Perhaps even more importantly, he must enquire and speculate on "what do they think they are doing? What does all this mean to them?"
Whether you are studying a Balinese village in the 1930s, a school, factory or parliament in 2022, or the Farmers and Fruitgrowers Association Annual Show in Lilydale Tasmania in 1912, you can learn a lot by close reading of a single document.
The report on the Lilydale Show of 1912 allows us to look over the shoulders of Lilydale residents and visitors on that day with light afternoon rainfall 110 years ago. (It was held in a hall on the green off Station Road. The new show building at the Doaks Road recreation grounds was still six years away.)
"The fruit section was, of course, the principal attraction, ..." You cannot say that in 2022.
I notice not for the first time the epithet "THE APPLELAND OF THE NORTH" given to the former Lilydale district.
I think of the labour, employment, expertise at grafting, pruning and spraying for pest control, selection of varieties.
This article does not even mention the work of cutting and making of apple cases and labels, the sorting and packing sheds and cool store, transport by road and rail and then ship (or in earliest days of settlement, in a basket or on a pack horse.) Bullocks and horses were still the most common form of motive power in 1912.
I count thirteen varieties of culinary and dessert apples exhibited at the 1912 Show. Most if not all of them have disappeared from supermarkets in our times. Ribstones, French Crab apples, Esopus Spitzenberg (an American type), Adams' Pearmain, Hoovers, Scarlet Nonpareil, Victorias, New Yorks, Jonathans, Munro's Favourite, Five Crown Pippins, Strawberry Pippins, and "the Cox's Orange Pippins were the best that he had seen for some time."
Frank Walker of Lalla and W. H. West of Underwood were rivals for first place awards, as at many other Shows.
Bill Mundy, the notable builder and bricklayer, could also build an impressive apple trophy which is a ten foot high pyramid decorated with apples of many kinds and colours.
I like to see the old Lilydale family names. These are the people whose hard graft built the district. I see my great grandfather Harry Mahnken showing his Victoria apples and his brother John's wife, Kate nee Collins, showing a plate of culinary apples from Summerlea. Two of the daughters of John Arnold of Dewhurst on Second River Road, 14 year old Alice with needle work and a child's dress, and 12 year old Beatrice presenting a dressed doll. A quick look at Betty Viney's book The Arnolds of Lilydale (2007) tells me their sister Eunice was only 3 years old and Clarice "still a little star in the sky."
Reading these names John Arnold, Fred Halsey Wade, Arthur Miller, makes me think of the hills and slopes once covered in orchards. And, what a marvellous thing an apple is.
The Dolbey name - even if misspelled - is referred to 15 times. Mrs. E. Dolby drew attention for 2lb. fresh butter (made from hand-skimmed cream), also her scones and fancy bread.
The Sulzberger name is mentioned 16 times with Heb Sulzberger as organising assistant of show secretary, Les Procter, as well as showing his oats, peas and cocksfoot grass.
Arnold occurs 38 times in this article with the famed "Steam Engine Bob" showing New Yorks. Mrs J[ames] Arnold nee Elsie Procter was very busy presenting eleven apple exhibitions (!) as well as 3lb. fresh butter (separator-skimmed cream.) Her daughter Dot was proud of her own butter making later, she told me.
The whole district pitched in at the Show, familiar names like Dornauf, Kerkham, Grandfield, Turner, Shaw, Doak, Haas, Erb, Bird, Brooks, Brown, Miller, Peck, Orr, Whiting, Johnston, Gerzalia, Harrison, Viney, Maclaine, and James Wilson the scientific farmer. Some names are not regulars for me, like Tabart, Foley and Godfrey. There always were comings and goings.
What a wide range of domestic skills were known to the women and girls of those days, as seen in the section for Home-made Products. Today's homes are full of clever labour saving electronic devices but I doubt many of today's young of either gender know how to make sauces and pickles, preserve jams and jellies, make shortbread or ginger bread. I'll have to ask the Home Ec teachers (they are not called that anymore, are they?) We think of our grandparents' generations being "on the breadline" beset by daily drudgery but among all the diseases that assailed communities in those days, they did not suffer diabetes and obesity that I can see.
One of the treasured personal heirlooms in many families is Gran's and Mum's own collection of favourite recipes pasted or written in an exercise book.
Our culture changes and, so often, there are "economic drivers" from the wider world, as some like to say.
Supermarkets today probably import apples from interstate to sell to Tasmanians now.
Bullocks and horses no longer power our transport.
The northeast railway line has gone. Even the station building. No more station masters since 1953. No more independent Lilydale Council!
The miles of orchard plantations were ripped out in the 1970s when Britain joined the European Union and stopped accepting Tasmanian fruit and butter.
Every person mentioned in this article - the WW1 generation - has departed this life but I'm glad that, for so many of them, first hand memories of faces, characters and voices still live in the minds of Lilydale residents and descendants,
and in photos, letters and stories.
Many of the old families do not figure on electoral rolls for Lilydale anymore but the new generations are somewhere and many older members have a fond recollection of growing up in appleland at Lilydale.
_________ _________ _________ _________
Another article by the same correspondent may be found at ORCHARDING AT LILYDALE. A PROSPEROUS INDUSTRY. AMONG THE TREES. The Rural World. (1912,
December 25). Examiner (Launceston, Tas. : 1900 - 1954), p. 2 (DAILY). Retrieved August 18, 2016, from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article50685721
Lilydale gets a mention in history of Tasmanian apple industry 7 May 2022
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-05-07/apple-isle-tasmania-food-trail-tour-cider-australian-exports/101030058
Tasmanian apple grower Bob Magnus grows fruit 'from Roman times', among 300 varieties
ABC Radio Hobart by Rachel Edwards 3 Sep 2020
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-09-03/australian-apple-varieties-tasmania-bob-magnus-roman-fruit/12617392