A fruity history
IN 1903, Rosewood and Marburg farmers had a bumper year, especially in their crops of Cape Gooseberries.
More than 200 ton of the yellow berries were to be harvested and the market for them was in the doldrums.
Readers may never have heard of these sweet tasting berries, which in their common name, incorrectly references the Cape of Good Hope.
The berries had been cultivated as a food source in their native countries of Peru and Chile for a couple of centuries when they were introduced into the settlement at the Cape of Good Hope in South Africa around 1807.
Soon after, it was from that locality that seeds were taken to the fledgling colony of New South Wales.
According to a history written by Roy Cailes on the Australian cultivation of the bushes which bear the berries, the crop was quickly taken up by colonists and became the chief fruit grown in the colony soon after.
That doesn’t come as a surprise as the Cape Gooseberry bushes are easily grown from seed and once established can take most weather patterns thrown at it – drought, frost, heat and lots of rain – as long as they are grown on sloping, well drained soils.
I can’t discover when the bushes were first grown by farmers in the Rosewood and Marburg scrublands but one could make the assumption that by 1903 there were extensive mature plantings in the neighbourhood.
Nowadays, the only place I know of where you can find these bushes is the odd one growing along the creekbanks and perhaps in an occasional backyard garden.
The bushes stand about a metre high and can spread to about two metres wide. The leaves are roughly heart shaped and covered in hairs.
But the easiest way to identify them is when they are fruiting – the berry is at first green and hidden inside a green husk. That husk gradually turns brown and papery and splits away from the newly ripened yellow berry.
Back in 1903, when the local growers couldn’t find much of a market for their tonnage of berries, the Rosewood Farmers Club sent a deputation to the then Minister for Agriculture.
He listened, sympathised and came up with the promise to purchase 26 ton of berries from the growers with the aim of exporting them to England.
The Minister gained the moniker as the Minister for Cape Gooseberries when made public announcements about his rescue bid but damned the local jam manufacturers at the same time for failing to help the farmers by taking more of their produce.
The jam manufacturers hit back. They pointed out, loudly and at length, that the Minister was unlikely to find an export market in England as both the jam and the berries were not popular commodities there. The manufacturers had already tested the market.
And the price the Minister was offering per ton would leave little for the farmer after expenses had been paid – perhaps as little as one penny per pound – tough return for the farmer who not only had to fund all the production inputs but faced hand dehusking the berries to make them acceptable to the export market.
Whether the Minister saved the day for the gooseberry farmers that year was not reported, but market surpluses in following years were also a problem. And that may be the answer to the question of why we rarely see them on the fruit and vegie shelves today.
