FRUIT GROWING.

Dominion, Volume 6, Issue 1699, 15 March 1913, Page 15

FRUIT GROWING.

-4 SOME GEEAT POSSIBILITIES. It seems almost incredible that although 9 the great possibilities of Poverty Bay as I n fruit-growing district were known con- I siderably over half a.century ago, the g commercial orchards at the present time I aggregate only a very few acres, <iiul tlie I yield is not nearly sufficient for local re- I quirements. The early missionaries plant- I ed several areas, and for/' many 3'ears I alter the placc became fairly extensively | settled with a white population, these, j areas continued to yield great crops of I excellent fruits. They were.always spoken j of "Maori orchards," but eventu- g ally thev were all more or less destroyed 1 by blight through absolute lack of at- | tention. | The partial isolation from which Pov- j erty Bay lias, until recently, suffered, with I the absence of facilities for getting fruit g quickly 'to the larger markets of the Do- J minion, Accounts for the absence of large | growers..' Clisborno has, however, grown 'J so rapidly of late years that thero is a I big local demand which is not half sup- | plied by the few small .orchardists in the j district. ' J Mr.White, of Ormond (six miles from | the town of Gisborne) has one of the best- | tended orchards in the district, and from g it obtains enormous yields of fmit which, j for quality, could hardly be excelled in I any part of the Dominion. Mr. White's jj property is only about three acres in ex- g tent, and off this small area the owner I takes between -£400 and .£SOO worth of fruit annually. IJp to February 15 over twenty tons had been sent to market this season, and the crop was not then half gathered. A Dominion representative who recently visited Mr. White's orchard saw a remarkable crop of pears of many varieties. One tree in particular (Bishop of Wingfield) presented a picture which it would bo difficult to describe. "Thero are more pears than leaves," remarked Mr. White to our representative, and on many of the overladen branches this was unquestionably the case. This tree alone [ was expected, to yield a ton of pears, j valued at over £20. I Mr. White stated that the, soil is of .such 3 a kindly nature to work, and of such J inexhaustible richness' (with the advan- g tages of climate in addition), that the in- g dustry is an 6'xceedingly profitable one. j He expressed the opinion that, if fruit | culture* was undertaken on a large scale g in the district, a good market for the | .surplus supply was to be found in Dun- g ediu. With the present shipping service g the fruit, could be landed there quickly, g and cheaply, and owing to it beinc in | advance of the. Cheviot supply, could be g relied upon to bring "good prices. Another settler who for many years was a successful orchardist and who is very enthusiastic in advocating the expansion of the industry on a large scale stated that from an orchard of about eight acres he took-an average of .£I2OO worth of fruit annually. Almost, any kind of fruit— g oranges, lemons, prunes, figs, peaches, g pears, etc., grow, to perfection. The J phenomenal richness of the soil, with the g advantages of climate added, makes the j cost of working an orchard extremely low, | leaving a wide margin of profit, and with S improved shipping facilities Poverty Bay I should have a big future as a fruit'-grow- I inar district. _ . g Speaking of climate, a prominent set- g tier informed our representative that he J had under cultivation a number of Cape j gooseberries which fruited heavily all the g year round.. Sufficient fruit for jam-mak- j ing could be picked in mid-winter. j