BIG TASK TACKLED

Dominion, Volume 26, Issue 101, 23 January 1933, Page 7

BIG TASK TACKLED

Creation of Farms on the Galatea Estate PROGRESS FOR THE YEAR ; . , f (Contributed.) The Galatea Estate, in the Rotorua district, is well known throughout New Zealand, but mainly as the target for criticism by politicians and by opponents of the Government developmental policy, many of whom have never investigated its potentialities at first hand. The nature of the country and the problem of development at Ngakuru and at Galatea differ. Galatea is more than twice as far from the main centre, Rotorua, as is Ngakuru. Ngakuru is a huge stretch of Crown land which formerly lay waste. Galatea is a plain ten miles long and three broad. Its history goes back to the pioneering days and the stirring times of Te Kooti. It has a picturesque setting, and contrasts pleasantly with the rugged precipitous clifts which rise sheer out of it along the eastern boundary, —to mark

the beginning of the fastnesses of the Urewera Country. The Department’s Work. Save for a hill of about 50 acres in area, the whole station carried a good sole of native grass before the tractors began their work. In several places there are peaty swamps. The task of the Department of Agriculture, working for the Lands Department, is to transform these 23,000 acres from a single sheep station into about 200 dairy farms, and still maintain their productivity as a sheep station during the process. The Government bought Galatea in 1931 for about £lOO,OOO. Full control of it by the State was assumed at the end of March last, so that the results of a year’s programme in developmental wo- k are now apparent. The sequence of the work is similar to that at Ngakuru, and the ultimate aim is the same. The estate still carries 11,000 sheep and 600 or 700 head of cattle, which were bought in by the Government. These numbers will be decreased gradually as the dairy farms emerge. .Meantime the work of replacing the “native” by suitable dairy pasture goes on. Last winter 220 acres of Chbumollier were grown for the stock; in the spring 360 acres of grass and 75 acres of oats were sown. These are now being harvested by the ten permanent bands. Tractors and Men Busy. The only other workers employed for developmental purposes on the estate at present are 20 men on relief who are clearing light scrub from certain parts. Four hundred acres of turnips and 20 of lucerne are doing well, while tractors are busy in the huge paddocks —some of them a mile long—preparing for 1700 acres of autumn-sown One section is also being prepared as a

demonstration farm on lines similar to that of Ngakuru. Ngakuru has a yearly rainfall greater than Rotorua, which averages 50 inches, a total greater than that in the Waikato. This makes the district all the more suitable for dairying. Galatea, on the other hand, cannot claim a fall so great; The need for shelter belts for stock is 7101 being forgotten at Ngakuru, but, so far, little provision for them has been made at Galatea, where the cabbage trees, dotted prettily through the estate, provide about the only available shelter. • These blocks represent the two biggest Government land development schemes in New Zealand. Thousands of pounds are being invested with the express intention of bringing idle lands into cultivation, so that they can be settled and thus add their quota to the national wealth of primary production. Indeed, they have already begun to do that. They form no part of the schemes for the relief of unemployment, though they may have something very valuable to contribute toward this problem. Finding Suitable Settlers. The Lands Department is concerned with the land itself; the Agricultural Department is given the task of developing it and of finding suitable men to put. on it. This latter is regarded as important, for it is realised that many settlement schemes of the past have failed, not because of the land, but because of the tenant. The organisation of the work on both these projects is in the bands of Mr. P. W. Smiilltield, Fields Superintendent of the Department of Agriculture, Auckland. The work on the spot is supervised by Mr. K. M. Montgomery, Fields Instructor, with headquarters at Rotorua.