FRUIT FOR THE MILLION

Dominion, Volume 11, Issue 71, 17 December 1917, Page 16

FRUIT FOR THE MILLION

A HAWICK'S I!.W SPECIALTY. No one bus ever been able l<i discover anything that will not grow in the fecund Hats and hilly slopes round about the town of Hastings. Certainly no one has ever doubted the existence of particular virtues in the soil and climate that favour fruit culture as a business. If there were any lurking doubts on the subject they would be immediately removed by taking a stroll through the well-grjomed orchards that .surround Hastings as a frame does a picture, but especially in the direction of the sunny slopes of Huvolock -North, a suburb of Hastings, which is destined to he heard i good deal of in the future if the writer is not very much mistaken. 'I lie orchards of Hastings are its glory. There is something alluring and opulent in seeing miles of fruit trees langc.d in perfectly straight rows, wu.b the ground cleared of the slightest .suspicion of anything likely to take any lifo out of tlie .soil, and the trees heavily ,laden with the promise of a bnmiteolis crop, the lirst of which, is now beginning to come to hand. The acreage of orchards in the district is virv considerable, and it is to be added to 'by some 500 acres, due to come into "bearing within the next two or three years. And still more laud is beiii«* prepared for fruit trees, ;,o that the "industry, already well founded, is one that is flue for considerable expansion in the next few years. The best of it is that some of tlie poorest laud in the district—there is actually no poor land unless you get away buck into the mountains—has been found to he admirably adapted for growing certain classes of fruit trees. It u>ny be mentioned here that there is a disposition on the part of growers to Favour planting pip fruit rather than

stone fruit, owing in the main to the better keeping qualities of the former. With stone fruit it is a case of Having to find vour market just when the fruit is " all but ripe, but with pip fruit the case is entirely different. In the ono case there is absolute dependence on the market; in the other the market, as often as not, depends on the holder. , As to the prospects of the seasonsearly peaches are light, . late reaches are good; apples promise to be in good supply; early, pears are likely o be lidit, late varieties better The prospects of the industry in the district are good. Those prospects, to a lar«c extent, depend upon the export track which is at present in a precarious condition owing to the p: evading shortage of shipping. As against this n good deal of cold storage is being provided at tho present time or the industry in the district. In this direction ample provision is being made by the Hawke's Bay I'ru.t Company and bv Messrs. Ipsey, White, and Co. The latter firm have erected cold storage sufficient for 20,000 boxes of apples, and in the same building have installed a "NeTson' r grader, by, which all fruit can be graded most ingeniously by weight, as well as size and colour. To see this machine at work is a most fascinating experience, and reveal" at a glance the reason why Americans' are able to grade their apples so perfectly. . Dnriii"' the fruit season in Hastings a day and night staff is. employed at tho railway station packing the fruit on the trucks. As far as this system was concerned, the season commenced last evening.