PUMICE LANDS.

Auckland Star, Volume LX, Issue 288, 5 December 1929, Page 20

PUMICE LANDS.

ARE THEY FARMABLE? VISIT TO REPOROA. MUCK-DISCUSSED SETTLEMENT DIFFICULTIES SURMOUNTED. Such widely divergent views about the possibilities of pumice lands have been voiced of late, particularly in connection with the projected railway to Taupo, that it is extremely difficult for the public to form any opinion as to the merits of the case. The late Government started work on the railway line with a suddenness that took everybody, except those in the secret, by the utmost surprise. Six months before it was started the odds against a railway to Taupo would have been a thousand to one, or might have been even longer. After the mysterious start, came the ousting of the Government, the advent of the United Government, and the cancelling of all work on the line. Such a etep has never been taken before, and the odium involved in this unprecedented action by a new Government has never yet been rightly apportioned. At Reporoa some amazingly frank statements about the whole affair are made, and names of people in high places are mentioned. Oddly enough the solution of the mystery' offered by people who live down that way is not what the public would suspect from merely having read the letters, reports, and so on in the newspapers. The whole business of the starting of the line was more than mysterious, and probably the true facts will never be known except to those immediately concerned. Whatever one thinks of the- scheme, one must admire the consummate nerve which could launch a line; into what is at present little more than a desert with an oasis here and there. Huge Tract of Land. Reporoa people have been in the limelight pretty consistently of late, and in order to get some first hand information about the settlement a " Star" reporter recently made a tour of the district which is generally referred to roughly as " Taupo country," the great tract which lies between Rotorua and Lake- Taupo, and is bounded by the Kaingaroa Plains on the east and country round Atiamuri on the west. For years it has been regarded-very much in the light of the land in the Bible- referred to always a? " The Wilderness," the dry, desolate eastern: slopes of the Judean hills.

Starting from the Waikato .wo motored through Putarurri, Tokoroa, almost to Atiamuri, then back to have' a look at the Guthrie settlement, passed on to Waiotapu, then did the whole of the Taupo valley, and afterwards covered a good slice of the Kaingaroa Plains and so returned to Waiotapu. In this way one got a very comprehensive idea of this muchdiscussed country, and realised that instead of there being merely "pumice land" there, are several classes, each of which.' requires different treatment. In passing it may be mentioned that the country in the vicinity of Atiamuri is divided from the Taupo Valley by the lofty Paeroa Range, which the traveller has on his right hand when driving south 1 along the Rotorua-Taupo road, and that, on the eastern side of the Taupo valley stretches the arid Kaingaroa. Plains, which are several hundred feet above the level of the valley. At the head of the broad Taupo Valley stands Waiotapu, with its surrounding high hills. The valley has a very severe winter climate, and this is easily explained. Shut in ori the east by the Kaingaroa, on the west by the' Paeroa Range, and on the north by the high ground at the back of Waiotapu, the whole valley is open on the south to the icy gales that sweep down off enow-clad Ruapehu and Tongariro and rush/up the valley.

> The "Long Swamp." The Reporoa settlement, which lies at ithe north end of the valley, about five miles from Waiotapu, or twentysix from Rotorua, is some ten years old. The name means "Long Swamp." When bought by the Government for the purpose, of closer settlement for returned soldiers it was a run owned by Messrs. Watt and Stead: The name" indicates its swampy nature compared with the . rest ; of this valley, and that was why it was picked out as being suitable for cutting up into dairy farms. Seventeen families have walked off the settlement, quite convinced that they could never make a "do" of it, but today there are something like twentyone returned soldiers among the thirty settlers who comprise Eeporoa. , One hard-working returned soldier summed up i Sis opinion to the "Star" reporter in -;these words: "Eventually the land will all come in, but there will be a lot of broken hearts. No one can" be "more anxious to see settlement than myself, loui I feel that it is criminal to overiboost this pumice country, and so bring in 'people on false pretences. I have been working nine yeara for nothing and to-day lam in debt." - s Plucky Wives, "If I had not got work outside my; section," continued the same "I don't suppose I would he here to-day. And I think it was much the same for most; of my neighbours. To-day, after nine years' hard work, we should be in a position-to-employ some help/ but we cannot afford to do so. Even to-day the wives of many of the men in the settlement have to'go out into the milking sheds to help withi the work." One could see this last statement verified for oneself. Take a typical case. The wife of one of the settlers went in as a bride in her. twenties. •■ Before, that she had been in an office. To-day. ,she is bringing up a young family, does all her own housework, makes and mends for the family,, keeps hec husband's and at four in the morning and four in the afternoon you can see her wheeling the pram over +« the milkingehed, where she helps her husband to put the herd through. The nine-months-old baby cannot be left in the house as the other children are too 1°m S °J OQk after lt > w this intrepi* little mother when she dons her overalls and gum-boots has to wheel the younffhFJn'g- E £ a if he etickß t0 fa ™ 4 he will be able to say with truth that to was brought up in the baiL Not Fair Criterion. ,

It 1» admitted that the land at Reno* jroft J» exceptionally good for pumice emmfMm the premmt settlors, point-' mg mi wlmt ft hard etrugijle they have* httArMA ftre Jittvlng, aekt %]iat chance W(/«M |JWle have on the poorer &»/f#fceJtafl 0/ Wiie valJoy?" One of the |Mfc tlt» matter Kwccinctly when. V ol>J»c|t to Jtepwrott

used as an example of what pumice country will do. We say that Eeporoa is really an oasis in the desert compared to the rest of. the country, and we do not intend to sit down and remain dumb while it is being quoted as a

criterion. We feel that we could not keep silent and see more women and children brought into this valley on what *ve consider nothing less thau false pretences. We have seen our own women folk and children suffer too much to allow others to be brought in without l warning them of the difficulties and hardships that are inseparable from breaking in this pumice country."