TOMATO GROWING

Wairarapa Age, 23 March 1920, Page 5

TOMATO GROWING

IN THE WAIRARAPA. (By Our Travelling Reporter.) Tomato growing has not been engaged in to any extent in the Wairarapa, but it is likely to develop in the near future to an important and profitable industry. :' What can be done in the way of tomato growing may be seen on the farm of Mr Ben Roberts at Parkvale. Mr Roberts has about three acres in tomatoes, and a more prolific crop it would be hard to find anywhere in New Zealand. The fruit is large and luscious, and the output has been sold by Mr Roberts to a Masterton merchant at a profitable figure. Mr Roberts grows tomatoes as an adjunct to his dairy farm, and is growing wealthy on the proceeds. Mr S. Hunt, of South Carterton, also grows tomatoes on a large Bcale, and finds no difficulty in securing a ready sale for all he can produce. Some people imagine that the early and late frosts experienced in thj» Wairarapa makes tomato growing a risky undertaking. Against this, Mt Hunt informed the writer that he had over a thousand plants cut down by the heavy frost of last spring, but the fact that he had them drilled enabled them to survive; though .sustaining a slight check in The land in and around Carterton is eminently suited to tomatojrand onion growing, while pumpkins and marrows also thrive well. Growing these products of the soil it would be quite possible for a family to make a good living off from five to feeven acres. The land, compared with th« tomato growing land of Hastings, ii ridiculously cheap, yet capable of producing equivalent crops, and this writes; can say without hesitation after seeing Mr Roberts' harvest. Are any of the large land owners sufficiently enterprising to cuij? up their properties into ten-acre lots jnd offer it on such terms as will induce the person of average means to take it up ? It iB this enterprise alone, at> companied by Government assistance in the matter of building homos, that will make the Wairarapa what it is destined to be—the most wealthy district in the Dominion. . • ■