THE COUNTRY SOUTH

Auckland Star, Volume XXXVII, Issue 164, 11 July 1906, Page 8

THE COUNTRY SOUTH

(To the Editor/I Sir, —I am pleased to see that Aucklanders are beginning to wake up to the fact that we are behind the times with the settloment of the country to the south of Auckland. Take tbe country within a radius of eighty miles of town. First, we have the Te Akau block of 90,000 acres of the best sheep country in the province, , capable of carrying at least 200.000 breeding ewes. Count the lambs at five shillings per ewe, and the wool at another five shillings, which is a very low average; that one block would mean £100,000 to pasU> through the hands of the Auckland people yearly. That is not all. Count what would be spent in clearing, draining., fencing and building. I know young fellows who have waited fourteen years to have a shot at it, and there is no chance yet. * Next, take the vast track of country from Hamilton to the Hauraki Gulf, the making of the best dairying and fattening land in the colon}'. If any one doubts it, let him go and see the New stead and parts of the Woodlands estates, near Hamilton, where the swamps have had time to sweeten; or, let him go to Nethertou, near Paeroa. or etee to the Miranda. If this vast Piako was once'urought under cultivation it would turn cut more butter and fat stock than the rest of the Auckland land district put together does at present.

Why don't the Government take the Maori lands under the Land for Settlement Act? They make no use of the land; why should they keep the country back? If these two vast blocks were settled, the city of Auckland would double its trade inside of five years. It would also bring hundreds of thousands of acres into cultivation for turnip growing that is now covered with fern and ti tree. Moreover, we are sending thousands of pounds to the south every month for farm produce that we should grow ourselves and keep the money here If there are any good things to be had we want them now; not when we pet old men.—l am, etc., J. F. GOODWIN. Maramarua,