A FRUIT FAMINE.

Lyttelton Times, Volume CXXIII, Issue 16074, 31 October 1912, Page 6

A FRUIT FAMINE.

Tke fruit famine that is reported from Sydney is not easily explained. A few years ago fruit was remarkably plentiful and cheap in Sydney, and indeed in most of the Australian centres, and visitors from this country used to bring back wonderful stories of grapes at a penny a pound and rosy-cheeked apples at twelve for threepence. But within the last year or two prices have been rising to the New Zealand level, although there is no ground for believing that the orchards have become less productive or tho methods of distribution moro costly. We are told this morning in a cablegram from Sydney that “it is twenty years since fruit was so scarce,” and the report is confirmed by recent market reports, which show that apples and oranges have become a luxury for the rich where once they wore within the roach of the poor. What is tho explanation of this state of affairs in a country that is peculiarly adapted for the production of fruit? The position is much tho same in this dominion. The price of apples in Christchurch at the present time, for example, places them far beyond tho means of tho ordinary wage-earner, and it is noticeable that a considerable part of tho supply is being imported from California. But there is no question that Canterbury, not to mention such districts ns Nelson and Hawke’s Bay, could produce all tho apples that tho New Zealand people could eat, and wc i think w« aro right in saying that the

orchards who was assured of au nil round price of a penny or three-half-pence a pound by the case would main an adequate profit provided that hi methods were scientific. Both New Zealand find Australia ought to be giving attention to this problem of dear fruit. .