WAIOTAPU VALLEY.

Auckland Star, Volume LIV, Issue 51, 1 March 1923, Page 9

WAIOTAPU VALLEY.

XEEDS OF SETTLERS. A party of farmers travelled from Rotorua to Waiotapu on Tuesday by very bad roads, the need for the improvement of which was freely commented on. The morning was spent, under the guidance of Mr. J. Rogerson, in an inspection of the Forestry Department's plantations on Kaingaroa Plains, where remarkable afforestation work has been accomplished, and in the afternoon the party visited the flourishing Reporoa iettlement, where the returned soldier farmers are making good progress ana have high hopes for future prosperity— given proper roads and the construction of the Taupo railway line by way of Waiotapu. There is yet an area of 4000 acres of the best land &t Reporoa to be settled.

Owing to the heavy cost -of the carriage of fertiliser, which is a big drain on the finances of the settlers, it is being asked that the Government should remit rentals for a couple oi years. It is also urged by the settlers that the proclamation of a considerable area in the district as native land, without having acquired it, is a big bar to the progress of the district.

The party returned to Rotorua amply satisfied by what they had seen of the remarkable fertility of properly-treated pumice land.