A VISIT DUE NORTH.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXV, Issue 9220, 24 November 1888, Page 1 (Supplement)

A VISIT DUE NORTH.

[BY XI. 11. BAKE WELL, M.D.]

Continued from New Zkala.no Herald of Oc-

tobor 20.) When one ascends the summit of any of the hills near the Bay of Island, the view obtained is characterised by that unbroken uniformity of dull green which is peculiar to all New Zealand vegotation. Hardly a patch of cultivation, hardly a house is to be seen. One is oppressed by the absence of population from such a climate. Here is a country in which all the natural sources of wealth abound ; a country which under any, even the rudest culture would yield almost any kind of plant grown by man for for food, not intersected by those huge mountains which in every country of the world form the greatest hindrance to industrial progress and to the advance of the arts of civilisation ; favoured with one of the grandest harbours in the world, and settled by Europeans long before the islands of New Zealand became subject to the British Crown ; and yet the population only reaches some 3UOO persons" of Euro-

pean descent. There is plenty of land in private hands for sale at very low prices, and of Crown lands there is any quantity that may be called for. And yet we find the young people of the district leaving it, \ and the young men of New Zealand flying to Australia to add to the thousands and i tens of thousands who are there competing 1 for their share of the wages fund, instead ! of making for themselves an independence and creating a source of living for their descendants, if they marry. Some future historian of New Zealand will speak with astonishment and almost incredulity ot a time when the districts north of Auckland were all but valueless in the land market, and when capital could not be induced to invest in a climate and soil so fertile. Now, what are the causes that have produced this state of things, so strange and so bewildering to every man who has travelled ?

First: The country was, unfortunately, settled originally by persons from Great Britain and Ireland, almost all unfcravelled and uneducated, and totally ignorant from personal experience of the kind of products that should be cultivated in such a climate. Potatoes, English grass, wheat, and oats, with a few ot the garden vegetables grown in the bleak climate of the United Kingdom, _ formed their ideal of cultivation. That in such a climate the products of the tropic and subtropical regions would grow and flourish seems never to have entered their heads. Most of them, if not all, seein to have been quite uninterested even in English farming. The culture of the land that prevails now throughout the North is, with only Tew exceptions, no farther advanced than that of men of the Bronze Age; in fact, in some respects palaeolithic man must have advanced as far in the cultivation of the earth as the vast majority of the settlers in the counties north of Auckland. To burn down manuka scrub, and then turn sheep and cattle to graze on the young grass anil fern that spring up, seems to them a profitable and economical way of using the land. To use in their own households tinned milk from Switzerland and tinned meat from Otago, when they have cattle running wild all over the neighbourhood, is quite the correct thing. To allow the fruit to drop from the trees and rot on the earth, and buv jams from Tasmania, i?, also quite en regie. Persons who grow grapes /i- oranges or other vegetable products for sale, or with a view to make a profit out of them, are looked on with a languid interest as rather curious and eccentric people. The old people are too old to change, the young poople, the children and grandchildren of natives of the colony, have no idea of any other state of existence than that they find around them or than existin their neighbouring colonies. Of the laborious life led by the peasant proprietors of France, Italy, or Germany who from little scraps of earth that a New Zealander would despise, will draw no' rely a frugal living, but something in or; 0 save for the dowry of the daughter— 01 t his they have no idea. The climate, 01 course, has something to do with the delicious state of far nienle in which they live. Of time, as a valuable commodity actually worth money, they have no sort 01 conception. An hour or two ! What doi».an hour more or less matter? Time Lime was made for slaves ! They remind ne of the two unpunctual brothers of whom it was said that if you invited ■ reoru'e at half-past seven on Tuesday, you would probably get James at half-past eight 011 Wednesday. The only person I ?ver met in the old country with snch a lofty disregard of clocks and watcjhos wa.a man of my own profession, whose brilliant talents and gonial temperameivo would lave led him to the best positions in it, if it had not been for his incurable unpunctuality. He was one of my teachers, md was very hospitable. Hp; used to invite us young fellows (as wo were then! to breakfast at half-past nivie ; we neve; sat down to the table unt'.l 'eleven ! Hi> nominal hour for beginning work at the iospital was 1 p.m.; he seldom arrived before 3 !

Second : The second cause for the noncultivation of the land is alleged to be the cost of getting all products to market, and Auckland, of course, is that market. Now. it appears that the cause of this is tha: 'here is no amount o'i traffic sufficient t" make a regular trvid'j in fruit. The con--sequence is that the companies cannot rely on the traffic. There is no doubt that with the present keen competition between the companies, the price of freigh' would be low enough if the amount of trade could b<> relied on. I was told thai it co<t as much to get gum from the gumrield to Ruf.mjU as it did from Russell to Auckland, and as much from Russell to Auckland as from Auckland to England. This was probably a mere Jagon de purler, but states the popular idea. At any rate, anyone who sees the state of the Auckland and moro southern markets in spring and early uinnmer can see plainly that no systematic attempt is made to utilise the macnilic«L\t climate of the North. There is no doiih*,, for instance, that early potatoes, pea*, lhubarb, asparagus, lettuce, and n.ia'.iy other vegetables and fruits might be put into the Southern markets weeks before ..hey can be grown by the residents in the ■districts, and that, if the trade were once developed, the steamboat companies would either have to make proper arrangements or to give it up to other lines. There is no doubt about it that wool and merchandise have too much engrossed the care and attention of the steampacket companies, and that fruit, and other perishable produce, requiring more care in the handling, have been discouraged by heavy rates of freight. But the days are past in which a giant monopoly can lord it over New Zealand. They must condescend to pick up unconsidered trifles ; if they do not, others will. And, moreover, they must make their officers lo >k after these perishable goods better, and not allow cases of fruit to bo banged about as if they were dumped wool. I have travelled a good many times all round New Zealand, and the way fruit is treated on the steamers is quite sufficient to account for a great proportion of the loss that too often attends fruit-growing. The third cause mentioned to me of the pr~ient deplorable state of the northern districts is the enormous charges of the retailer and other middlemen through whose hands the fruit, &c., must pass before it reaches the consumer. There is no doubt that there is a great amount of truth in this charge. In all the larger towns of New Zealand there exists a ring of fruitdealers who charge whatever they will to the public and pay whatever they like to the producer. Rather than reduce the price of fruit to a figure which will ensure its rapid and extensive sale, they will allow three-fourths of their stock to become rotten, and then cart it away. The consequence is that the public health of towns in this colony is seriously injured by the want of fruit, although a few miles outside the town fruit may be rotting on the ground. I knew a gentleman of property near Christchurch who had a large orchard, which he had planted with the view of making an income out of it. But he was not a business man, being a retired army officer, and the Philistines were too strong for him. He found that the price they offered him was so ridiculously low that it would not pay him to have the fruit picked, so ho just gave notice to his neighbours that anyone who came might have as much as he liked, and withdrew from the fruit trade.

Bub the summer of 18S6-87 was so abundant. in fruit that the growers round Chriatchurch took a new departure, and actually condescended to carry the fruitparticularly apples and pearsround to the people's houses, and sell it at wonderfully cheap rates. Very good apples could be had at Id per lb, and first quality at 2d. This very soon brought the fruit-dealers to their senses, and for the first time, I believe, in the colony fruit was retailed at a reasonable rate.

Now, as soon as any considerable number of persons in the North go in for fruitproduction as a business, it will pay them to have a regular agent paid by commission and a small salary, so as to make him a responsible servant. One such person established in each town, selling fruit at a reasonable rate, would compel all the dealers to accept likewise reasonable profits. At present, owing to a variety of causes, many of them depending on our deplorable credit system, the retailers prefer to buy . nported fruit instead of encouraging home production. The consequence was that for years after 1 came to the colony I never obtained a single apple or pear with the fresh, sub-acid tasto that is so delicious—all had that disgusting mealy sweetness characteristic of fruit that hits been Ions; gathered. The recent importations of San Francisco fruit have this characteristic, besides being very thickskinned.