GRAPES FROM AUSTRALIA.

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume XXXIV, Issue 10919, 13 March 1907, Page 1

GRAPES FROM AUSTRALIA.

(Special to Herald.) DUNEDIN.. this day. Mr H. J. Scott, South Australian Commissioner, accompanied by Professor Kirk, Government biologist, is m Dunedin to take deliver}' of two tons of grapes from South Australia,, which the Government have allowed to be imported into the colony, to he shown at the Exhibition. The grapes reach Dunedin by the s.s. Monowai to-day. Mv Scott has arranged for a case ot grapes to be exhibited at the Dunedin Horticultural Society's show at the Garrison -Hall, with a view to illustrating the methods adopted for long-distance delivery, as where the grapes are forwarded" from Adelaide to London, of which the shipments ab present total some 18,000 cases a year. The present shipment to New Zealand is a trial one. If Professor Kirk's report is satisfactory m regard to the absolute freedom of phylloxera, it is understood that arrangements will be come to between the Federal Premier (Mr D'eakin) and Sir Joseph Ward m the course of a few months for removal of the restriction on the importation of Australian grapes to this colony, provided each shipment is accompanied by a certificate that the State from which the grapes come is absolutely free from the disease. Asked as to the probable cost of the South Australian grapes on the New Zealand market, Mr Scott said : "The very best grapes that we can produce can be bought m the vineyards m Adelaide at Id per lb. The cost of packing, shipping, and deli-" very >tb the three centres, Dunedin, Lyt..t_#lon,vftn^^yjingtpn,' would be lfd per lb.'ahd we woulu be prepared to take any amount of contracts for delivery at 3d per lb to wholesale merchants, and if the latter could not sell to ensure the fruiterer supplying his customers at 6d per lb,, there must be sometliing wrong m the method of distributing the fruit. Incidentally.. Mr Scott mentioned that already application had been made to them by one large fruit -importer -in this city for the Adelaide supply, but his reply was that he was adverse to any monopoly, and that .shippers:-. would have their own representative -.at each New Zealand centre. The question, "Wliere do the present shipments of grapes come from?" evoked a reply : "All frrini vineyards witiiin ten miles of Adelaide." Some aro from Mr Scott's own vineyard at Bendara, but m order to give as wide a distribution as possible 'ten. vineyards were . contributing to the two tons of grapes, each supplying fifteen cases. The grapes were of the best class, principally muscat and Gordon Blanco.