THE FRUIT INDUSTRY.

Auckland Star, Volume XXXVII, Issue 71, 23 March 1906, Page 3

THE FRUIT INDUSTRY.

Although earlier in tbe season, there | ;vas a great glut of plums, while peaches j md pears -were more plentiful than I isuaL, still the returns show that gen- | ■rally speaking growers have bad satis- j factory returns this year The low | trices ruling occasionally point to ac- j :uai loss on certain consignments, but! : till the returns of auctioneers show I :hat growers have received more money I n the aggregate than m former years, I _ cut against that has to be placed the i >xtra cost in the shape of cases, picking | r vnd freight on the larger crop. It was ; the unusually heavy crop of plums that I ipset the market at the commencement ! of the season, with the result that when leaches came in they were not in such strong demand as usual. On top of this , ?anie a phenomena! crop of pears. One i grower alone sent in -21 tons of Wil- 5 liam's Bon Chretien pears, which on the , lverage realised fair price?, frr this par- j J ticular fruit invariably srlls well. Ap- : pits, on the other hand, have not really j been cheap this season. Probably this j ' is due to some extent to the enforce- • ment of the law against rending mothed fruit, into market." The trouble in past ; c years was that the careful packer of j apples had his market ruined by the | .rower, who -cut in fruit riddled with j the codlin moth. Now that an end has I been pat to this practice by the Go- . vernment. the honest packer has ait better chance, and no doubt in the fu- ; 1 ture apples will rule bi_.' '*" m price, j i In connection with the i! in moth |, : pet. it is interesting to v c that Mr | r R. H. Smnle. at Blenheim :a cording t«. | t th" ■•jrarlhorrmgli FL-raW ") found that j j '-.eepitig poultry about his tries wis the ? best check. Last year Mr Smale's i j apples and pears were completely de- j - stroved by the moth, all specifics i T tried by iiira hitherto were not worth ■ , the time an I expe.t-e involved in their ~ application. rl> then enclosed or- , chard with wire-netting and confined , ■bout '200 white I e.horn fowls therein. , His theory was that fowls would I nd the grub before it reached the fruit, and ] •leal with it. He was evidently right. , for no f a pear »> injured, and ■•nit- , three apnles have been found afTer.ed., ;ln ,l these ail on one tree nr the far end , from the fowl run. where the long , grass gave the grub a chance to escape. ( Some years a._<> a grower at N'orthcote , advocated keeping bantams for the same ; ] purpose, ns they went up I he trees after the grubs. In soive pan- of Amerb a n j is the practice to keep |HC> in the orchards s,> that all the infected fruit. which usually fails first, is e.iten up and millions of grubs destroyed. It is. of pourse. far better to utilise the info, red fruit, and also the windfalls on the farm, rather than them to market to bring down tbe price of the care-fully-packed lots. The marketing of fruit in Amklano. is untioubtedlv capable of improvement. , It is a wonder that the übiquitous Health Department has not long ere this objected to the promiscuous handling of the fruit by people at auctions. As soon as a case is opened half a dozen hands are poked into it. and the fruit ; is picked backwards and forwards to j ascertain if there is any rotten fruit I underneath. British. Chinese, and As- j i Syrians all crowd round, and it is enough to cure the onlooker from wanting to eat fruit after he has watched : then-ay if is pawed by various nidi- j viduals.' Hands that have just been j i scratching beads, holding pipes, or banriling babies are all thrust into the ' case", and if there arc bacteria about it seems a good way to pass the infection ■ lon to children, who almost invariably i eat fruit, without peeling it." 1 In Aus- I i tralia this handling of the fruit at au<j tions is not permitted. The case is j j opened and run up and down on a truck j in front of tbe purchasers, who buy ' without handling at all. Another evil in j the present system is the way people take fruit to eat by way of sampling, I hough it is usually seen that the steadiest eatets are usually the shyest buver.s. This also should be stopped, as the real fruiterers ,-au tell all the leading varieties of fruit upon seem? them, j and does not need to handle the fruit, i while those who do feed on the grower's fruit are not the regular buyers. Another matter in the marketing of | fruit that mr.st strike any onlooker i = j the marvellous difference between the prices asked for sinjrle cases of fruit, when an outsider comes in. to what is ! readily accepted for a line. Of course I the wholesale buyers must be protected jto some extent, but all the same it is rough on the grower when there is such a vast difference allowed between wholesale and retail prices. Another frequent cause of complaint heard at auctions •is the placing of apples in half case,,. I Carefully packed apples in bushel cases iis what is wanted on the market as far as apples are concerned, and this fact is made very apparent when the halfcases are offered by the great difference jin the prices obtained.