The Northern Advocate "NORTHLAND FIRST" Registered for transmission through the post as a Newspaper. TUESDAY, DECEMBER 14, 1943. VEGETABLES’ SUPPLY AND DEMAND.

Northern Advocate, 14 December 1943, Page 2

The Northern Advocate "NORTHLAND FIRST" Registered for transmission through the post as a Newspaper. TUESDAY, DECEMBER 14, 1943. VEGETABLES’ SUPPLY AND DEMAND.

AN interesting subject was broached at the meeting of the Whangarei District Hospital Board yesterday, when the question of the supply of vegetables to the institution was discussed. It is evidently the opinion of some members that vegetables consumed at the hospital cost more than they should cost, and that use could profitably be made of the board’s land, approximately 30 acres, in the vicinity of the hospital. The question of a hospital farm and garden is a matter about which there has been division of opinion among members of the board for the past twenty years. The board, it will be remembered, possessed a farm property at Kamo Springs about twenty years ago, and milk and vegetables were procured from the farm. As will be learned by reference to “Advocate” files of that time, and during the intervening years, the cost of producing dairy produce and vegetables was a frequent source of controversy. Eventually the board decided that it would be more economic to purchase requirements from commercial sources. The farm property was disposed of, and today it is the location of an attractive and popular spa. In the meantime, the hospital board has acquired a considerable area of land adjoining the hospital, and there is apparently a growing body of opinion that if a gardener were appointed the land could be converted into a largescale garden capable of supplying the hospital with fresh vegetables on an economic basis.

It will be recalled that for some years an area of land on the old people’s home property across the road from the hospital supplied the institution with a quantity of vegetables. Evidently it is now considered that if the larger area were developed with the mechanical aids available to farmers and gardeners, vegetables could be produced on a worth-while scale. This is a matter about which it is impossible to form an opinion without recourse to statistics which the board no doubt possesses. However, experience of gardeners generally has proved that the production of vegetables in constant supply is an undertaking fraught with serious difficulties. _ Despite the spacing of sowings, vegetables have an annoying habit of maturing as the same time as a result of weather conditions, with the result that glut and scarcity cause sore embarrassment to commercial and domestic gardeners alike. An illustration of this fact was given at the hospital board’s meeting yesterday, when strong complaint was made that there were wasting at the Maunu State gardens vegetables which would be most acceptable at the hospital and in private homes. Apart from the question of whether the State should enter into competition with commercial growers of vegetables, a matter about which there is already difference of opinion, the fact that large areas of specific kinds of vegetables have passed maturity owing to lack of labour to harvest them, and will have to be ploughed in, points decisively to’ the difficulty which confronts even the home gardener at times, when he cannot consume all the cabbages, lettuce or other vegetables which he planted in quantity. If he have a neighbour who, for example, has no cabbage or lettuce, he may be able to give away some of his surplus before it runs to seed, but, in the majority of cases, his neighbour is similarly overstocked at the moment. The same thing may be said of fruit, which, in the case of plums, as another example, ripens faster than it can be consumed. Unquestionably it is regrettable, if not scandalous, that vegetables and fruit, which form invaluable articles of diet, should go to waste in some areas while people in other areas are denied supplies. Distribution, of course, is the great obstacle to be overcome. This is a problem which calls urgently for solution. State gardens, which have been established to provide ample supplies of vegetables to troops overseas, have admittedly created an extraordinary state of affairs because of the extent of plantings, but the experience resulting from these fcig gardens in various parts of the Dominion suggests forcibly the need for the establishment of dehydrating and other fruit and vegetable works at convenient centres in every gardening and fruit-grow-ing district in order that there may be saved for lean years the produce which is superabundant in fat years, and, most important of all, that there should be less starving people in a world of plenty. The hospital board will have served a useful purpose if its discussion yesterday, and its decision to investigate the vegetable supply question, focusses public attention upon a matter of universal importance.