more people are contacting us to ask how they can donate some of the surplus they have harvested in their gardens. Scrumping is a euphemism for theft in which the person who intentionally and permanently shrinks steals the rightful owner of the property. Thursday is National Apple Day. Some may mark it with an apple picked from the loaded branches of a nearby tree. But is it – and the search for other fruits, mushrooms and foliage – legal? The intended use is therefore decisive.
The legality or non-legality of foraging is “incredibly complicated,” says Ray Woods of wildlife conservation organization Plantlife. You don`t need much to start scratching – often just a stick to remove fruit and a backpack. However, if you intend to make cider, it will take 15-20kg to make a gallon of apple juice, so you may need a car to transport it. I think the definition of Scrumping is vague. I understand that he is removing exceptional apples from the ground in an orchard. It was associated with children as they could not easily reach apples in trees without being caught by the orchard owner (or their dogs/pigs).