TROPICAL FRUITS

Evening Post, Volume XCI, Issue 146, 21 June 1916, Page 11

TROPICAL FRUITS

LEMONS AND ORANGES.

WHY NOT GROW ON COMMERCIAL

SCALE?

Reference to Otaki's i tropical climate has already been made. The winter in this district is never severe, and in the summer the sun shines pretty well all the time. The heat, in fact, is inclined to | give the residents an attack of inertia, or the " Maori fever." The latter 16 not a disease calling for medical treatment, but merely another name for laziness, But; nevertheless, the climate is the correct one for lemons, oranges, and citrus fruits. GOOD YIELDS. " Whenever we want a lemon we go, out and pick one," said one settler, and city folk who pay for them at the rate of 2s per dozen will realise what an advantage this muet be. There are very few gardens in Otaki which do not boast their own lemon tree, or trees, and the yields are usually extremely good. Oranges are also grown throughout the district. These, of course, are not of the sweet variety, but more in the naturo of a Poor Man's orange, which is useful for marmalade and jam. In some places the oranges grow particularly large, and are of good colour and very juicy and wholesome. As for citrons—a fruit resembling a lemon—they grow readily and profusely to the size of a child's head. Citrons, thouq-h slightly more bitter than lemons, make excellent marmalade, and are very popular for tlm reason with some of the householders in

' the district. Peanuts have also been produced from the Otaki 6oil. <ALL-THE-YEAR-ROUND FRUIT. Although Nature has been so kind to them, the Otaki people, as yet, have . only slightly exploited the) resources of their district. Why not go in. for all these things on a commercial basis ? The lemon and the citron should be extremely profitable trees to handle, because they bear- all the year round. Buds are to be seen alongside the ripe fruit at any time. There is a constant supply. An enormous number of

lemons must be imported into New Zealand every year, and surely Otaki would have little' difficulty in competing with the Island article. But the Otaki people fail in one respect : they do so little on a commercial scale. However, there is money in lemons, money in oranges, and money in citrons, too. As it is, very few lemons are sent out of the district, mainly because only sufficient are grown, to meet the requirements of the people. Ferixajpa .one man obtaiis auite a, bis

return from one tree. Well (this is fcis way of looking at it—the spirit of the Otaki people through and through) why be bothered with two? Perhaps it would take some time before the Otaki lemon or orange became established ,on the market, but with proper wrapping' and packing, success would eventually come. It ie only another indication of the nature of Otaki's climate to say that the subtropical shrub oleander blooms to perfection there.