EDITORIAL NOTES.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1189, 14 December 1894, Page 4

EDITORIAL NOTES.

The prospect of fruit expansion is not limitless by any means, as California discovered. California began with a phenomenal - record of profit, which brought about an enormous increase of production, which sent prices down to the most dismal levels. The statement has been made on behalf of Messrs ChafEey Brothers, of Mildura, that the Californians have not as yet reached the market of the Eastern States. But we read in the New York papers of last , ft August of weekly supplies of fruit coming by rail up to 2400 tons. The same papers chronicle some curious prices; best pears, averaging two to the pound, hawked about the streets in cartloads at two dozen for five cents; an account sale of 118 boxes of fruit, equal to about one ton and a half, sold for sixteen dollars, which had to pay for cultivation, picking, packing and haulage. These facts prove that until the American demand was supplied the Californian fruitgrowers did very well, but that when the demand was reached the industry languished. A similar story is told of the drying and canning industries. At present the New Zealand demand for fruit of all kinds is nearly all supplied from abroad. We may count therefore on having a good market at our doors as soon as the farming community begins to take to fruit-growing in earnest. But we must not expect too much from the industry, ■ remembering the Californian example. Fruit culture is of all indus-

tries that to which the proverb of warning against putting all one’s eggs into one basket particularly applies.

, The shrinkage in the area of grain cultiva- ' tion is not to the credit of the farmers of ! this Colony. It does not, it is true, pay at ' present prices to grow grain for the English miller. But it does not follow, therefore, that it will not pay to grow grain. The unprofitableness in the English market simply means that the grain grown in New Zealand has become a remarkably cheap food. To cease for that reason to grow grain in a country so remarkably well adapted for the purpose savours of folly. The obvious tiling is to get the cheapest and best food in the world eaten on the spot. Pigs would thrive upon it better than they thrive anywhere else. So would sheep, and the merits of graixifed mutton have only to be known to be appreciated. In this way the output of our fields could be enormously increased, and profitably. We have to increase production, and to do so at a profit. That is the first rule of our existence. It is useless to talk of difficulties. Brave men never talk of difficulties ; they meet them. The soil here is not in sight of the limit of production by a century or two. The market at the other end of the world is not in sight of the limit of demand. .. It could to-morrow begin to absorb mutton at an increased rate of twenty million carcases a year. That is a reward awaiting business enterprise. The mercantile community's business is to make outlets for produce by enterprise and acumen. The producer’s interest is to fulfil its duty of producing.