AUSTRALIAN GRAPES.

Dominion, Volume 2, Issue 500, 6 May 1909, Page 6

AUSTRALIAN GRAPES.

A DISAPPOINTING SEASON.

t;3 i w res * nc f tl0! ; against the importafaon into New.Zealand of Australian grapes, was if ted a couple of years ago, tho grower merchant, and public all anticipated 6 sidorable benefit. 'Now that tlfo™ults of two reasons are available-as the Australian grapo this year is almost at an end-it must be.regarded as a dead loss for the grower, disappointment to the mer-chant,-and a cheap,luxury to tho general pubhe. Wellington, residents,hardly realised, their good fortune in being able to purchase retail, sound South Australian and New South Wales, grapes at 6d. per lb. or less ™ r week ,? in< » the beginning of March. They wore able to buy thus cheaply because there was, no. arrangement between the exporters, and/more than enough was sent. Consequent upon this prices tumbled down, and oven those retailers who bought grapes for a song at tho auction found that they did not go off bo, readily as they "It has been a most disastrous season," said-a leading fruit merchant to a Dominion .reporter yesterday. "The growers have sent too many by,-far, and though the grapes were very fine this year they, in some cases, have had-to stand a loss-of 6s. or 7s. per case. ■.Hβ supply of grapes' for a small city,like Wellington-, wants .strict regulatotherwiso there must bo a .feast or a famine. , It. doesn't do to have a feast, as witness this season. : People used to buy' grapes when they had to pay 2s, 6d. a pound for them, but they get shy when they are offered to them. for 6d.—it's a funny old world! I

. "It costs them between 7s. and Bs. per case to send them over, here from Adelaide, apart from tho grapes themselves—there's the case, tho granulated cork-packing, tho freight, cartago, and 'duty- (Id. per lb.), and sometimes they have had to be sacrificed at that price." .. ' . . .

Do you think this will dotor the growers from exporting again next year? . .... "If they do, they'll, have to mako better arrangements, as, a business of that sort cannot bo carried on long at a dead loss. It's tho old story—when an article, is too cheap no one wants it, however intrinsicallygood it may be." ' , ' . ■ ."