NEW ZEALAND'S FRUIT.

Evening Post, Volume LXXI, Issue 148, 23 June 1906, Page 6

NEW ZEALAND'S FRUIT.

THE PRESENT AND FUTURE. THE CANNING INDUSTRY. The office of Mr. Jacques, the Government Canning Expert, looks very inviting just now. Preserved peaches and apricots, of golden hue, swim in pools t>i syrup on his table. The walls are stacked with bottles and tins of various luxuries yielded by the earth. In thi6 festal bower a reporter found the expert this morning, and questioned him about fruit. "We haye had a very bad season, especially in the South," Mr. Jacques remarked. "Frosts and very wet •weather reduced the quantity to a very great extent. I have been told by the growers that they have never experienced so short a season. At the same time prices have been ruling very high as a natural consequence." In the North the wet season very seriously curtailed the output of pears, by setting up core xot. Good progress had been made in the number of small canneries for packing apples, and there had been a great improvement in the quality of the articlb put up this year. It was universally recognised by canners that there was no variety of pear as good as Williams' Bon Chretein, and growers had cultivated this species in very large quantities. Auckland orchardlsts were now in a position to op"en a central cannery, and it was hoped to make a start this season. Branch canneries would be establishsd when the necessary quantity of fruit was available. Recently there had -been a very marked improvement in the interest taken in fruit growing and canning in the North, and there bad also been a spirited movement in j the South among the growers of peaches | and apricots. They were adding considerable areas of up-to-date approved canning varieties to their orchards, -which were already, largo. In answar to queries about the prospects of canning, Mr. Jacques said that the industry was right at the beginning now. The past had been chiefly notable foi the want of knowledge with regard to suitable canning varieties. He had given demonstrations in different parts of the country, and growers, acting upon his advice, were planting the best sorts of trees. Misleading statements in nurserymen's catalogues had' been responsible for mistakes in the making of orchards. Discussing American competition, ,he stated that up to the present America had sent only the worst of her produce to New Zealand, and growers here had come to the wrong conclusion that they were easily able to compete with American fruits. They had not had the opportunity' of iseeing the very high grades, and -therefore he had imported some to show" the local growers what they had ta-da if , they wished to hold their own. Stffl," fruit was being prepared in small quantities which would compare quite favourably with the best American p-ars, apricots, and. peaches- Year fayyear this output would increase. One grower alone had informed him that he had planted 3000 fruit trees this season, all of suitable canning varieties recommended by Mr. Jacques. In the canning expert's domain comes 1 also - the preserving of vegetables by evaporation, the .tinning of fish, and so on At the Exhibition he will give exteustive -demonstrations of canning and other preserving processes.

Some unusual complications have ariseu it respect ol thfe aireat of & man on v charge oi having obtained £20 from Henry R. A. Francis, at Blenheim, on 29th May, by means of a false pretence. The Blenheim police telegraphed to different centres that a man named Donald Cameron •with several aliases was wanted there- on the.chai-ge in question. The Hawkes Bay police arrested' a man of this name, who, it was later stated, was not the person sought for by the Blenheim authorities, and remanded him to Blenheim. The journey was broken at Wellington, and whilst in custody at the Lambton-quay Police Station he escaped, and' has not since been recaptured. In the 'meantime the Wellington police arrested another Cameron, whom the Blenheim policy said they wanted, and, as-certained-that he was not the perpetrator of the offence. They brought him before Dr. A. M'Arthur, S.M., this morning, said he was not the real offender, and had him discharged. !N"ow they are turning their attention again to the man arrested by the Hawkea Bay police and who escaped from custody here. Yesterday morning the Wellington College boys were addressed by Mr. R. H. W. Bligh, lecturer for the Australian White Cross* League. He spoke freely for forty-five minutes on the right treatment of the body from the point oi view of purity and was cheered at the condosidn of his remarks. Mr." J. P. Firth, principal of the College, in a letter to the editor, says : "The address was admirable in every respect. Your sympathetic re ferences to the work to which he is dc- , voted lead me to hope that you will pub- j lish my testimony to the value of that work. Those who have doubts about the wisdom of speaking directly to the young upon this subject, will, after hear ing Mr. Bligh, he convinced that, nothing but good — and great good, too — can result from his manner of dealing with it." Later in the day Mr. Bligh addressed tbfe boys at the Brooklyn public school, and subsequently the lady members of tht Church of England, at Brooklyn, who olso expressed appreciation in the leo turer's work here. In the evening he addressed the young men of the district and was given a very attentive hearing. Mr. Bligh is to speak to young men at St. James's Church Newtown, to-morrow afternoon, at 3 o'clock, and again at tho Salvation Army's City Barracks at 8.15 p.m. The Marine Department has been advised by Messrs. Gamma n and Co., sawmillers, of Akiteo, tihat they have identified the wreckage found on the beach at Blackhead as having belonged to their oil launch, which left Porangahau some days ago with two men (J. St. John Beer and W. L. Robb) on board. There seems littfle doubt that the launch has foundered and her crew been drowned. Captain Win. Jackson Barry waa a passenger for Lytteltou by the Mararoa last njght. -•