SOUTH AFRICAN FRUIT.
DURING the last month connoisseurs in fruit have had the opportunity of enjoying what is to most a new luxury. This is the finest fruit of Cape Colony, some of
which has been placed upon the London market. There are still great difficulties in the way of its transport, as freezing destroys it, and the maintenance of a cold chamber at a proper temperature gives more trouble than the steamship com- panies like. But what does arrive in good condition is in- comparably good. The large heart-shaped plum, as full of juice as a peach, apricots with a double share of apricot flavour, peaches without a suspicion of the bitterness of Cali- fornian peaches and Williams' Bon Chretien pears, are the most prized varieties. There are also three kinds of grape, small black cluster grapes, and two large varieties, with Muscat flavour, one black and the other white, all grown out of doors, but not inferior to English hot-house grapes.
The Cape has a great advantage over California for profitable fruit growing. Its seasons are the converse of ours. While we are freezing, the South African sun is ripening the orchards and vineyards of the Old Colony.
Nature does so much for the Cape farmers that we wonder that they have not done more for themselves. The perfect climate produces the fruit of a flavour unsurpassed in quality, and in quantities as great as Nature almost un- assisted will grant. In January, when dessert on English dinner-tables is supplied mainly by the dried fruits—the raisins of California ripened in the previous summer, dried plums from Bosnia, or dried figs from Ionia, with only the orange and expensive hot-house grapes to give juice and lusciousness—the colonists are picking the last of the straw- berries and apricots for themselves, and making ready for sale or export exactly the kinds which those who are com- pelled to eat dried fruit here and in the United States would welcome most eagerly. Early grapes, exquisitely flavoured pears, early peaches, fresh figs, plums of a size and flavour surpassing any grown in this country except in the hottest summers, are ripening on the trees of the "Old Colony." February at the Cape produces the finest kinds of English
peaches and nectarines, mainly of the late-ripening varieties, which are Its a rule the very best in flavour, even of those choice fruits. The difference is that what can only be grown in perfection under glass here, or under excep- tionally sunny walls in favourable seasons, is there produced in abundance on standard trees. This fruit can be in London
within a month of being gathered, and packed in cold chambers is brought here with the bloom still on the plums, which look, and taste, as fresh as if gathered in the garden.
This is at a time when the east wind is whistling through the streets, and not a bud has yet appeared on our own plum and peach trees. It is in February, also, that the Cape grapes come to perfection, and have the best and trnest flavour. Of these the Colony produces one kind in rude abundance, and does produce a few, and might produce a great quantity, of very high quality. Wine-making is an ancient industry at the Cape, and the most remarkable thing about the Cape Colonist's wine is that though it has never been properly managed or developed, the growers have always succeeded in producing one wine of high quality. This is the Constantia, which has in it the guarantee, which no one seems ever quite to have accepted, that the Cape climate can bring to absolute perfection the essential vinous con- stituents of the grape, which no other country is quite known to do except the port-wine growing district of Portugal. Roasting sun, good soil, and something else, probably a very dry, pure air, do this, and there always has been a district of the Old Colony where these natural qualities of soil and climate were so far appreciated as to make vineyard planting a staple industry. But it is one thing to grow grapes for wine, and another to grow them for the table. At the present moment there are tons of little black vineyard grapes arriving from the Cape. Their condi- tion and taste are an object-lesson both as to what the Cape can do and what it might do. These are of first-rate flavour, but of all sizes, nnthinned, crowded on the clusters, with many half-ripe inside the bunches. They are, however, pleasant to taste, and remind the buyer of the days of vintage abroad. Their flavour is also evidence of how excellent they might be, if properly pruned and thinned. Later, in April, very fine white, or rather green, grapes, grown well and care- fully packed, come from the Cape. They are of medium size, of a beautiful clear green like chrysoprase. The flavour is not that of Muscat, but is excellent of its kind.
For early winter fruit the Cape also contributes varieties which are most welcome at that season. Figs ripen in November, and there is practically an unlimited market for fresh figs in London. The Cape Colonists are anxious to develop a business in dried figs, so that they may rival Smyrna. The Karoo is looked upon as the future centre of fig growing and drying. It is intended to introduce the fig-insect which assists in bringing the Smyna figs to perfection. But we think that before this industry is developed, the trade in fresn figs will be so large as to repay the growers. The price in this country even in the natural season is so high that there would be an immense margin for profit if they were offered here in December. In early winter Cape strawberries and apricots are in season together, the former being in per. fection in November, while the latter last all through December. It is maintained that these Cape apricots are, without exception, the best in the world. We have tried them both fresh, as delivered here, and preserved, and this experience, limited necessarily to a few cases, entirely bears out the claim made for the fruit. It is incomparable. Loquats in October and Cape gooseberries, a wild variety, which in the form of preserves is almost the best con- fittere in the world, make up the list of the best Cape fruits, and we have no hesitation in saying that these, when properly cultivated and of good varieties, are some 25 per cent. better than any other, except certain varieties grown in England and Western Europe under glass. It is worth remembering also that in addition to the happy accident of the Cape autumn occurring at a season which enables its fraits to be sent here in Winter and early spring, there are differences of season in the Colony itself. The first plateau, which runs all round the coast, produces its crop at an interval from that on the second plateau, while the roasting heat and dronght of the Western province cause a different season for the crop from that in which the table grapes ripen in the East, where there are rains in November and February.
Nor are the Cape growers handicapped, as are those in the 'West Indies, by want of adequate steam service or easily
reached markets. The huge increment of wealth in the gold- fields has caused passenger lines to increase their steamers in number, size, and aocommodation. These steamers, meant to carry those enriched by the goldfields, or those who in hope of being rich are careless of expenditure, are the ideal vessels for fruit transport,—speedy, roomy, and furnished with ample cold storage. Yet Cape fruit, except the little black grapes, is very dear. It is still a costly luxury, not a popular delicacy. The Japanese plums grown in South Africa were this week selling at a shilling apiece in Covent Garden, Cape peaches were eighteenpence each, and pears eightpence. The quality of all three kinds was perfect, but they could only be regarded as specimen fruit. While the crop remains dear and uncer- tain it is not strange that little Cape fruit is yet imported, compared with the demand. The blame lies entirely at the doors of the growers themselves. Their Government is endea- vouring to awaken Afrikander opinion on the subject. They need teaching that only the best fruit is wanted here, that this must be carefully sorted, beautifully packed, so that in the package the fruit looks like a piece of decoration, or, at least, as fresh as when plucked, and that then the English public will pay a good price for it. At present the farmers are mostly too ignorant and indolent to do this. The fruit, as the Government botanist complains, is thrown into kerosene tins, or any chance receptacle, and sent off to be hawked about the local towns instead of being properly graded and sold in Europe and America. They should be taught the methods of California. Unlike the Cape, California has no near markets, as at Cape Town and Johannesburg. The shortest journey is to Chicago, two thousand five hun- dred miles by rail, which costs £10 for every ton of fruit. New York is three thousand five hundred miles distant, yet tens of thousands of tons are sent by rail to each city. They also ship their fruit another three thousand miles by sea from New York to England, making six thousand five hundred miles in all; and they make this pay, though their season is the same as our own. If California had the season of the Cape, and could get its peach and grape crops into our market in the winter and spring, it would double its industry. Bat the organisation of the Californian growers is perfect. The Fruit Growers' Union, in " acre shares," so that the smallest and the largest owners are members, collects the fruit, despatches it, and finds a market. The Cape growers have only to study the Californian system of business and modern modes of culture, and Nature will complete an industry as valuable as the goldfields and more lasting.
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