on’t Go to the Other Side.

Te Aroha News, Volume XXVII, Issue 4373, 13 February 1909, Page 2

on’t Go to the Other Side.

ill VIATIC CHANGES VIOLENT & , RUINOUS. OBSERVATIONS BV WAIROA I 1 ESIDENTS. I cull the following from the Kaipara lertiser : —Mr C. Charleson, who has Ii spending a month’s holiday in New |th Wales, returned to Aratapu on pday evening, bringing back with 1 a firm conviction that “ there’s no ce like home,” and that a man who grates from New Zealand to Australia makes a big mistake, chiefly because the climatic changes on the other side are so violent as to make agricultural, pastoral, and horticultural pursuits a lottery. In eloquent proof of this, Mr Charleson showed a representative of this paper a bunch of grapes withered to worthlessness. The history of these grapes is significant.

On New Years’ Day they formed part of a healthy crop, valued at £3OO, in one vinery, situated in Central Cumberland, betweeu Liverpool and Cauapbelltown, and about 24 miles from Sydney. In 24 hours the thermometer fell from 113 degrees to 17 degrees, and then came a hot blizzard which scorched the grapes almost to a powdery dryness, and of course, ruined the crop, which three days before, \va6, as has been said worth £3OO. In the same district other crops and even flowers were similarly affected ; and, in fact, so great was the devastation wrought among the fruit that Mr , Charleson does not think there will be any market this season in New South Wales for the inferior timber which is usually exported from the Dominion for utilisation in the making of fruit boxes. H >ppily, however, though scores of fruitgrowers have been ruined, tbe great improvement in the wool and wheat industries will counterbalance the loss, so that the general prosperity €>f New South Wales will uot be materially lessened. Mi Charleson’s opinion about the Aus tralian climate is very emphatic, and he graphically sums up his views by saying, “ You never know there, whether you are going to shear five hundred thousand shtep or fifty. It is a gamble.”—N.A,