HON. T. MACKENZIE.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXVII, Issue 2577, 11 August 1909, Page 4

HON. T. MACKENZIE.

INTERVIEWED AT TIMARU

[Per Pi’.kps Association.] TIMARU, August 10. The Hon. Thomas Mackenzie, interviewed bv a “Pest” reporter, said there was a great future before the New Zealand fruit industry. Great Britain imported £lo,ooo t ooo worth of apples and £1,500,000 worth of pears. The Department had been experimenting with fruit-growing in various parts of the Dominion, with eminently satisfactory results. The armies produced in the experimental orchards rea.Lsed a net profit of l£d per lb in London. representing £3O an acre. New Zealand imported £25,000 worth of apples and £35,000 worth of canned fruits annually, all of which could be grown here. Thus fruitgrowers had a home market for £60,000 to start working on, without going out of the Dominion. Large territories in the Aucklaji^ 1 province, reckoned useless, valued at os per acre, were found on experiment to be capable of producing excellent fruit, and a family could be supported on 20 acres of the same. The Department were now planting orchards with a view to selling them to families whose heads had an knowledge of fruit culture. Mr. Kirk, oi the Biological Department, was leaving Wellington on Friday* for Tasmania, in connection with the potato blight there, and would obtain all available information about the fruit industry in Tasmania.