CHEAP FRUIT.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXIX, Issue 8336, 19 January 1907, Page 7

CHEAP FRUIT.

Mr A. E. Pitt, a prominent South Australian wine-grower and general fruit who has been visiting the Exhibition, passed through Wellington, on Thursday, en route forßotorua. ; Mr Pitt is a son of Mr E. Pitt, who between 20 and 30 years ago, before the prohibition of importing certain fruit from Australia came into force, was a large shipper to New Zealand, and used to do a good deal of business in Wellington with the old firm of Laery and Campbell (now Laery and Co.). It is not Mr Pitt's mission to create a mar- | ket for his fruit in Wellington, but seeing the big prices that the public are being asked to pay he certainly thinks that the duty of Id per lb is excessive and entirely against the interests of the community. The duty on imported fruit in South Australia' is only Is per 1001b. Mr Pitt says South Australian grapes could easily be sold in New Zealand for 6d per pound. Grapes are retailed at Id a lb in Adelaide, but those for export have to be selected—they have to be of a special variety, and even in the thick-skinned varieties the close bunches could not be sent, as the granulated cork in which they are packed, cannot be got between the berries.'' There has,'' he added,'' been some talk about interfering with" growers of hot-house grapes in this country, but these growers have always failed to produce enough grapes at a moderate price, and, in any event the South Australian competition would only last for about six or seven weeks in each year. Only the harder thick-skinned varieties are fit for export, and these are never ready until the middle of February, except in exceptionally favourable seasons, and the crop is done by the end of March,; or the beginning of April."