$5000 IN RATES BUT SATISFIED

Press, Volume CIX, Issue 32032, 5 July 1969, Page 8

$5000 IN RATES BUT SATISFIED

Mr M. F. Mulvena, of ’ Eamscleugh Station, I Central Otago, is be- j lieved to be the biggest i individual pest destrue- J tion board ratepayer in ; New Zealand. He pays . $5OOO a year and has 1 been paying at this rate since 1956, and what is j more he has no com- ■ plaint about it. i “If, as I am told, I am the , biggest individual ratepayer ; I have no complaints,” Mr Mulvena says in a newsletter ; of the Agricultural Pest De- ' struction Council, “because for every cent I spend I get full value. “Rabbits were at their peak on my property of more than 60,000 acres about 1950 when the station was carrying only

7360 sheep. The weight of the wool clip then was only 72,1221 b. Six years later the number of sheep shorn had risen to 11,000 and the weight of wool was 98,2541 b. In 1967-68 the carrying capacity of sheep had risen to 12,500 and the wool clip was 146,864 lb. “In addition to the increase in sheep, in 1956-57 we brought in 50 head of cattie. Today there are 300 head of cattle on the property, plus 100 calves and 18-month-old cattle. This year we marked 300 calves. “The increase in the carrying capacity of Earnscleugh is almost entirely due to the reduction in the numbers of rabbits on the property, and I am one ratepayer who is more than satisfied that he has had a full return from the money spent on rabbit rates.”