The Leon reporter. (Leon, Iowa) 1887-1930, 1900-11-08

.-,'r' s'AAAOhAAS Oul LIS IdISs WulCu
they use for food. India today Is i'm
poverished in her forests and the year
" Iam1nes are widespread and de-
srructive. There are few forests of
large trees In India. There, as here,
IS IRE that destroys the timber. In
the United States the annual growth
OF forest trees creates more lumber
tnan IS needed for commercial use.
-uhe government official said, In the
presence Of the writer:."I have seen a
single fire in Colorado that burned lip
more timber than was used in tile
United States in that year, and there
nave been several such fires in Col
orado In my day." Governments
everywhere should make laws to pre-
tect the forests and then they should
make sufficient appropriations to en-.
force them.
Australia is taking preliminary steps
to establish fruit trade with England
and other European countries, and
promises to be an enterprising rival
OF the United States The Australian
fruit growers propose to import into
England in large quantities not only
apples, pears and the harder fruits, but
such soft fruits as peaches and grapes.
They have gone about it in system
attic manner. They first laid plan
for shipping good-sized consignments
in the refrigerators of the steamers
sailing to England. The outbreak Of
the Boer war necessitated giving UP
the plan for last season, as the refrig-
orators of the steamers were taxed to
their full capacity for other things.
The Australians had planned to send
to England over 5000 cases of fruit of
different kinds. AS they were shut
off at the last moment from actually
making the consignments, they deter
mined to make a trial on land, put
ting the fruit in chambers where the
temperature would be kept as low as it
would be in the refrigerators Of the
steamers. The time required in max
ing the trip from Melbourne to Liver
pool is about eight weeks, but the fruit
men made the limit ten weeks to pro-
vide for delays in shipping and dis
charging. The trial proved a COM
plete success, with the exception of
peaches. about one-half of which
spoiled. Hence, we may expect that
another season will see some large
shipments of Australian fruit to Eng
land. American producers of fruit
will have to .be on the alert if they
wish to prevent a large part of their
very profitable foreign fruit trade
slipping away from them and going
into the hands of the Australians. The
fact that the Australian summer be-
gins in December and that their fruit
is ready for gathering in March and
April gives them a peculiar advantage
over US. Their shipments will arrive
IN Liverpool in May. June. July and
August, and their winter apples may
be depended on to keep as late as
Christmas. If the Australian apples
are equal in flavor to the American
apples the English buyers will not be
very hungry for fruit when our ship
ments arrive. OF course the thing
works both ways, but as we have the
pulk OF the trade now any change must
work to our disadvantage. The moral
OF the situation is that we must grow
the quality of fruit that suits the Eng
Ilsh market, at least enough of it to
I'LL the demand for export goods. We
also believe that the United States
government should take some such
steps to foster our foreign fruit trade
as Denmark has taken to build IN
her butter trade. An agent should he
permanently located in England TO
look after the trade and see that Am
erlcan goods are up to demand in
quality. We know from reports from
England that some of the fruit sent to
England has disguised buyers there.
The yellow insipid peaches from Cali
fornia that were last year dumped on
the London market did much damage
to the American trade in export
peaches, and it is against our interests
that such incidents should frequently
occur.