MARKET GARDENING PROPOSALS

Dominion, Volume 32, Issue 262, 3 August 1939, Page 5

MARKET GARDENING PROPOSALS

Mr. Roberts, M.P., Replies To Hutt .Growers QUALITY OF WAIRARAPA TOMATOES “Give me irrigation and 1 will make the poor stoney land of Maroa, Tauhereuikau and Taratabi plains produce better tomatoes than the Hutt Valley,’’ said Mr. Roberts, M.P., m commenting yesterday on opinions expressed recently in ‘‘The Dominion, bv members of the committee of Hutt growers on various areas suggested in Parliament and in the Press as suitable for market gardening. “Ear be it from me to decry anybody’s assets or land, but if the members of the Hutt Growers’ Committee are going to decry publicly every other district but their own, then it is time to challenge their offensive attitude,’’ said Mr. Roberts. “What credentials have I got to speak on the subject? Well, I have grown tomatoes for more than - > years at Parkvale, Carterton, from 15,000 to 30,000 annually. I supplied the district for some years from Featherston to Pahiatua. _ Some years because of varying conditions I would be caught in short supply and I had to import. Hutt tomatoes for my retail shop trade, with what results. My regular customers would come back and complain that I had sold them some tomatoes not my own growing. The public could easily tell. The flavour was not there! The vitamins were not there! _ “If the Minister of Public Works would give us irrigation in Wairarapa as he has in Canterbury and on the same kind of land (I had to use land with boulders on) we could build for all time a market garden area in Wairarapa which will be at the back door of Wellington. When the tunnel is through that would supply Wellington city if it had half a million people. "In Greytown we have .a small canning factory and with that to take care of our second grade we would organize a co-operative grading depot to put only first grade quality on the Wellington market, so that the public would get quality for price. “How can any grower get a living when some new grower in a small way is allowed to break the market with second grade stuff. Does the Hutt committee propose to develop market gardening on the peasant, semi-China-man’s principle of long hours and backbreaking work, or on a modern machinery, mass production system, that will give fruit and vegetables to the public at reasonable rates, and a standard of living to the grower, which is in keeping with other sections of the workers of the Dominion? “It is a great political battle cry and manoeuvre to play on the susceptibilities of a few men who have owned two or three acres for many years and grown tomatoes for a living when the issue fe the population and development of New Zealand to enable it to hold its own economically and strategically in a modern and troubled world.” ______