The Waikato Times AND THAMES VALLEY GAZETTE. SATURDAY, NOV. 26, 1887.

Waikato Times, Volume XXIX, Issue 2400, 26 November 1887, Page 2

The Waikato Times AND THAMES VALLEY GAZETTE.

SA TURDAY, NOV. 26, 1887.

I'apial ami exact juste e to all men, Ul wh.-nsoever slate <u persuasion, religious or political.

Tuk Herald of Nov. 12tli publishes statistics r-csjioctiug- fruit-growing ami fruit-drying in California,, which fully boar out the endeavours, more than unco made by this journal, to direct the attention of Waikato farmers to the establishment ul'auiudustry which wouldgivo nu onui'iniins impetus to the prospciity of this district. More fruit is even now grown in Waikato than a profitable and ready rail rket can bo found for. When the glut of plums and apples comes in the early summer we shall have the same complaint as usual, that thelocal market is over-stocked, and that railway charges, commission, and a glutted market in Auckland leave the producer nothing, or next to nothing, to receive in sale returns for his fruit. Many orchardists will not run the risk of sending their fruit to the Auckland auctions lest they not only get nothing in return, but are out of pocket by a balance on the wrong side. There is a euro for all this, and they’ have found it in California. They do not depend on a! sale for green fruit. The market is supplied with the choicest kinds as far as there is a certain sale, and the rest is cither canned, preserved, or dried, and finds a ready and a profitable market, not only in the American States, but in every country in the world. Here, American canned and dried fruits, plums, pears, apricots, apples, and peaches are to bo found, to our shame he it said, selling for high prices in every country store in New Zealand, while the local grown fruit rots in our orchards, or brings little or no profit to the grower. It was so in America, but is so no more. The enterprising settlers of that country did not, when they found green fruit unsaleable, let their orchards die out, and stop further planting. Not they ; they opened a new outlet for the sale of fruit, and the fruit-growing industry instead of dying out, grew with more vigour than ever, till in the Slate of California it has assumed such proportions, so many orchards have been planted, so many are being planted, that it has actually caused a boom in land in some parts of that. State, and the. dried and canned fruit output of last year had quadrupled itself on the output of three seasons before. The total fruit crop for last year, exclusive of green fruits, was—Apples, sundried, 3U0,00()lbs; apples, evaporated, 500,000lbs; plums, sun-dried, nOO.OOOlbs; plums, evaporated, 85,0001bs ; peaches, suit-dried, 7770,0001 bs ; peaches, evaporated and peeled, U)0,0001bs; peaches, evaporated and unpeeled, 200,000 lbs ; pears, sun-dried, 500,000lbs; raisins, 14,000,0001bs ; prunes, 2,125,0001bs ; and apricots and nectarines, evaporated. Goo,ooolbs. Walnuts and almonds also were exported to the tune, of 1,350,0001b5. Now, here is an export trade of immense proportions which has grown only into any significance during iho last seven or eight years, for we find that while the output of raisins was in 1881 only 180,0001hs, it had reached in 1886 to 1 1,000,0001bs — the total crop of dried fruit in the State of California in that year amounting to 22,29-1,5931b5. They look at things differently in America to what wo do in New Zealand. Here if a few hundred acres get laid down in orchard in the planting season our fruitgrowers fear that the market is going to be overdone and the industry beggared, tn California, fruit growers make and seize the opening, and see in the very fact of its being largely entered into, the secret of success. The very quantity of fruit produced does not spoil but makes the market, and so it will be with us. When our orchards arc measured by tens of acres instead of by the acre and rood, we shall create a European sale for green apples which will take all our surplus stock of the best varieties, and the Australasian colonics will enjoy a monopoly of the European markets with which America even cannot compete. But it is to the system of drying and canning the. fruit that wo specially desire to draw attention. There is, and always will be a glut in the local market, atone particular season, of fruit of every variety that will not keep long. It is to meet (bis glut that the drying and especially the evaporating system comes to our aid. Why should the New Zealand set! ler imt do hero what llm Californian orebinlist does in America ! Them, the process of evaporation by machinery is fast wipintr out the old sun-drying proems. It is less troublesome ami eousecjiicutly less costly, there is loss risk-, and the fruit is far more m irl:' table and commands a far

liij'lu-f price, being free fr.mi dirt, (ly-sprcks, mul of insects, which catmint always be said of the sun-dried. The Ziimnonnan evaporator is that chiefly in use in Californian and American orchards. The currents of boated air, arising from, lluonoli, and around the fruit, not only from the bottom, but from the sides also, gather the moisture from the fruit and pass rapidly away; while every tray of fruit gets its beat direct, and so evenly distributed that the fruit is all dried alike. But little fuel is needed, as every particle of heat generated is utilised. It is, moreover, fire-proof and cannot be burned down. It is usually set up in back kitchens, or outhouses, and can bo used as a linkers oven, and when out. of season servos the purpose of a meat or milksafe. The No. 1 dryer weighs some lot)lbs. is 21 x 26 inches, and stands I feet high, having all the appearance of a largo stove. The flue can bo run into the ordinary chimney. The wire trays in the No 1 dryer have a surface capacity of over 20 square foot, and the capacity for apples of from three to five bushels a (lay. The price complete is some iTO or 50 dollars. No. 2 dryer will turn out from five to seven bushels of apples per day, and costs some fifteen dollars more, while No. 3, costing 130 dollars, or, say, £2G, will treat from 15 to 20 bushels daily. Nos. 1 and 5, respectively, treat 30 and 50 bushels daily. We have not space on the present occasion to go more fully into the details of the process, the proportion of evaporated to green fruit used in its production, the cost of the one and the value of the other, nor into the details for sorting and packing the evaporated fruit for market. These matters we shall refer to at an early date, as we hope to see a few Zimmerman’s working in Waikato during the present summer.