THE CONTRIBUTOR

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1831, 10 April 1907, Page 17

THE CONTRIBUTOR

(By “Codlin.”)

SOME NOTES ON THE FRUIT TRADE

Owing to the distribution of the fruit consumed in Wellington and the coiony •generally having fallen almost Avholly into the hands of the Chinese, the attention of the public has been specially directed to the fruit industry and trade, therefore this article should prove of interest. I shall deal with general matters first, and following this give the results of my observations and enquiries in Wellington.

ORCHARD AND GARDEN PESTS ACT. This Avas passed in 1903 and has heretofore been hung over the heads of fruit-growers like the SAvord of Demotes, but so far no prosecutions have been made under its provisions. The Department has clearly recognised the fact that to bring the Act into force at all stringently Avould, under the conditions obtaining when it was passed, have spelt ruin to many growers Avhose neglect of their orchards ivas the result of insufficient knowledge.

By Sections 6 and 7 of the Act the occupier of an orchard is required to do everything necessary to eradicate any disease, and to report its appearance within forty-eight hours to-the Secretary for Agriculture. Should ho fail to take the necessary steps, any inspector under the Act may do so, and the orcharelist must meet the expense. Persons selling or offering for sale diseased or infected fruit, commit an offence under the Act, and are liable to a fine of £jJ.

There are two schedules to the Act. The second named diseases, which are only brought under the Act by special order, duly gazetted, by n county council. namely, American Blight, Apple Scab, Codim Moth, Mussel or Oyster Scale, and Bed Mite, generally known as Bed Spider. Tim first schedule specifies: Mediterranean Fruit-fly, San Jose Scale. Queensland Fruit Fly, and Phylloxera, as diseases Avhich must be earnestly combated.

At the time of the passing of the Act, the Department, knowing the general state of New Zealand orchards, determined to give growers time in Avliich to clean their trees: and in the meantime did. by its inspectors and experts, all it could to educate the gro.vers. This period of probation has now exoirod. and it is the intention of the department to enforce the Act much more stringently in future. Next season recalcitrant and careless fruit-growers will find themselves before the court, and Avill be sharply taught that the Act is not a dead letter.

The . commercial f ruit-gro wers find that the carelessness of their nejgaiwwho lurve a iw struggling fruit trees groAving amidst a tangle of grass and Aveeds, are very . detrimental to their best interests, and will welcome a few prosecutions. Cleanliness all round means clean orchards, heavy crops, better quality of fruit and better prices. The retailers have a iso fallen under inspection, and have been compelled to withhold from retail "sale all infected fruit. They have hitherto been permitted to send fruit with codim moth to the jam factories; but in future all ,-<uoh must go to the destructor. During the last three years there has been a vast improvement in the methods of growing and packing fruit, and in the quality of the fruit marketed. After an auctioneer, or a retailer, has had a foAV parcels of fruit condemned, lie looks after his own interests, and insists on a cleaner quality. I may refer incidentally to a superstition, common in many parts of the North Island, to the effect that some mysterious and unaccountable climatic change is responsible for the fact that many fruit trees, peaches especially, died out in districts where they once greiv wild. I have heard old'residents of South Taranaki say that peaches were at one time procurable by the cart-load in the bush. Noav the peach tree is practically extinct. The disappearance of the tree is due to minute fungoid growths on the bark. The same thing occurred in the Northern parts of Auck*. land. Consistent spraying will remedy the evil, and lias been quite effective, when diligently applied. . For purposes of inspection the colony is divided into seven districts, four in the North Island and three in the South. The former are, the district north of Auckland city, south of same, west coast from Taranaki to Wellington, and East Coast from Poverty Bay to the boundaries of the Hutt County. The South Island districts are—Otago, Canterbury, Nelson, and Marlborough. STATISTICS/. The value of the fruit trade may be gauged after a perusal of the folloAving figures, taken from the Department's report for 1905-6. I am informed that this year’s figures lvill shoiv a very considerable advance. That fruit is becoming yearly a more common article in the diet of our people, is shoAvn by the fact that the value per head of fruit imported rose from 2s 6d in 1880 to 3s 6d in 1905-6, although in the latter year there Avere 26,760 acres under fruit in the colony. During the year ending 31st March, 1906, New Zealand imported 26,231,2441 b of fruit, valued at £156,153. At Wellington 246,756 cases Avere imported, of which 312 Avere condemned for codlin, 10,939 for -scale, and 612 for fruit-fly maggot, a total of 11,863 cases, or, roughly, 41 per cent, of the fruit landed. Out of 735,546 cases imported into the colony, 63,448 cases Avere condemned, or 8i per cent, of the whole. This slioavs that the inspection is no farce. Condemned fruit is taken to the destructor. I was unable to find out whether any escaped the flames, and became the perquisite of the firemen.

NEW ZEALAND FRUIT. The Department has at present no means of ascertaining the quantity and value of the home-grown fruit marketed. The following figures for Wellington may be regarded as approximately accurate. In 1905-6, the Avholesale dealers in this city handled 173,488 cases of New Zealand fruit, outside the quantity sold directly by the grower, and this is by no means inconsiderable. MISCELLANEOUS.

During my chat with the officials of the Agricultural Department, vvhom 1 found very courteous and anxious to impart information", and to Avhom I hereby render thanks, I picked up several odd items which I here present to the reader. Phylloxera, for instance, is not unknown in New Zealand, but the vine-groAvers are combatting it manfully, and holding it. in check. The best oi "relations now exist between orcha relists and the experts and inspectors of the Department, for the former are not slow to grasp the educative value of the latter.

Lately the Department made arrangements i'or a shipment of Coccinella Caiifornica, a kind of ladybird, which attacks the woolly aphis, and by means o< Avhich it is hoped that pest may be held in check. When putting bandages on trees in order to trap the codlin grub in its upward journey to the fruit, it is better to tie the bandages round the base of the. main branches than round the trunk. In future inspectors Avill be much more stringent in dealing with orchards infected AvrSh this pest, as by the inactivity of careless growers, those who do their best to keep their orchards clean, find their efforts neutralised. People often complain tnat the flavour of Noav Zealand fruit is not equal to that of fruit they have eaten in Australia. This inferiority in flavour is due to the less amount of sunny weather in this colony. The finest flavoured fruit in the colony is grown in the Molyueux Valley in Central Otago, where there is more sunshine than in any other part of New Zealand. There are in Ngav Zealand many districts admirably adapted for fruit-groAv-ing, and in time the industry will be much more important than it now is, and avill be conducted on more scientific and business-like lines. Eventuallv "the importation of any but tropical fruits will almost entirely cease. WELLINGTON FRUIT TRADE.

Any resident of Wellington uno wishes. to see something of this should visfF the fruit and vegetable markets, off Courtenay Place, and will spend a very interesting hour or two. Every .morning (when the sales are on) the street adjacent to the mart is croAvded with, vehicles of all kinds, from the humble coster’s barrow, to two-horse expresses.

Inside one finds a considerable crowd of buyers and onlookers, ivitii Chinamen preponderating, so that the whole establishment, has a Canton odour. Cases of fruit, sacks of vegetables, piles of man owe and melons, lie ail around in orderly confusion. The audio :ieer gets ou hie-stool or on a box; hie assistant prises the top off a box off fruit; a dozen .yellow hands shoot forth simultaneously, each grabbing a sample. Bidding begins and box after box is knocked down. Sometimes the Celestial, who evidently comes doAvn to the auction room Avithout. breakfast, samples too freely, and on one occasion I eaAv a salesman refuse to open any more boxes; for the first containing beautiful Marie Louise pears, was almost emptied before you could say “.lack Robinson.” But the most objectionable feature is John’s putting the fruit back into the case after pawing it over Avith hands that do not appear to have paid their morning respects to a piece of soap. I must say that the European buyers are much less free in their sampling and handling, but then they form the outside fringe of the croAvd, and their opportunities are greatly restricted.

It lias been alleged that the Chinese have formed a ring to crush European com petition, but at the mart the latter seem to buy freely euough. The Clioavs certainly fgorm a ring round a desirable lot of fruit, aud the Caucasian competitor has to crane his neck to see what he is bidding for. But with bidding “on the nod” it is difficult for a casual outsider to see Avhat is .really going on. Tlie .Chinese have certainly got the fruit trade of Wellington pretty much into tlieir hands, especially in the leading streets. I got into conversation with a fruit hawker who said he had been at the game for several years. In reply to a question as to why the Chinese beat the European in the fruit trade, hegreAV sarcastic, and said: “It’s you and the likes o’ you that’s done it. You’ll pass a Eturopean and go into a Cliow shop to buy fruit.” I denied the soft impeachment.

“Well then, you let them their shops and turn out Avhite men to make room for them, because the d Chow’ll pay crown a Aveek more rent. They should have 40,000 of the beggars in Wellington, and then the people who support them Avould knoAv all about it.” The success off the Chinaman seems to rest then not so much on his underselling the European, as on his living on a lower scale, and consequently being able to pay higher rents. It rests wholly and solely with the people of this city whether they will, by giving their trade to Chinshops, continue the present state of affairs, with its concomitant evils, too notorious to need further allusion, or whether, by supporting the European fruiterer, they Avill cleanse Wellington of what forms a blot on its commercial life. Let any pension go into a Cliinar man’s shop and then into a European’s. I say nothing. He or she can compare the two for cleanliness, for honesty of trading, and for prices, and then can draw his or her own deductions from what has been seen. It is all nonsense to say that the European cannot compete against the Chow, fotr he can and does. In one morning’s stroll I counted six European fruit shops between Manners street and the Newtown Poet Office. I made in-

quiries at one or tvi. ancDthey seemed quite satisfied llmt they could hold their own. At one place I was told that the proprietor went round Avith vegetables in a cart, had a list of regular customers, and was doing Avell. . - Now why should our people be so selfish and so ahort-sigMed as to support an objectionable aliim against their own countrymen? I see m reason at all why in a year or two Europeans should not be in possession of a fair share of the city’s fruit trade, if not the whole of it, providing that the general public give them the support they So richly deserve. Certainly the barrovroyan is carrying on the war vigorously, he has his limitations. You ‘fan’t rirv? him up on the ’phone, and get your order delivered at your door. Consequently, although a welcome ally, he cannot bear the brunt of the campaign against this Chow monopoly. That must fall on those Europeans who have shops, and a,re in the business all the year round. PRICES FOR FRUIT.

The following comparison of prices made last Aveelc should prove interesting. At the mart I saw grapes, inferior, sold at 2|d per lb, tomatoes Is lid per case, pears 5s t<o 6s per ease, oranges 9s to 10s per case. Cases run from 30 to 40 odd lbs. The folkoAving are a few shop window prices:—Pears, 2|d (inferior quality) to 6d per lb.; apples, 2|-d to 4d; tomatoes, 2d per lb. No appreciable difference could be noticed betAveen the prices in Chi dps e shops and those in European. In the windows of the former were those exquisite pyramids that attract the eye of the passerby, but experience shows that pyramid fruit in many cases cannot be bought inside at pyramid prices. The following is a list of market prices noted on and about 20th March. Per case, apples, from 4s 6d to 6e; peaches, 2s 6d; pears, 4s 9d to.9s; iomatoes. Is to Is 3d.

CONCLUSION.

The battle against the Clxoav is - not lost, but is evidently taking a turn. One thing that would be greatly appreciated by fruit eaters is a stricter examination of home groAvn fruit, particularly for codlin moth, and the proposed stringency of the department in this direction will be warmly welcomed. As a people we eat too little fruit, but the progress made during the last few years in fruit growing. and the improvement in the methods of handling and mai'keting, with the conseqxAent reduction in price, should bring this necessary article of diet, for it should not be a. mere luxury, Avithin the reach of everybody.