"GO ON THE LAND!"

Auckland Star, Volume LXIII, Issue 121, 24 May 1932, Page 5

"GO ON THE LAND!"

AN UNFORTUNATE SETTLER. WHY RATES WERE OVERDUE. (From Our Own Correspondent.) SYDNEY, May 20. The borough council of a Sydney suburb —Dundas —had its knowledge of tlio difficulties of farming enlarged the other day when an unfortunate settler wrote explaining "why he could not pay his rates. His fruit trees had all been killed by blights and bacteria of various kinds; the rats and snakes stole the eggs and slaughtered the chickens; the bandicoots and other minor quadrupeds ato up the vegetables; and the ticks, after killing his cats and dogs, had attacked him and his children. Moreover, ho had been so busy trying to keep down all these pests that he could not find time to cut back the scrub which is constantly encroaching on his land, and as the season is dry, lie confidently expects that he will be burned out before long. The council was sufficiently impress?.! to 6end an inspector to report. But if this is really the sort of life that settlers have to endure, even within fairlv close proximity to a city—it is not difficult to understand why people in the Stato rather hesitate to "go on the land," and even when they have made the plunge, they are liable to drift back again as soon as possible to the towns.