ORANGE GROVES

Franklin Times, Volume XXV, Issue 129, 6 November 1935, Page 3

ORANGE GROVES

TREES TESTED LIKE COWS. To find a laige, modern and well-laid-out town on the old Yanko station in New South Wales, on which he worked as a boy, was the experience of Mr H. R. Barnes, of Peria, when he recently visited the town of Griffith (says the Matamata Record). This town owes its prosperity solely to citrus 'fruits, and, basking in one of the sunniest corners of Au-tralia, it has become renowned for the quality of its “Sunshine” fruits. Griffith stands where the old station homestead stood, and its district is now. one of the most-closely-settled rural areas in New South Wales. Though citrus fruits predominate, there are miles of grapes and all kinds of stone fruits grown. While in the district Mr Barnes visited an old mine mate of his who had gone in for growing oranges, and Mr Barnes was amazed at what he saw. This old miner has 150 acres in oranges. He employs 20 men on the grove, and keeps three teams of horses engaged. Each orange tree has to undergo as severe a test as cows have on dairy farms in New Zealand, and even then, if after three years, a tree does not produce the required weight of fruit it is dug out and replaced. The weight of oranges produced from this grove last year was 375 tons. The whole orchard and surroundings were very neat, trim and clean, and the business was carried on on modern lines.

The latest grading machinery produced a fascinating sight as it handled oranges at almost incredible speed. This machine is fed by one man in a manner somewhat similar to that in which a stamping battery is fed, and the oranges are brushed and polished and then passed upwards to a shute which has holes of different sizes to grade the oranges. As the fruit emerges from the different grading holes an attendant at each shute wraps the oranges in tissue paper and packs them for the market.

The visit to this sunny orchard with its grading and packing sheds was an education for those in the party in the modern method or handling fruit for the home and export markets.