LAND SETTLEMENT METHODS.

Evening Post, Volume CIX, Issue 81, 5 April 1930, Page 23

LAND SETTLEMENT METHODS.

A SUCCESSFUL PRIVATE

ENTERPRISE

Xlie Hon. All1, liansom, Minister or Public Works, recently visited the Alderton Group Settlement, Kerikeri, Bay of Islands, and was so well pleased with the progress being made that he immediately released two small road grants for expenditure on the main road running through the settlement, and, in addition, decided to have the road to the railhead metalled right through, so that produce can be railed away" daily. For this purpose he made a special grant, and authorised the work -to be undertaken at once. Mr. Or. E. Alderton, the managing director of the company, now in Wellington, informs us the Minister was both pleased and surprised with the progress having been made. Over twenty residences have already been erected, some costing from £2000 to £3500 each. Eighty sections have been taken up, over 70 have been planted, absorbing 25,000 orange, lemon, and grapefruit trees, 20,000 passion fruit vines, and one million shelter belt trees. Mr. Ransom ( was shown on one settler's section 10 miles of passion fruit trellises, and on several others five to six miles of trellises. Over thirty miles of afforestation shelter belts (a chain wide) have been planted, and Australian hardwoods, a little over two years planted, are 18ft high. The prodigious growth of the shelter trees has caused the estate to be called the "Surprise Settlement," and by others it has been named, owing to'the number of retired captains (Army and Navy), "The Settlement of Captain and Capitalists.'' The Minister was particularly struck with the. fact that this private enterprise had been the means of bringing a great number of the most desirable type of settlers into the country, men with means to develop their holdings and make the land -productive under intensive cultivationwith the aid and direction of the company's expert staff. -It is considered that the group of overseas settlers who have taken up this land will have brought with them,upwards of a million capital. This season the first crop of passion fruit has been marketed, and has been most successful. .A subsidiary company was formed to manage the marketing, and so great has been the' demand for the passion fruit that less than half the orders ,can be filled, and there will be nothing available for export. This state of affairs is attributable to Mr. E. S. Little, formerly general manager.for the-Brun-ner-Monde Corp. in the East, who is now the largest holder at Kerikeri, and is a past-master at organisation. Under his forceful direction, a separate company was formed also to provide the settlement with electric lighting and power, and this will be available at the end of this month. A company to crush lime for the district has also been formed. Mr. Alderton informs us that it was Wellington capital and enterprise that made this scheme possible, the New Zealand Underwriting and Developing Corporation, Ltd., of Wellington, having underwritten tho capital of the operating company, namely, the North Auckland Land Development Corporation, Ltd. —(Published by arrangement.)