APPLE-GROWING IN AUCKLAND

Evening Post, Volume LXXXIX, Issue 23, 28 January 1915, Page 8

APPLE-GROWING IN AUCKLAND

A CANTERBURY VISITOR'S OPINION. Mr. Robert Nairn, of Christchurch, returned to-day from Auckland, where he has paid a visit of inspection to enable him to report on the prospects of apple culture in the Auckland Province, particularly in relation to the growing of apples for export purposes. The land north of Auckland is not particularly attractive to a Canterbury man, and its face value would not, Mr. Nairn states, suggest it as suitable for apple culture. Experience, however, has proved the fallacy of the impression, and after a wide and careful inspection Mr. Nairn i 3 of opinion that the North of Auckland will, in the near future, be one of the leading apple-growing centres in the Dominion. The clay soil, which is generally associated with kauri land, and which thd gum-digger has worked out, has proved to be the best for the apple. In such uninviting soil, after a thorough tilling, trees make remarkable growth for the first three or four years, after which they Btart to fruit freely^ and continue so long as the soil is cultivated regularly between the trees. At Port Albert, which is a leading apple-growing centre, magnificent crops are in evidence in all the orchards, and the owners are promised a very profitable year. The best of apples from this district will be exported to South America. In the Henderson and Waikumete districts, fruit-growing is an important industry, and numbers of the orchardists are doing well, more especially those who have made apple-growing their leading line. Lemon-growing on the silt and sandy soils has also proved a very profitable crop. One grown in the Henderson district, with 50 fully-grown trees, took no less than £240 worth of fruit for the year. There are tens of thousands of acres of land in the Auckland Province suited to the cultivation of tho apple, and this is purchasable at a lower price than anywhere else in the Dominion. The most suitable, with a sunny situation, may be purchased at anything from £8 to £20 per acre. At the present time such land is discounted by many as agricultural land (although this is a fallacy), and in many places is allowed to remain covered with bracken and manuka. When its value as a fruit-growing proposition is discovered, then these waste lands in the North, in Mr. Nairn's opinion, will come to their own, and when they do the apple industry in the Auckland Province will be one of the greatest factors in settling much of ibs present waste places.