Our Illustrations

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 2, 12 January 1907, Page 34

Our Illustrations

ST. JOHN'S, WAIHI. Among our illustrations will be found two photos of the new Parish Church of St. John the Evangelist, Waihi, which was dedicated on Saturday evening. December 8. by the Bishop of Auckland. The choir on that occasion was augmented by members from St. Paul's Paeroa, and St. Aidan's Karangahake, and was under the direction of the choirmaster, Mr Win. McKinnon. The Bishop was accompanied by the Rev. J. P. Cowie, Vicar of Paeroa, who acted as chaplain: the Rev. A. S. Buckland (Viear of Waihi); Messrs H. P. Barry and H. Roehe, churchwardens ;and Messrs A. H. Benge, F. K Cubitt. layreaders. The church was well filled at the Dedication Service, and also on the Sunday following, in the evening many being unable to obtain admission, although every seat from the old church was brought into requisition. Services were continued during the week following, the clergy. of neighbouring parishes kindly assisting. There is but one opinion in Waihi about the new church, viz., that the Vestry were most fortunate’ in securing the services of sueh an able architect as Mr Alex. Wiseman, of His Majesty's Arcade, Auckland, and of such skilful and conscientious contractors as. Messrs Potts and Hardy, of Cambridge, and the townsfolk feel proud of having sueh a handsome building at the top of their main street. Mr Fen. Hazard most kindly acted throughout as supervisor of the building. The total eost is about £llOO, and it is one of the most completely furnished churches in the diocese. Many of its appointments are personal gifts, such as the altar and its ornaments, sanctuary earpet. windows, and rails, credence table, lectern, prayer desk, bell. ete. It is seated comfortably with substantial kauri seats and lined with rimu, the main pillars being of the same, all oiled, no varnish or paint being used inside. The arches dividing the nave and aisles are particularly graceful, and the piteh of the main roof, the windows, doors, gas-fittings, ete., arc all in keeping, being most simple in design. The ventilation is also most satisfactory. The church is capable of seating over 400 worshippers. To the left of the picture showing the exterior of the church may be seen the I nion Hill, and some of the buildings of the Waihi Gold Mining Company's battery. To the right is the Black Hill, from the top of which the sea is plainly visible. The view of the interior is taken from the baptistry. The windows above the altar are fitted with coloured glass in diamond panes, the central one also containing a transparency after Raphael's “Madona and Child." The glass in the other windows is amber-coioured, with ruffled surface, and admits a soft. subdued light. The incandescent gas lights at night are also verv satisfa torv.

THE STRAWBERRY TRADE. JU'? < I RIDES. SOME INTERESTING FIGURES. The strawberry season will shortly close. January or the early days of February are always associated with the la-t sparse picking.-* of the popular berry, and strange as it may seem, the grown s themselves are quite glad when they ran straighten their Uuks up and feel that at length the .weary picking season G The strawberry growers are supposed

to number about a hundred. Formerly they squatted in a narrow circle within the coniines >f Ncrtheote and Birkenhead. Then Birkdale joined in the area, and now the secrets of the business have escaped as far away as to Heleusville. What is the volume, of this rosy trade’ No actual record is kept that covers the whole of the supply, but it is roughly guessed at about *£lo,ooo for the season. The W’aiteinata Fruit - growers' Co - operative Society, which is reputed to handle half the total crop, disposed of as many as 7000 boxes per day on several of the biggest days, including, in some eases, as many as 500 or .600 boxes from one grower. Their method of disposal is to hold an auction sale early in the morning at their store opposite the Custom • house, Mr. W. Holden (their own auctioneer) officiating. ’1 he auctioning method is new to the Auckland strawberry trade, although not to the other fruits which the society handles. Formerly the growers themselves came over with their fruit, and carried it direct to their shop-keeping clients, or to such of them as cud not meet them on the wharf; and the vision of perspiring straw berry-growers laboriously ploughing a lonely furrow up Queen-street with a heavy crate of berries dangling from each arm is familiar to the minds of most of us still. It was to escape this drudgery, and to lessen the loss of time at the busiest season of the year that the eo-operative society was established. It can scarcely be any secret that this society was formed to enable the growers to get as much for their money a«> possible and with the minimum of labour. And therefore we consumers would naturally look askance at it and all its works. Our suspicions will be strengthened by the news that the growers are congratulating each other on the other side of the water on the results of its first year’s operations. Yet, after all, strawberries have not been retailed at any excessive prices this season. The explanation, if we may believe Mr. James Wilson, the "-co-op’s” devoted manager, is that his society has brought grower and consumer eloser together, rendering a sstisfaetrry wholesale price consistent with a low charge to the consumer. Still we, the strawberryloving citizens, will probably keep a watchful eye on that ” co-op.” The year’s income of a strawberry grower has' always been a very variable factor right from those early days when Messrs Bradney, Johnson, Hawkins, and a few others represented the whole industry. Total failures and broken hearts aie still heard of, and so are £2OO-an-acre crops, and even bigger eye-openers than these. There is. of course, no other district iu the colony where such huge crops of such gigantic- berries are

produced, and in Wellington the Auckland strawberries are always welcome arrivals. It is ail axiom in strawberry

growing in other lands that any variety becomes unprofitable after a few years’ commerc-iaT existence.” But the old "Marguerite is an exception to this rule, and continues to hold the Auckland market. The better flavoured Duke of Edinburgh strawberry, of whieh some splendid samples have this year come down from Helensville, are unprofitable on account of their lighter crop. They fetched at auction this year half as much again per pound as the Marguerites. But still they are unprofitable.

The style of package employed has totally changed since the first ''chip" boxes were introduced seven years ago. The first thousand were imported from Melbourne for a test, and were of the pound size. To-day that is the popular package, and, as a natural result under the auction system, it is the package in which the grower gets the most money, for his fruit. Theoretically it is supposed to hold lib loz. A larger size of the same pattern is also in vogue, holding 11b I2oz. There is, again, the rimless one-pound chip box. which has not come to say; and we still have with us the old square wooden box made at the Blind Institute, holding about 21b. All these boxes are now made iu Auckland, and the output amounts to about 300,000 per season, providing a tidy trade for light fingers. The export trade is expanding. Wellington has long been a valued market, providing handsome prices for the lots that reached there in good condition. And so well was the exporting work understood by those who did the exporting that the consignments seldom went wrong. Success mainly depended on picking at the right stage of ripeness, coolness of temperature on the farm and on the steamers, and careful handling on "this-side-up” principles. This year farther fields have -been exploited. Sydney has been tried, but not with much satisfaction. And it can scarcely ever be a good outlet for several reasons. It is accessible only once a week. It represents a four-days’ trip, and that is a trying matter for strawberries (as those of us who have tried to keep a box of strawberries for that length of time know). And the cooler early part of the season, when the berries travel best, is just the time when Sydney can get strawberries from Australian gardens. A little later on in tha hot days, when no grower would take a four-days’ risk with valuable fruit, Sydney people would pay good prices. But new local markets have been touched this year with good results. Christchurch, New Plymouth, Napier, Tauranga, King Country, and even Dunedin people tasted Auckland strawberries last month. There is still much scope for strawberry production around Auckland without much fear of overloading the New Zealand markets.