Ever since our first Orange commercial orchardists Elijah and William Eyles planted their trees on Glenfern at Canobolas followed by J S and J Hicks, our district has grown the best varieties of apples in the country.
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Local orchardists waged and lost a long war to stop 'New Zilland' importing its 'epples' here but grower concerns have come to nothing.
New Zealand complained to the World Trade Organisation that we were unfairly stopping them selling their varieties here, which had been banned since 1919, and the ban was overturned.
Orange orchardists reckoned the Kiwi apples had the potential to devastate our industry but we put stiff quarantine controls in place and that's done the trick.
A quick look at Orange supermarkets this week shows you can buy four or five different varieties and they're all Australian grown. There's not a New Zealand ... or Nu Zillend epple in sight.
But because of a shortage, they're a pretty hefty $5.90kg for the popular Cripps Pink, marketed as Pink Lady, and the prices will go higher following the Dunn's Rd bushfire crop losses at Batlow where about 10 per cent of apples are grown.
The Gospers Mountain fire also devastated orchards at Bilpin with one grower losing almost half his 12,000 apple trees.
Orange orchardists have had to deal with heat, smoke and dust but expect a good crop in a few weeks that hopefully will help boost the huge shortages of apples on the market.
Orange and Batlow produce a national apple crop valued at more than $95 million but let's hope the supermarkets end the price discrimination against them.
Who remembers Empire Day?
Remember when we had Empire Day at school on May 24? Or as we preferred to call it Cracker Night.
It later became Commonwealth Day and then Queens' Birthday and then in 1988 the states and territories agreed to celebrate Australia Day on January 26.
But at school few of us had any idea what Empire Day was all about other than it had something to do with a huge framed picture of the king and queen in the corridor.
The king was an old bloke in a funny suit and the queen was an old duck who we thought spent all her time mucking about at flower shows and wearing big hats.
But on Empire Day we trooped into assembly and sang the usual songs and everyone got a small cardboard flag to pin on themselves and then had the afternoon off. Anyway, after it was all over we chucked away the cardboard flags and wandered home, kicking empty cans along the footpath.
Weren't things simple then? There were no nutters and spoilers out to rain on our Empire Day party. But now it's the same old story every year with the sour minority trying to wreck Australia Day by dragging out the same old negative arguments why it should be changed. Fair dinkum. Can't we bring people together and celebrate without all this annual rubbish, particularly in light of the destructive bushfires.
Not to be outdone
A Texan visiting Orange boasts to his host that everything in America is bigger and better than anything in Australia.
The host takes him to look at Mt Canobolas and a kangaroo hops by.
"What the heck was that?" the Texan says.
"That," says the host casually, "was just a grasshopper."
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