RUS IN URBE.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIII, Issue 276, 21 November 1932, Page 6

RUS IN URBE.

SUBURBAN FARMER COMES TO

TOWN.

(By M.A.R.)

There is good farming land near Auckland,

and many prosperous farms; nevertheless, the environs of the city do not set up to rival the Waikato or Taranaki districts, which appear to consist of mile after mile of solid butterfat. Sometimes we wonder would we have done better to seek our fortunes there. But this is not one of such times; not a morning so fresh and fair as this is, when all the work is early done, the back of the car (the farmer's adaptable old car) loaded to the roof with produce for the market, the front almost as heavily burdened with ourselves and the delighted children, and all of us off to town.

Not Horace himself was happier in possession of his Sabine farm than are we with ours on days like this—though Horace doubtless had no mortgage on his. We talk of our advantages as we spin along—wonderful to think how near we are to the largest market in New Zealand. We tactfully ignore the fact that on this wonderful market we will probably receive about one and six a sack for stuff that cost . half-a-crow.il to grow. We soon traverse the few bumping miles of our own road and turn the corner to Join the stream of traffic on the concrete. We always experience a little thrill as we go round this corner, something like Jess Oakroyd when he really found himself in a lorry on "t'Great North Road." It is Westfield sale day, and the children squeal with delight at each lorry that rushes past with its freight of calves or pigs, for take the country child to town and more than anything is he interested to see familiar farm animals in strange surroundings. There is always something interesting along the Great South Road. At one oldfashioned house there is every summer a blaze of blossom where a creeper covers a tall old tree trunk from ground to top. In the spring we watch each roadside field lose its hungry winter look and change to tender green. And we take a lively interest in the affairs of people whose names we do not even know. We watch this man's crop of early peas coming on and hope he will get a decent price for them. We feel a vicarious pang when we see a big patch of cabbages ready to cut all ruined by a very severe late frost. The children have their special delights — to watch for the "stone horse," that is, Otahuhu's war memorial, to enjoy the car crawling and poking its way among the mobs of cattle near Westfield, to feel the thrill of swinging round and over and down the curves that take us over the railway line at Penrose.

To-day the hawthorn blossom is the especial beauty of the drive. Along the roadside and between field and field hedges unnoticed in their winter bareness have broken into unexpected loveliness. The countryside "s new-bathed in smiling sunshine after early mon.ing misty rain, so that every leaf is at its greenest and every 'branch and twig laden with its lavish dower of bloom. It, is the day when every bud of, promise has reached its fulfilment. A few days more, and though it will bo beautiful still, that glow of rich perfection will be gone. And on the homeward journey we are filled with content. We have sold our own stuff and we have secured our coveted bargains at the shops.. Perhaps we have gone to a matinee or visited friends. We have enjoyed ourselves, but all the same our heads ache a little and our feet are weary of the pavements. When we pass the tram terminus and we see a straight stretch of road before us and the Otaliuhu water tower in the distance we feel that the city is behind us and our faces are set homeward. The car bounds forward and we seem to feel the country breezes coming nearer. The city homes we look at rather enviously coming in, admiring their fresh paint, trim hedges and demure lawns; going home they seem tame and confined. The farmhouse is old and shabby, but is set among the rolling green of wide grass paddocks. We are so busy that our hedges'are seldom cut, but they are brimming with roses and sweetscented honeysuckle. A quarter-acre section is all very nice, but what wpuld the children do there, and how would we like to have neighbours almost a-top of us on either side? And the din of cramped and noisy Queen Street —you who live and work there every day cannot comprehend how stupid and how wearisome it sounds to country ears.

Nevertheless we count ourselves fortunate to be so near it. For if God made the country and man made the town, we can enjoy the good works of both God and man. Ours is a quiet country by-road; we earn our bread in primitive style from the soil; yet in less than an hour we can be strolling down the /main street of New Zealand's largest city. Books, music, social contacts are within oyr reach to an extent undreamed of in bygone days. With all its disadvantages, one is glad to be a child of the motor age.