IMPORTED APPLES.

Auckland Star, Volume LVII, Issue 80, 6 April 1926, Page 4

IMPORTED APPLES.

FRUITGROWERS' PROTEST.

AMERICAN" OR CANADIAN. Canterbury fruitgrowers have decided to take up the matter of imported apples of which many thousands of cases come on the New Zealand market annually. At the last meeting of the Canterbury Fruitgrowers' Association, it was agreed to recommend to the annual Fruitgrowers' Conference that the duty should be raised from Id to 2d per lb. There is an embargo on American apples at the present time, but according to Mr. Sisson, a well-known Christchureh orchardist, the apples which come to New Zealand are grown in California and are shipped to Vancouver and called Canadian. On this point it may be mentioned that the apples which come to the Auckland market are certainly purchased from Canadian firms and the cases are placarded with labels proclaiming that the fruit is the product of British Columbian orchards. The retail shopkeepers buy them at auction, promptly label them "American," and as such they appear in the shop windows. Apparently the shopkeeper, if he considers the matter at all, has come to the conclusion that an apple labelled '•'American" will sell more readily than one designated "Canadian." It seems to be nobody's business in particular to educate the local public to the fact that Canadian apples, speaking generally, are superior to American.