Il6 NEW SOUTH WALES. 



fruits still flourisli; but where tlie place of tlie tropical fruits of tlie 

 north-eastern seaboard is taken by the peach, nectarine, apricot, 

 oriental plum, pear, early varieties of apples, and several varieties of 

 plums, as -svell as table grapes. In this district the soil generally is 

 of a much poorer character, but with occasional rich tracts of alluvial 

 land, such as that of the Hunter and Hawkesbury. The rainfall, 

 though still large, is much less than that of the north-east, and the 

 conditions are only subtropical. This district is essentially the home 

 of the peach, as it grows wild wherever the stones are deposited along 

 the banks of creeks, and anyone who takes a trip up the Hawkesbury 

 will see numbers of large peach-trees, bearing heavy crops of fine 

 fruit, that have never been planted, cultivated, or pruned, and that 

 have been grown from chance peach-stones that have been carried 

 down and left by floods. When cultivated the peach is very prolific ; 

 in fact, it is much given to overbearing, as are also plums and apricots, 

 Avith the result that the quality of the fruit grown often suffers from 

 the number that the tree has to bear. Where, however, the trees are 

 projDerly attended to, and only allowed to bear as much fruit as they can 

 bring to perfection, the quality of the fruit is good ; grown with an ease 

 that is probably unsurpassed in any other part of the world. Here the 

 pear, when once established, is as hardy as a native tree, and large 

 numbers of old pear-trees can be seen in the neighbourhood of Sydney 

 which are growing without the slightest attention, and, when not 

 attacked by the Windsor pear blight,bearing heavy crops of fruit. These 

 old neglected pear-trees are often of large size, and they usually mark 

 the site of old orchards from which all other varieties of fruit-trees have 

 long since disappeared, the pears alone remaining and defying neglect. 

 This is the oldest fruit-growing district of the Colony, and it 

 grows fully three-quarters of all the fruit raised, its nearness to 

 the Sydney market enabliug the fruit-growers to readily dispose 

 of their fruit, as Sydney always has been, and probably will continue 

 to be, the greatest consuming and distributing market for fruit in the 

 Colony. Here in the past fruit-growing, when properly canned out, 

 has been a very paying industry, and many growers have succeeded 

 in building up comfortable homes and in saving considerable fortunes, 

 and more money has been made from well-kept orchards, taking into 

 consideration the amount of land occupied and the capital expended, 

 than from any other branch of husbandry. Now, however, the times 

 are somewhat changed, owing to the great increase in the production 

 of fruit, which has been caused by the planting of many new orchards, 

 not only in Cumberland, but throughout the Colony, and this increase 

 of production has caused the supply at times to be in excess of the 

 local demand, so that the markets are glutted, and inferior fruit is 

 hard to dispose of at any price. Good fruit, however, still meets with 

 a ready sale, and often at prices that are rarely equalled in other great 

 fruit-growing centres, as the Sydney market has hitherto been able 

 to absorb all our first-quality fruit, and is so far the best market for 

 such fruit. As I purpose dealing more fully with the disposal and 

 utilisation of fruit later on, I will pass on to other districts of the 

 Colony, but before doing so I must say that in many cases fruit- 

 cultui'e has been carried out in a very slovenly manner in this district. 

 Though the oldest and largest producing district, it contains at the 



