OTAGO CENTRAL.

Otago Witness, Issue 2561, 6 May 1903, Page 58

OTAGO CENTRAL.

THE FRUIT-GROWING ZONE

(Bt Ocjk Special Reporter.)

.— CLTDE-CROMWELL DISTRICT

If i.ny man be weary of the endless worry of city life and seek a spot where the company promoter shall cease from troubling, and Drainage Boards and City Councils shall tax not, let him build him a house and plant an orchard at Clyde, ending his days in peace, comfort, and tranquility. The district from Alexandra to Clyde on each side of the river and portion of the Cromwell Flat is eminently adapted for the growing of the finest qualities of fruits. I was told I had passed through "the garden wall" upon reaching Strath-Taieri, and I realised that to the full ; but upon seeing orchards at Clyde I came to the conclusion that the wonderful " garden " of the great interior contained an inner garden — a sort of sanctuary of sanctuaries, — and I had a mind to stay and worship — in fact, it is a wonder to me still how I managed to ever get away again. . The road from Alexandra leads along th 3 bank of the great Molyneux for about eight miles, and part of this distance the way ytas through drifting sand carried by the •jrind from the dredging and mining areas— indeed, the sand problem there and on portion of the Cromwell Flat is a very serious one, and a Cromwell sandstorm is quit* as good as a small sirocco in the Nitrian <■-. .-rt. It seems to me, however, that by aii extensive planting of marram grass the onward devastating march might be etayed. I saw some bunches of marram planted as an experiment near Clyde, and (their flourishing growth was good promise — (if this ueeful vegetation would grow as 'luxuriantly at Ocean Beach there would scon be no necessity for a Domain Board). Above the road on the Dunstan side of the river great terraces stretched away for many miles, all commanded by water, but not yet so extensively utilised for the purpose for which Nature obviously intended them — ■viz., fruit-growing, — though there is conBiderable settlement there Upon arrival at Clyde the party was met by members of (the Clyde branch of the Railway League ; and, in fact, the residents turned out en masse, for the object of the commission's .■visit had been whispered abroad, and there as no community in the whole of the great anterior moro fully alive to its interests and to the necessity for railway communication than Clyde. It is a pretty little '/town, prettily situated on the very brink of the Molyneux, and connected with the opposite bank by a handsome suspension •Ijridge. It has comfortable and well-ap-pointed hotels, post and telegraph offices, •several large stores, and here, also, aro the offices of the "Vincent County Council. To return to my subject, however, I should first speak of a visit to the private residence of Mr Dickie, clerk to the "Vincent .County Council. Mrs Dickie, who seemed to have a most comprehensive knowledge of fruit and flowers and a love for the has undertaken the management of the garden, and the results of her work ,wei % e astonishing. Never before have I eeen a small plot of ground utilised to such advantage, for here were the ripest and 'juiciest of peaches, lovely grapes, splendid apple* and pears, and a perfect glory of /dahlias and other flowers, beside which the majority of blooms exhibited at the horticultural shows in the cities of the colony (would stand a poor c'.iance. In horticulture Mr and Mca Dickie have succeeded to the astonishment of all visitors, for the flowers jwe all perfect blooms. I saw there a cactus dahlia which would have taken pride of plaoo at«,nnv show, and roses Dunedin gr-ov.cr? wonl-1 bo proud of. Beetroot, carTot-. potKtoi -. p.nd other vegetables seemed to < r'lW :o pi section; and the fruit — well, v/e ']." notgyi'Mi to go any further: grapes tv i<* jf.-v i! - .'.] the open air over a veranVltili, <•!••' 1 i • hes weighing several pounds ■were r<vpnio.i: peach and pear trees had ibeen broken down by the weight of the splcdid fiuit, and other fruits were in eqr.al p< undance. Of course the ground is Hrrig'tod, and that is all it requires; given .wafer, the" soil and the sun do the rest, and every inch supports luxuriant growth. Tim is evidenced by the fact that Mr •Dickie obtained three crons of lucerne in •the one season from a "mall area of ground 'behind the orchard. Behind Mr B. Naylor's store in the main street of Clyde I saw a grape vine which had produced half a *on of splendid fruit this scaaon, and in the garden were melons, cucumber?, and .■vcp.^taWe marrows, Hie quality of which /was astonishing. I am amazed at Mie ignorance, jn-evailing not only En the colony as a whole, but in X)r?.fro itself, in regard to the enormous roo«ribilities of the great interior. In thc=« jirticl'-s I cannot place before the public an adequate, idea of the immense resources Tiossesssd by the Alexandra, Clyde, and CromwHl district? in their fruit-growing areas: that rould only be done by a senc<3 of lectures by competent experts such as Mr B^ackmoro, the Government pomologist, and Signor Braf»ato,' viticulturist ; and all I can do is simply speak of what I observed in comparison with other parts of the colony md other countries in the Bub-tropical or temperate zones. From my inspection I have no hesitation in giving She opinion that fruit-growing should, in a few years, take the place of gold mining, and prove a far greater source of national .wealth.

A FINE ORCHARD

One- orchard visited may be Irken as lyp'cal; this was Mr Iversen's, between Clyde and Alexandra, on the other side of tho river. Some years ago Mr Iversen settled upon a piece of land, part mountain elope and part flat, bare, barren-looking ground, covered by a fungus growth ; he /brought water on to the thirsty soil, and now outside the fence is the same barren (ground, but inside is a paradise of fruit Jfcrees and plants of every description, growing with a luxuriance the- sub-tropical lands /of Rarotonga.- Mangaia, or Tong' could not (excel. Mr Iversen lias 45 acres in trees. {From six apricot trees he took three tons of fruit this season. His peach, plum, Jqulnce, apple, pear, nectarine, and cherry ftrees were laden to the ground with their '/weight of fruit, and to take this to market t© is obliged to cart it across to Alexandra, kind thence to the railway at Ida Valley, a jdistanoe of 35 miles, rising over the great Steep of the Knobby Range and down to fehe Poolburn side. Mr Tvereen takes cartloads of strawberries quite equal to the farifamod Waimate fruit from his plnnts. but !fcc can get but little of it to market. T saw

I rows upon rows of trees growing fruit of all kinds in great abundance and luxuriance. Over the \erandah of his comfortable homeI stead Mr I\er=en has trained the grape- vine, ! r.nd the plants were simply a mass of I bunches of the finest grapes. The quince ] trees were a glory of golden fruit, peaches I were fa.ling on the ground like autumn leaves, and gloriously beautiful roses of every known line were growing wild. The small fruits grown here yield nothing in point of size, flavour, and abundant growth to those grown in the Long-ley Valley, New Norfolk, and Emu Bay districts in Tasmania, and the grapes were as ripe and richly-flavoured as any produced at Parramatta or Mai t '.and, in New South Wales. The quality of the land 'is al=o evinced in the fact that from 20 acres Mr Iversen obtained four stacks of oats for chaff, each btack being equal to 20 tons. OTHER ORCHARDS.

Time would not permit of an extended stay in this region, otherwise I should have liked to place before tho public a de=cription of each orchard in turn. Amongst the fruitgrowers Mr Dawson, whese orchard is near Alexandra, must bo ment.oned. Mr Dawson is probably the most extensive cultivator of the vine in that district, and his vines yield pboufc two ten* of the black Hamburg variety, perfectly ripened, and superior to any grapes grown under glare in 'any other part of New Zealand. Mr Blackmore, the Government pomolcgist, considered Mr Dawson's crop of winter Nellis peare, both with respect to the weight of the crop and tha sizo and qualiiv of the fruit, the finest he had e\er seeu. When Mr Blackmore '. isited the orchard upwards of 15cwt of these pears had been obtained. Conroy's Gully, where Mr Dawscn's orchard is sitnated, seems a specially suitable spot, even in the fruit-growing area for the cultivation of the vine, peach, apricot, and nectarine. Mr Noble's orchard is another rxamnle of what may be done with the soil, as all fruits grow luxuriantly. But Mr Noble's property is especially interesting in another direction, for here iiops aie grown which, a.5 far as I could see, were in every respect equal to the far-famed Tismanian New Norfolk crops, and Mr Bkokmore described the hops grown by Sir Noble, and in the Alexandra district generally, as quite equal to the best Californian product. Mr John Sheeny, again, whose property ia higher up the river from Clyde, has an orchard which is a model in every respect, though his trees have not yet come to full maturity. In all he has soinp 2000 trerp, and of these 1500 are young. Mr Sheeliy has er tared into the business of an orohardist scientifically and systematically, and thosv commencing in the same line would do well to take a fewobject lessons from the results of his skill, and knowledge attained only cf lote years by careful reading and following of directions in standard works and leaflets issued by the Government pomologipt Mr Blackmore observed that the directions as to pruning, etc., had been mcvt carefully followed by Mr Sheehy, and, to use Mr Blackmore's words, " the crop for a while will be smail, but the treep will repay the trouble a hundredfold and become the mopt prolific bearers in the district." Mr Sheehy obtains all his young trees from Queensland, as he finds the wood in the Queensland trees is better ripened than in those grown in New Zealand. Mr Sheehy has some grane vinre at his orchard, which he had allowed to lun wild, and from these this season half a ton of fruit was thrown out. Four trees in the orchard yielded one ton of pears, a crop heavy enough to satisfy any orchardict. The Earnscleugh and Dunstan Flats contain many hundreds of acres all eminently suitable for finch fruit cultivation provided an irrigation scheme were entered into : and there would be no difficulty about this for thero '* water enough in the Fra«er Riv°r to command all -the Earn'cleugh FLit, and also the Drnifetan Flat if it were carried across in fluming or pipes. Unfortunately, mining riarhts again enter into calculations, and unless some steps are taken by the Government a great portion of the Earnsclejgh Flat will be > fcwept away into the river. Mr Daw Eon's fine orchard, I am informed, is to be entirely sluiced away in the search for gold. To me this sec-vis a glaring example of shoi t-sighted policy Here ore hundred* nnon hundreds of acre 1 ? of the I finest «oil in the rolony and the very pick I of that splendid fruit-growing zone to bo j irretrievably let in the search for gold ' which may or may not bo there. At Blackmail's Gully there ; <s some of the very finest land in tho district, and thL= j is all to be utilised for fruit-giow ing shortly. Not onV doc the land grow fruit to perj feetion. but al<-o heavy cereil crops, and I evcrywheie where oats had been sown tho I average exceeded 80 bushels per acre. In

THE CROMWELL GORGE

there te but comparatively iittlc land for fruit-growing pnrnoses. but .=till sufficient to establish a number of good orchards, and, given water, tl-ero is no reason why the lesser moimt-vn elopes should not produce most eve-e'lent grapes, peau, and nectarines Altogether, in the Alexandra 3iitl Clyde district thero ore upwards of 4000 acres suitable for fruit-growing, and tins S«? exclusive of Galloway Flat, where Me<-.=rs Howden and Mcncrieff's nursery, previously mentioned, is situated, and rbio nursery was only saved from destruction at the hands of the miner by the intervention of Warden M'Caithv. Then there is another large area in the Cromv. ell district, and, in fact, right through to Wanaka the- land would support one immense orchard It is so easy for those seeking to decry the project of carrying a railway to Clyde to ass-crt <that it would open up no productive country, ■and it is so hard for the residents to remove impression's conveyed by *=uch irresponsible critics : but thero. awaiting only the willing hand and ready brain, lies the very garden of the vafit interior in unproductive fallow for the most part. "What a superb land, what superb possibilities, what a superb source of wealth, and what a s-uperb ignorance pre■vailfl concerning it' The whole State of California, could produce no finer fruit than some I saw — apricots and nectarine^ — preserved by Mr M'Cracken at Cromwell. Tho whole of that immense Cromwell Flat, thousands of acres, would grow fruit, and a little further on is the Lowburn district, where there are orchards growing fruit equal to that grown at Clyde. To describe all would be only to weary with repetitions, but I may 6ay that tho whole of the vafit area along the base of the Dunstan Range as far as the Lindis Creek and the long stretch of beautiful land from Perriam's along the base of the Pisa Range as far as Wanaka, is amongst the finest fruit-growing lande in the Australasian colonies The principal requisite in the matter of climate suitable for successful crowing of

the peach, apricot, prune, plum, and grape is freedom from extremes, and the advantages possessed by the districts under review are abundant heat, continuous sunshine, and dry atmosphere. Moreover, tlie^e conditions, combined with an almost rainless summer, are neeestaiy for tho curing of fruit wH'hoiu artificial heat, and so Otago Central comes out on ten again. Rain at the best ii a poor Fiibjtitute when the &oil and water arc fit for irrigation. Otago Central possesses a higher summer and a lower winter temperaturo than the coastal districts. Of course, as Mr Blackmore has pointed out, there will be local modification* of climate governed by local conditions, and thero will be found special s.tuations and localities more favouiable for fruit culture than others. For instance, in all interior valleys the climatic conditions at the foothills of the mountain ranges arc considerably modified by the disposition of cold air to settle in low places, \v''i!e tho air rises along the 'adjacent hillside 5 , and is a preventive of frost by i*s constant motion on the slopes. Such situati'on.s would ensure early (maturity, great growth, and an abundant fruitage. Taking these facts into consideraMon, and after an inspection of thc> <fru.t grown. I submit that the construction of a railway is justified a hundredfold. The districts I have mentioned in thh article I believe to contain a resource, in the cultivation of fruit, which should prove a great source of ■national wealth, and the more speedily this is realised by tho Government the better for the colony as a whole. It is impossible in this colony to over produce the peach, apricot, grape, and prune plum, or, in fact, any other fruit. Readers may be astonished to find that in JL9OI tho quantity of currants imported into New Zealand was 2.913.9«1b. valued at £40.234, which paid a duty of Id per lb; raisins, 2,269.i611b, valued at £37,540, bearing an import duty of Id per lb ; unenumeratcd dried fruits, 1,353.6061b. valued at £19,026, and paying 2d per lb Customs duty: fresh fruits (apple«, pears, plums, etc.), 1,010,9601b, valued it £13,123, and bearing Id par lb duty— to which mu=t be added apples and peara imported from Victoria, New South Wales, Tasmania, and West Coast of America, 974,0101b, valued at £9874; other kinds of fre-h fruit (free), 22.272,3231b, valued at £105,182 (this item includes onnges and bananas). Then Tai=manian fruit, every variety of which can bo grown in Central Otago, preserved in sulphurous acid, totalled 30,7441b, valued at £320, and pulp and partially nre^erved friut from Victoria a>ul Tasmania" 54 Q .3!b, valued pi- £53. This is an enormous total, and in it no count ha 3 been taksn of -nines which could be produced of quite a3 good a Natality here as in Victoria, New South Wplm?, and Queensland. By a tele cram received on April 20 it will be noticed that a firm in Hamburg is prepared to receive any quantity of New Zealand-growi apples. In 1894 California supplied fruit to over a quarter of a million people, a>ul in addition exported 87,277.4301b of fresh fruit, 43,811,4501b* dried fruit, 28,860,9201b raism=, and £0,465,0c01b canned fruit, and alto made 17,000,000 gallons of wine. Practically ful the fiuits grown in California c?n be grown to an equal perfection in Central Ota^o, where graces for wino and raisins rip r ii readily, and apples equal to an}' grown in. the world are produced in abundant growth. The walnut and mulberry elso grow well ; and Signor Bragato, the vine expert, states that the climatic conditions and the nature of the soil at Queen ,berry, Baiwockburo, Cromwell. Clyde, Alexandra, and surrounding d'itricts ore eminently fa\ourabl© for the culti\a>tion of the vine for wine-making and distillation purpo'es provided that irrigation is adopted in the lighter =oils, aai'l vines might bo planted almost by the tens of thousands of acres. The preliminary cost of planting and preparing the vineyard, compared with other branches of agriculture, was a mere bagatelle. It would emp'oy a very large population, and itnpro\e to an enormous extent the \alua of the land. At the end of fi\e years when the vines wer? in full bearing, the \alue of the land would bs at least £100 p-cr aero, and an acre of grapes should gi\e from. £15 to £20 profit, as against the original cost of preparing and planting at about £8 per acre, and after that the cost of pruning and cultnation would be £2 10s per acre. There were, faid Signor Bragato. tens of thousand* of acres in Otago which could be ea=ily irrigated with tho water which w:i> uted for sluicing purposes by miners, and he considered i f a thousand pities that co much \aluable land should be washed oway by the goldminer. Ho was <=ati-fied that Ccntial Otago oouid be cultivated to iucli an extent as to supply not only local and Australian markets, but even the Home markers. Wher*. 11 roughout New Zealand, can -uth *upn4'b cxampl r s of the apple, pear, plum, peach, apricot, nectarine, or fig be sefti a* at Clyde, Cromwell, or Alexandra, and where tuch open-air-grwvn. tomatoes, omen*., asparagus, strawberries, mu.->hroom«, and rhubarb? New Zealaiid'.-> te-lccWl ropros-c.itathcs ar» at present on a rmnic excur-icn to the South Sea Islands where the date palm \va\Cb lU branches at tho. portals of the day, and where da'-k-oved houria languish in a piradi=e of brilliant flowers while the. great interior of Otago remains unknown. I know the South Sep, groups and while there are no lovriier i«lanJ-= on the. face of the globe, I can cay without hesitation that the par'iamentary reprcsentathes would ha\e made a more profitable trip and would have better served tho interests of the colony had they spent the saire pciicd of time in the great interior of Otaso.

A deep booming, acc^mpanipcl by a slig-iit tremor of the earth, was heard to the wet of Milton on Monday morning (hays the. Bruce. Herald). The soni:d, which lasted for a good many seconds w'ae very loud, and reverberated among the lulls like distant thunder.

For careless handling of crork^ry In a restaurant in Wellington, which caused needless breakages Reginald Boweis who had dined at said restaurant, and, in consequence of his wilfully brutal handling of the crockery, had to be ejected, was fined by the magistrate £1 and 2ls costs and ordered to pay damages, or in default 14 days' imprisonment. Stick to the People, it is but their duo, Give them good \alue and they'll stick to

you, So we ha\e found it, wherever we've been; We have a big lead, to keep it wo mean. In many a home we have saved much ex-

pcnfce, And still will continue for years that are

hence ; For bad coughe and cold?, the Etuff good and pure Is W. E. Woods' Great PFri'Er.Mi\-T Cur.E.