SETTLING THE LAND

Evening Post, Volume LXXXII, Issue 93, 17 October 1911, Page 3

SETTLING THE LAND

SUBDIVIDING LARGE ESTATES. (»! IIMARAPH— SPICIAL TO TXI FOIT.] AUCKLAND, This Day. The sale is reported of 14,000 acres, portion of Okahukura block, Kaipara, formerly the property of Mr. T. C. Williams. The Okahukura block, comprising 24,000 acres, *vra& sold in December last to a Southern syndicate, who at once placed between seventy and eighty men on the estate bush-felling, surveying, roading, and building sheds, residences, etc., ' preparatory to subdivision for dairying. It is part of this block which haa now been sold, the. purchasers being Mr. Frank Fagan/of Russell, and Mr. Thomas Nicholson, of Waverley, who intend to further tubdivide the area and push on improvements. Since December last 1000 acres of bush have been felled, and some hundreds of acres sown in grass, etc. ; a new wharf has been built on the Port Albert River, and a large woolshed, with six machines, has been erected, also sheep yards, and a fine homestead is m course of erection. Mr. Frank Fagan, one of the purchasers, converted the Victoria Estate, opposite Russell, which he acquired two years ago, from a single run of 10,000 acres into a number of farms in less thau twelve- months. At Ohahukura he will now have several thousand acres of fine ploughabls land to break in. Another instance of how land, at on© time considered valueless, is being brbught into profit by practical men. is the Maakana Island, T.'iuranga, 8000 odd acres. It was sold three "years ago at 7s 6d an acre ; a year later the same firm resold it for 12» 6d an acre after some work had been Hone on it, and last week it changed hands again at £3 10s ah acre. The late owners, Messrs. John Kemp and Robinson, reap a profit of I about £20,000.