BRITAIN'S BIC STRAWBERRY CROP.

Dominion, Volume 1, Issue 284, 25 August 1908, Page 2

BRITAIN'S BIC STRAWBERRY CROP.

■INTERESTING PARTICULARS. _ ';] ■ , The "Daily Mail" says:—The. present'.yeax.' .will' long be remembered as the) most ■prolific-?, strawberry Jear known (in Britain); "The 1 fruit Jias, so far, been picked afid marketed under the most propitious conditions)' hot one •: * wet' spell having' interfered with the'-busi- 7 -. , ness. The total output is expected to ex-V < ceed 50,000 tons, and this, estimated-at <Uopence'a pound'net, represents to growers something like £1,000,000. : The Ham^shir^Y•: berry growers admit tnat they have, enjoyed t , tho be&t season for strawberries for twenty years. The average exceeds two .tons. an. acre. The. Straw.berry harvest is. of- greater . . monetary value than that of currants and - ' gooseberries combined,- although, the.,litter'.-.' fruits are grown on an immense. seals in several counties. The total • value of the J strawberry, currant and gooseberry-harvests' .: exceeds two millions.sterling.l About 60,000 c;' acres of land are devoted to these fruits in Britain, but tho English fruit-grower do- . minates the situation. " .The currant' crops .r. will ho above the average also.' A goods de-' mand is expected for giant red currants, of -La Verseillaise ; type. Often they are" sold .- retail as high as Is. 6d. ii pound. .. ._. ,{ : A New Zealand Strawberry Crop. 1 . " T . ; What is-tho value, qf an .average straw-. . berry crop in New., Zealand? It 'used to.be ~ ■ said that there were 100 strawberry growers - i around Birkenhead sending' the . berries, to V the Auckland,..market; that the .averaged value of the crop was about £150 per man; arid that the Birkenhead growers produce, half. the strawberries' of New Zealand. -At the present time<there arerfeweiibut; larger., growers, but the output is scarcely increased. The output frofli Birkenhead; there-' fore, would be worth about £30,000, and tho , output of tho. wholo.pominion.£6o,ooo. , '^ r V 1 7 ; What is the weight of a New Zealand crop, of strawberries ? On the average, of the Bir- ( ! kenhead- . price of about \six-. pence; per pound—in an average .season, the; , j weight, of a crop selling for £30,000 would ' be 1,200,0001b5., »pr jover, 500 tons/. The ; average gross return per. acre of cultivated ; beds at Birkenhead is about r £looin other parts of tho Dominion' it # is, considerably . less. . ' Thus the English crop of 50,000. toijs. would give the 40 million English peoplo over 2|lbs. of tho most popular of all berries to , each inhabitant, at a retail cost of, perhaps,- - 3d. per pound. A New Zealand average 1 crop gives only enough berries for a pouid basketful to bo shared among nine peoplo.. '' For this limited feast it would ..xost each '.' person about a penny. But more likely what really happens is that one person gets tha whole basketful, andjthe other eight got'no strawberries at-all. ■ | K-