FRUIT PRODUCTION OF THE BRITISH EMPIRE. 



99 



value, saving quite a large proportion of our population the necessity 

 of consulting the physician and the unpleasantness of drinking his 

 nasty drugs. The growing of fruit is quite an aristocratic occupation, 

 and in most countries a highly profitable one. Speaking for the State 

 I know most about, where the growing of apples is made a very special 

 business, quite small orchards return handsome incomes to their 

 owners. The official estimates of returns supplied to me from Tas- 

 mania show a profit of about £40 per acre from apple-growing, so that 

 an orchard of 25 acres will return the careful orchardist an income of 

 £1,000 a year. I gather that the growth of many varieties of tropical 

 fruit gives even a greater return, though the conditions of life for the 

 grower may not be so pleasant or healthy. The fact that so many 

 varieties of fruit will grow on inferior soil, and by inferior I mean 

 unsuitable for general agriculture or mixed farming, enables large tracts 

 of land to be used that would otherwise be waste ; further, it permits 

 of closer settlement, and increases the capital value of lands of a country 

 and also its trade. 



To give some idea of how it increases the trade of a country I need 

 only mention that in the case of a small State like Tasmania, with quite 

 a small population, the export of about half a million bushels of 

 apples to the United Kingdom is sufficient to induce all the mail 

 steamers and most of the large liners trading to Australia to call 

 regularly during the apple season at Hobart, the capital of the State. 

 When it is remembered that these mail steamers carry hundreds of 

 passengers, whose spending capacity is great, the advantage of the 

 trade to Tasmania, it will be seen, is not limited to the return made 

 to growers for their output of fruit. I have named Tasmania because 

 I know, from my own knowledge, that if, it were not for the fruit 

 trade these steamers would not call there, as the shipping in connec- 

 tion with most of our other industries would be conducted by smaller 

 vessels carrying to and transhipping into larger vessels at one or other 

 of the great shipping ports of the Commonwealth. We must, therefore, 

 credit the fruit production with the whole of the trade advantages 

 secured. As it means so much to a very small spot in the Empire, 

 what must it mean to the larger States and Dominions, and to the 

 Empire as a whole? Of all land industries, viewed from the standpoint 

 of importance to the Empire, I claim that the fruit industry follows 

 immediately after wheat and wool. I should perhaps mention that 

 another important industry connected with fruit-growing in temperate 

 climates is jam-making, while in tropical and sub-tropical countries 

 we have the dried-fruit industry and the manufacture of wine. Every 

 variety of fruit and every industry connected with fruit flourishes in 

 some part of our great Empire; in this connection the Empire can 

 claim to be independent of other countries. 



Cold storage and the drying of fruit secures for the residents of one 

 part of the Empire the advantage of being able to enjoy the fruit of 

 the most distant parts. If it is not quite equal in quality after the 

 lengthy journey and treatment, it is still a wholesome food possessing 



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