FRUIT-TESTING STATIONS.

Dominion, Volume 1, Issue 306, 19 September 1908, Page 3

FRUIT-TESTING STATIONS.

A PRACTICAL PROJECT. SOMETHING LEARNED AT WERAROA. Woraroa has several sides as an experiment farm, and an important side is tho fruit-testing blocks. On theso blocks, the schome in operation is to carry two trees of . each variety and no Two trees, it is held, are sufficient to givo a fair lesson of a variety's commercial value, and on this plan a very largo number, of varieties can tie maintained on a very few acres. The object is to keep constantly in existence a collection of tho chief varieties of fruits growing under • similar conditions, in order that fruit-growers and intending fruit-growers may bo able to examine and compare their commercial values for the district. It should under such a schcmo bo no' longor necessary to be guided by doubtful andy often conflicting advico gathered from men of varying experience as to the best varieties and treatment. . , ' ' Theso fruit-testing stations are greatly needed throughout /New . Zealand. Fruitgrowing has sprung upon a pedestal of permanency during the last - half-dozen years, and before very long it. may be counted as one of .the country's chief industries. _ It's growth will almost surely bo very rapid in tho next few years; and there will be great need of the assistance which these fruit-test- . ing, stations can give. A Department ,that claims to be progressive and educative cannot with oredit allow the need to; go longer unfilled, and within tho next'few years one .may expect to see a very largo number, of additional stations of this character distributed all over the country. They are inexpensive. Tori acros and a man can do all that is necessary—a matter of, say, £300 a year—and if the crop produced did not make the venture yield a handsome profit to the country, then there would be something radically wrong about the management. The Weraroa fruit-testing block gives some peculiar results, asdoubtless would others. The apricot trees, for example, which aro usually expected to fruit on spurs, havo made scarcely any fruit spurs at all, but have become well-furnished with fruit buds instead along the ends of the smaller branches. This is characteristic of practically all the apricot varietios in the group, and is apparently due to special local conditions—possibly in part to the wetness of the soil incidental to flat land. Another peculiarity is afforded by the peach trees. The besotting sin of a peach tree in. most orchards is its propensity to grow farther, and farther away to top, leaving the branches below baro of leaf or fruit.The Weraroa peach tree does not do this.. It produces and retains an abiindanco of fruiting wood almost to the bases of tho main stems. This low distribution' of fruiting wood. can, of course, be secured by severe pruning, which sacrifices much of the ensuing crop. But at Weraroa there has boon 110. sacrifice. The peach trees have been pruned as a commercial orchardist would pruno. them, and they have not become bare of low fruiting wood. It would perhaps'be difficult to assign the cause of this remarkable advantage. The special local conditions may possibly have contributed to it. And the thorough winter sprayings with bordeaux mixture, which the Government • orchards get, must go a long way to suppress the invisible fungi which in some orchards cause the loss of so. many . blossoms arid twigs. Whatever the cause, there' is this fact patent for the people-of Weraroa, .that their soil and the treatment . which the Government, trees get will produce trees abundantly' furnished with fruiting wood. Peach trees that'can be made to bear a full crop every year are immensely profitable. '