FRUIT CULTURE AND IRRIGATION.

Te Aroha News, Volume VI, Issue 349, 9 March 1889, Page 4

FRUIT CULTURE AND IRRIGATION.

Ouu readers will remember some papers on vine culture in America which were reprinted in The Farmer from a report by Mr G. E. Alderton of Whangarei, published by the Government. Mr Alderton is now in Napier and has been interviewed by a representative of the HawMs Bay Herald on the subject of the adaptability of the district for fruit growing. Referring to Messrs Chaffey Bros.'irriga tion undertakings, Mr Alderton said : "I have seen their Ontario colony. They converted an almost useless cattle ranche, with the aid of irrigation, into one of the richest fruit-bearing districts in the world. They did more — they made what was otherwise a barren wilderness an earthly paradise. On every hand are beautiful homes, embowered in trees. The spaciousness and elegance of the gardens, the cleanness of the streets and roads, and the comfortable appearance of the dwellings, indicated that the people had ' come to stay ' and were happy and prosperous." " What are your ideas in regard to the Hawke's Bay district for fruit farming?" " You will perhaps remember that in my report on ' Vine Culture ' I stated that from a meteorological point of view Hawke's Bay seemed to be the most suitable district in the colony for open-air vine culture. The grape requires a dry climate. Further north the heavy rain-fall is against the grape. Here it should do well with proper treatment." " But what about other fruits ?" " There is no place in the colony to beat this district, providing irrigation is used. That is the secret of growing fruit successfully in a dry, hot climata. Here you have artesian wells, and there is no system of irrigation so simple, so cheap, and so efficacious. Hastings might yet become the Queen City of the Plains — a second Los Angeles ('The City of Angels') — if fruit once became king. Los Angeles, with its broad avenues, its colossal hotels, its electric train system, its 70,000 inhabitants— a town that might have been built by the gods — a garden made by man — is the most beautiful, lovely, charming town, not only of the Banner State of California, but of all America ; and fruit built it. The whole country is in fruit — nothing but fruit — fruit and flowers — a perfect paradise that words fail to describe or the mind to conceive." " What is the price of this fruit land ?" < ' From £100 to £200 an acre. You smile ; I don't wonder. I believe they have had their land boom at Hastings, and quite a number of people got 'left.' But that was owing to fictitious values — to persons giving more for the land than it was worth, capitalised either as wheat or sheep land. I don't know what is the maximum price a man can afford to pay for A 1 sheep or wheat land, but I do know this — that a man can afford to give to £100 an aero for the top fruit land and do right well out of it. San Jose, a beautiful fruit district 25 miles outside San Francisco, is an illustration. It is similar country to what we have here. It is watered by artesian wells. There are 500 in the country. The wells are used to irrigate strawberry fields, gardens, and orchards. The vicinity of San Jose has 1,200 acres in strawberries, and the yield is sometimes 40 tons daily Fruit land in that district cannot be had under £150 to £200 pounds an acre. A Californian paper referring to the rush of farmers from the East stated, and with truth, that ten acres in Los Angeles County would produce as much cash as 100 acres of the best lowa corn land, and wound up by stating 'that the pi ice of a farm in the East won't patch a hole in a corner lot here. ' " "But have they not better markets in America for fruit ?" " The price of fruit in America is never so high as here ; our prices for fruit would be altogether prohibitive in America. There are more people to supply in Ameiica, but there are more growers in proportion to produce the article. But the world is our market. We can send frozen mutton to England, and by an easier and cheaper plan we can send fruit, notably apples and pears, which cost less than mutton to grow per pound, cost less t-o send to London, and fetch mere money. Fruit can be sent Home in cool chambers, having a temperature of 40 degrees, and arriving in London at a time of the year when fruit is very scarce, high prices are obtained. An acre of land that would carry five sheep, or 3001b of mutton, would produce not less than 10,0001b of fruit. It costs no more to raise fruit than wheat, oats, or barley, and while it would have to be a more than average crop to produce a ton of corn to the acre, thrco times that weight would be light for fruit. So also it would be a high price to pay for corn a penny a pound, but a low rate for fruit. Apricots, which do so well here, fetch in California for canning purposes from Id to lgd per pound. Compare wheat growing with jruit. We will suppose a farmer gets the very large yield of 50 bushels to the acre, and obtains the rare price of 5s a bushel for it. That will give him £12 10s per acre gross. Now take a fruit farm of cherries, apricots, plums, peaches, prunes, pears, figs, walnuts, and chestnuts. Thac variety will never average less than one penny per pound, and the orchard, when in full bearing, if it has been properly kept, will not yield less than five tons of fruit. That would mean roughly £45 an acre. and these are ' bedrock ' figures for fruit. And if grapes can be grown here in the open — and I feel certain that they could by adopting the e/i chaintre system of cultivation, which is a safeguard against early frost and I mildew — £100 an acre could be made. Lemons, too, could be grown in sheltered positions if judiciously irrigated. They require plenty of moisture during hot weather. The Napier climate is altogether too dry for the lemon, but the heat is right, and all that is required is the irrigation. The lemon is the most profitable fruit grown in this colony ; 75 trees go to the acre, and when full grown I have know single trees to bring in £10 annually/ " How long would a man have to wait for a return if he went into the fruit business ?" "He can utilise the ground in between the trees straight away, if he is in a hurry for a return, and grow potatoes, onions, tomatoes, and melons, and wheat too, if he likes, but it is of course more costly to harvest. It is best, if possible, to give the land up wholly to the trees. It will depend on what fruits you plant as to when the orchard begins to return a revenue. Peaches and apricots will begin bearing the second year ; so will all small , fruits ; plums, if on the right stock, begin the third year ; apples and pears depend on the variety ; grapes begin the third year, lemons the same." 41 What size fruit farms do you advocate ?" "Ten acres is enough for one man to look after, and if properly attended to, will give him a very comfortable competence.

The great mistake made here by fruit growers is, that they go in for too great a variety of trees. Some men consider the greater variety of apples they have the more valuable the orchard. An American thinks otherwise, for the reason that the fruit, instead of maturing all at once, ripens in driblets, and he never has a large line of any particular variety to offer to the canning and preserving houses. These houses only purchase in big lines ; it does not pay to collect small lots scattered all over a district. A canning house wants to purchase its peaches and" apricots by the acre, nob by the pound. Thera is very little use in men planting orchards here, there, and everywhere. They should have their plantations contiguous to one another, and form, as it were, a fruit colony, then a canning and preserving factory can deal easily and economically with the whole crop. Without this fruitfarming cannot be a great success^ for the secret of success lies in the practicability of having the surplus fruit made imperishable for winter use. Peaches, apricots, pears, and tomatoes are canned ; gooseberries, currants, and small fruits can be bottled or put into jam ; apples can be exported, evaporated, or made into cider, vinegar, or jelly. It is only under circumstances such as these where a great bulk of fruit is grown in the immediate vicinity of a factory, that the factory can be a success, and without it fruit culture is nowhere, So, too, it is only under such circumstances that fruit lands are so valuable. To guarantee success here, the simplest way would be to form a company and lay down, say, 200 acres of fruit, and when the trees were in bearing the cultivations could be subdivided and sold, and the company could cairy on the canning factory." " Do you intend lecturing here at all on fruit culture as you did in Auckland ?" "Yes, when opportunity offers. Fruit farming would be a great boon to this di&trict, as it would help many people who hold lands bought at very high prices — prices that cannot be got from people who want the land for farming, and it would also tend to subdivide the land. A New Zealander writing from California to the Auckland Herald a short time ago said, ( This state will soon be a land of homes, and all the big farms will have disappeared,' and the San Francisco Bulletin, writing on the same subject, said, ' It was worth more to the State than the discovery of the Comstock lode. Orange and olive orchards, vineyards, hamlets, towns, large hotels, whole cities are rejuvenated, and an augmentation of the best population is taking place by thousands. This is rather the dis* covery of a new era than the closing of it, No new millionaires are suddenly created, but there was something better in the fact that thousands of people were put upon the road to permanent prosperity.' Yea, I may be a dreamer, but the day will come when fruit will be king in this beautiful valley and Hastings will be a veritable City of the Plains." The interview concluded with a glowing tribute to the beauty and perfect climate of the town of Napier, which Mr Alderton quoted from a description he had written for an Australian paper.