THE HANDBOOK 



OF 



HORTICULTURE AND VITICULTURE 



or 



WESTERN AUSTRALIA. 



BY A. DESPEISSIS, M.E.A.C. 



HE awakening of Western Australia as a fruit-producing 

 State dates only from the beginning of the past decade. 

 It is concurrent with the development of the wonderful 

 gold belt which has since been proved to run through it, from the 

 Great Australian Bight, in the South, to Cambridge Gulf and the 

 tropical Kimberleys, in the North. 



Previous to that epoch, sufficient had been achieved by the 

 older colonists to show that Western Australia could produce vines 

 and fruit of great excellence, but the gardens of the State were few 

 in number and far apart. Yet, fruit was then more easily procur- 

 able than it has since been, and the requirements of the 50,000 odd 

 consumers were liberally satisfied ; indeed, fruit was then so cheap 

 that no market value was attached to it. It was mostly consumed 

 on the spot, and the surplus rotted under the trees, and was not 

 worth carting away. In those days consumers were producers 

 themselves ; long distances and lack of rapid communication mili- 

 tated against the marketing of fruit, and methods of picking and 

 packing for distant markets were not familiar to fruit-growers, nor 

 had they any experience regarding varieties which, better than 

 others, lend themselves to long keeping and travelling. 



With the discovery of gold came the rush of gold-seekers. The 

 constant stream of population which then set in soon taxed the 

 resources of the farming districts ; supplies of all sorts were soon 

 exhausted, and all the commodities of life had to be largely 

 imported. The ever-increasing flow of population continued its 

 course to the inland goldfields. 



Every new coiner proved a consumer. Even the settlers 

 deserted their farms and rushed to the arid interior in quest of gold. 

 Famine prices were offered and given for all products of the soil. 

 Then a new current set in, and whilst the main stream of population 



