FRUIT REGULATIONS DEFENDED

Dominion, Volume 1, Issue 301, 14 September 1908, Page 3

FRUIT REGULATIONS DEFENDED

THE VOICE OF THE GROWERS/ huge interests at stake. The views of the fruit importers' regarding the new fruit regulations as affecting the island trade aro not by any means shared by local fruit-growers (telegraphs our special Auckland correspondent). " Our interests should certainly have somo consideration," said ono of tho largest ,of them. " Widespread ruin would follow if tho fruit-fly got a footing in this- country. In- Nelson, Motueka, Whangarei, and Central Otago, hundreds of men havo invested largo sums of monoy'in orchards. In one district in Hawke's Bay £235,000 lias been spent in planting orchards, £45,000 being invested in one orchard alone. Last year the fruit grown in the Dominion was valued at a million sterling. Tho New Zealand orchards are now going ahead rapidly, and tho growers' are fast finding their feet. Let there be one season of fly, and all the labour and capital would go for nothing. There are only a couple of dozen importers in tho whole Dominion, but there aro about 10,000 members of the fruit-growers' association. Tho old system of relying upon inspection on landing for the discovery of fly was full of dangers, and the Department: of Agriculture very rightly recognised tho fact. An Island boat often brings 20,000 packages of fruit to Auckland. How could ono inspector, or even a dozen, examine each package in this search for fly? It would take weeks of work, yet two or three packages of infected fruit might very readily bring about a scourge which would destroy tho value of every orchard in Now Zealand. . The ■ codlin moth camo from America in a .shipment: of, bad fruit, and is to-day one. of tlie worst of pests. The fruit-fly has cost tho Now South Wales orchardists £2,000,000."