HORTICULTURE.

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume LXXVI, Issue 17780, 31 January 1920, Page 5

HORTICULTURE.

STATE OF THE INDUSTRY. Mr T. W. Kirk (Director of Horticulture) gave some very interesting facts about the horticultural industry to the Nurserymen’s Conference yesterday. He stated that the Department of Agriculture had worked out the following estimates of the value of horticultural products grown in New Zealand:— £ Fruit Products , . 3,957,125 Nursery stock . . 350,200 Market gardens . . 5,000,000 Products of beekeeping 200,000 Total £9,508,125 Mr Kirk pointed out that the capital invested in cold stores, orchards, plant, and by-product factories was £6,160,250, while £407,700 was invested in the nursery business, £1,700.000 in market gardens, and £1,013,000 in apiaries and plant, giving a total of £11,281,550. The value of the annual turnover was estimated at nine millions sterling. Mr Kirk stated that in view of these figures the conference was quite right in urging the establishment of a school of horticulture. At present there was no place in New Zealand where education in the above-men-tioned subjects was available tor men entering the industry. The point must not be lost sight of that through horticulture a large amount of land had gone into cultivation, when it would not have been utilised for ordinary farming. There was no doubt about the justice of the claim for a school of horticulture but it was a question for the Government to find the money.