The daily morning journal and courier., 1903-06-30
FRUIT FROM NEW SOURCES.
South African Arrivals in Washington
 and Other Changes.

South African Arrivals in Washington and Other Changes.
 The latest and most expensive luxury in the fruit line is the African plum" Most people are familiar with the fact that a great part of our fruit supply comes from California, Oregon, Fiori- da and Delaware, but few there are who realize that South Africa Cape Colony) has of recent years become one of the greatest fruit growing countries of the world.
 Many years ago the farmers i'll Cape Colony were planting every acre they could purchase in grape vines, for at that time the celebrated Constantia wine, produced at the Cape, had a great vogue all over Europe. As time went by, however, the phylloxera came along and destroyed the greater part of the vines at the Cape, so that many wine producers became discouraged and turned their attention to raising beach, es, plums, apricots, nectarines and sim liar fruit. They soon discovered that fruit growing yielded a handsome re- turn. As Cape Colony's spring. and summer corresponds to our fall and winter they were able to supply the London market with fruit all during the English winter and spring, and from this beginning the Cape fruit trade has expanded, until now the South African fruit growers are not only supplying Europe, but this country. Fine Kelsey plums, direct from Cape Town, are now on the Washington market, and beach, es and nectarines will soon follow from the same quarter. In short, South Af- rica is becoming a competitor of Cali fornia in supplying the eastern mar kets, for none of the fruit-growing re- gions on the northern side of the equa- tor can produce peaches and plums so early as the Cape.
 Several other interesting changes have taken place in the fruit trade of late years. Two years ago the juicy and pleasant-tasting Chinese li-chee nuts were almost unknown in Washing ton, but they are now on sale at the best fruit stands, whose proprietors get them direct from Shanghai, through Chinese importing firms in New York. Since the Spanish-American war the city of Barracoa, Cuba, appears to have gained a monopoly of supplying this country with red bananas, while Cali fornia is cutting into the fruit trade of Florida by placing shaddocks, or grape fruit on the local markets. California has not as yet succeeded, however, in taking any of the dried fig trade away from Turkey. Wild fig trees and the insect which fertilzes the cultivated fig were introduced in California by the de- partment of agriculture. but the first dried figs which California placed on the market before the wild fig trees and fertilizing insects reached the state, left such bad impression that now the Californians are able to produce good figs no one seems to care for them.
 Another interesting phase of the fruit trade is that although California mar kets considerable portion of her Nal aga grape crop in the east, the impor- tations of white grapes from Spain have not fallen off in the east. The reason for this is due to the fact that Spain os shipping Malaga grapes to this country all during the fall and winter, whereas, the same kind of grapes ripen in California in June, when few people care for them. The latest California product on the market is the ripe olive. Until the last few years one had to go to Southern Europe or California to en- joy the luxury of ripe and unpickled ol- ives, but California fruit-grower dis covered process of putting them up in dramatically sealed, air-tight bottles, so that they may now be eaten without leaving Washington.
 Of the novelties in the fruit line, it is worth noting that tamarinds are no longer popular. They were not in much demand for lemonade, Americans pre- ferring the old-fashioned 'lemonades' to one made with tamarinds.-Wash- ington Post, 1