CLOSE SETTLEMENT.

Auckland Star, Volume LXI, Issue 72, 26 March 1930, Page 10

CLOSE SETTLEMENT.

UNOCCUPIED LANDS, BLOCK IN ROTORUA DISTRICT PREPARATIONS FOR USE. Small farms and intense cultivation is the requirement of the present and the future, said Mr. C. H. Clinkard, M.P. for Rotorua yesterday, in mentioning that good progress was being made at the Guthrie settlement, close to Rotorua, in preparing land to be thrown open for selection. He said that there were 12,000 acres there which could be developed, and that at the moment about 2500 acres were being prepared. The soil was pumiceous, and much like the land in the Tirau district. In the vicinity natives were developing a large block for their own use. "• " > >

Mr. Clinkard said that one boundary of the Guthrie settlement- was within six

miles of Rotorua, and that the old road that , led to it was being reconstructed. He said that there had been a great deal of misconception about land, in the Rotorua district. A lot of it was quite good quality, as was proved by good pastures and fields of clover. He considered that in the past mistakes had been made with land settlement. Many of the areas were too larfge, and it would be better if settlers were placed on comparatively small areas of ploughable land. Mr. Clinkard said that where land was not suitable for settlement it could be used for reafforestation purposes.