Fruit Evaporation.

Manawatu Herald, 3 December 1896, Page 3

Fruit Evaporation.

Mr 0. W. Oollioi one of the shareholders in the Fruit Evaporating Company has written a vary doleful letter about its prospect* to the Wanganui Chronicle, in whioh he status : — The amount of capital Bubioribed on Bth of April last was 1288 shares of £1 each, held by 117 persons, 4770 15s of which had been paid. The only progress that I can rtpois is that there is now £1019 paid* up, amount must be obtained M soon as possible; there still remains £214 to collect. Thus no more shares haw been applied for. The coat of the faotory now ttands at £1420. I explained to you that fruit was coming forward very ■lowly, but were assured that we should get larger supplies later on. Up to that date we have been able to SMurs about 8f tons, sinoe then we have only been ably to secure 8f tons, makitfg the total for the season \ 12} tons. Now considering that the faotory' was started on a basis of • being able to obtain 200 tons, you can quite understand our position. . . .5> . . There is now an overdraft of £1000 for which your directors have, become personally responsible. Against this we have assets in the way of unsold stock and unpaid calls to the amount of about £500, but is it prudent to increase this overdraft without us having any guarantee whatever in us being able to obtain ample supplies of fruit. , . . • . We were led to believe that we should be able to purchaser an ample supply of apples at £8 per ton. The price> is about 15a more Iban is given by factories in other pairta of the world. Failing to obtain any at the price we offered (£4) whioh is quite as much, if not more than the factory can afford to give, in order to compete with the imported artiole. Exporting on these prices is certainly out of the question. We cannot obtain supplies in any quantity at £4 per ton. People will not gather and deliver the fruit to the faotory at that price. I have been repeatedly told this, and know of instances where large quantities have been allowed to waste, whioh, had they been delivered at the factory, would have been more profitable to the grower, and of ben«fit to ua. Now, as were unable to obtain fruit we gave our attention to vegetables, and succeeded in obtaining a few varieties. We cannot yet report upon this, but we hate sufficient stock on hand to test the market. This jb being done, and it would not be prudent on our part to increase our stock until we *,are sure of being able to obtain remunerative prices. This may take months yet The faotory was constructed to deal witb two tons a day, and will not pa} with less than one ton per day. We eonld work as much as three tons, I will venture to eaj that any man with ordinary intelligence, with five acres of fruit trees and selling his crop at £8 per tot will make more than one with 50C acres bush farm carrying sheep and Rattle and with his labour. . . . .1 therefore strongly advise th< immediate formation of a fruil growfJr'MstfQciatioD, until we hav< this nothing svill be done. Government returns for fruit imported into Zealand for the year 189 f