PRODUCTIVE PUKEKOHE.

Pukekohe & Waiuku Times, Volume 9, Issue 506, 17 February 1920, Page 4

PRODUCTIVE PUKEKOHE.

VALUE OF EXPORTS. QUARTER OP MILLIONT*EACHFi) We all talk glibly about the productivity of the Pukekohe district, but most of us, were we asked to ; ve ome definite data on the subject, would be well floored, and would have to take refuge in generalities about three crops of potatoes a year, etc., etc. We might even be able to quote how many tons of potatoes so and so got to the acre, but could not give any aggregate for the district. By courtesy of the clerk in charge of the local railway goods-shed, it has been ascertained that for the three months, November, December, and January of last season, 4138 tons of produce, mainly potatoes and onions, were exported from Pukekohe, per rail, while the tonnage for the corresponding months of this season was 4138 tons, an increase of 685 tons. The reason of this increase is that, although the crops were not as good this season, the total area cropped was very much larger. Also, as Cr R. Bilkey remarked at a meeting of the Pukekohe Borough Coun cil, last season the people were eating less ordinary food, working less, and filling themselves up with real or imaginary preventives of influenza. In one month and two days this railed away, valued at £IB,OOO. The total value of the produce exported last year was £250,000, which would include dairy produce.