THE FLY & THE FRUIT.

Dominion, Volume 6, Issue 1856, 16 September 1913, Page 8

THE FLY & THE FRUIT.

INSPECTOR ACTS.

OVER 1500 CASES CONDEMNED

Yesterday the Fruit Inspector of the Agricultural Department (Air. Dyke) condemned a shipment ol between 1500 and 21)00 cases of oranges, not l'roni Rarotonga (as has been stated), but from Mauko, an outlying island that is not usually touched at by the fruit-collecting boats. It has been stated that the oranges v.-ero conveyed by a schooner (owned |by -Messrs. Jagger, Harvey, and Miller, of Auckland and the Coolc group), from the island of Mauko to liarotonga, "where they are examined by a- New Zealand Government fruit inspector before being shipped in the San Francisco liner to Wellington. It appears that a fly pierces the orange and lays its eggs in the puncture, and therefore escapes. detection at the first examination at Rarotonga."

This is at variance with facts. The schooner arrived olf Rarotonga from Atiu and Mauko on the morning of September 4, the day oil which the mailboat Tahiti was due, and transhipped her cargo of oranges (all of which are believed' to be Mauke-grown) to the Tahiti, outside tlie reef, and without inspection, if the fruit had been inspected bv tho Government fruit inspector at'Rarotonga (Air. Reid) as suggested, they would have been accompanied by a certificate. Tho boat-note merely testifies to Mauko (not Rarotonga) being tho port of origin. The folly of shipping without insnection has now been shown through tlie action taken by the fruit inspector here, if Island shippers elect to forward fruit to Now Zealand in the manner adopted in the present case, it is at their own risk.

Seen yesterday, Mr. Dyke stated that the fruit held tip on Friday and Saturday had been condemned, and a start had been made already to cart the mountains of cases from "D" Shed on Queen's Wharf to tho destructor. Tho shipment had been consigned to Messrs. Jagger, Harvey, and Miller, of Auckland, who had appointed Mossrs. Thompson" Bros., Ltd., their agents in Wellington. The latter firm was being held responsible for all charges in connection with the destruction of tho fruit, which would amount to about 9d. per cbse. The Cost of the Fruit. The' valuo of tho fruit eondemncd. in stated -to bo at between £1000 to £1200. That, of course, is the valuo of tho fruit, when sound, but if only a fair proportion of it was in tho condition of the oranges shown to o press reporter yesterday as samples, its value to John Chinaman, the principal middleman, as far as Wellington" is concerned, would be very much less. The last Jot of Island oranges sold here realised pricea between 13s. and 15s. per case, and these, it is understood, would have been bettered had tho shipment been sound, as there is a strong demand for citrous fruits from the Islands just now. There is, it appears, no law to prevent Island shippers expoi ting fruit that has not beeii inspected, such as there is in New South Wales and other countries, llauke, it is truo, belongs to the Cr,ok Group, and tho Cook Group is an appendage of New Zealand —an appendage, that is all. For instance, Mr. E. A. Reid, the solo fruit inspector, of the Group, stationed at Rarotonga, though loaned by our Agricultural Department, is not under orders from its head. He, for the time boing, is tho servant of tho Cook Island Government. Olio msyi could not very well inspect, even cursorily, all tho fruit shipped from the islands of the Cook Group, as tliero might be an Auckland boat picking up fruit at Mangaia, Atiu, and Aitutald, whilst a mailboat might be shipping a consignment at Rarotonga.

The Fly and Its Ravages. Mr. T. W. Kirk, of the Agricultural Department, states that it is. absolutely necessary to take all car© that the fruit fly does not get into New Zealand. It is partial to any fruit, but if it has • a preference it is for stone fruit, and its establishment in our orchards would mean disaster to many. Its taste of breeding places is compre- ' hensively cosmopolitan. If it cannot got stone fruit—and there is none at the Islands—it is quite content with bananas and citrous fruits. That. is why tho New Zealand Government insist that all bananas from tho Islands for the Dominion must be shipped green.. In the case of tho oranges,_ the fly, with the assistance of its ovipositor, punctures the skin of tho ripening fruit, deposits its eggs, and flies off to repeat the act elsewhere. In threo days tho egg produces a maggot from a quarter to a third of an inch in length, and this in turn becomes tbo (fly. The proccss, of course, destroys tho fruit. It will be seen from this what a difficult- task it is to say that any fruit is immune from tho fly. The fruit might be inoculated by 'tho fly ono day, inspected tho same or "the next day, when it is impossible to trace any harm, and yet tho fruit may. arrive in a bad condition.

Expert and Some Samples. 11l condemning the oranges brought from Mauke, Mr. Dyke' did nothing hastily. He opened a good percentage of the lines. He did not say what percentage, but stated tiiat of thirty cases in one line opened, twenty were discovered to bo infected. He also exhibited samples of the consignment of pears from San Francisco ex the Tahiti, which wero condemned. Those looked quite sound, with tho exception of a rather "foggy" core-end. Even on cutting tho pear in half it looked good to tho eye, until Mr. Dyke showed a tiny brown channel which he opened out until a maggot/ nearly a third of an inch in length, was found—it was tho codlin moth. These pears wero reshipped to Sydney, where they are duo to-day.