THE TOWN AND THE DISTRICT

Evening Post, Volume XCI, Issue 146, 21 June 1916, Page 11

THE TOWN AND THE DISTRICT

VEGETABLES, FRUIT AND MILK

Thirty-six years ago a Commission set np by the Government and composed of business men left Wellington to report upon the proposal to construct a railway from Wellington to Palmerston North. After travelling by the old coach route over the Paekakariki Hill and along the beach to Foxton, making enquiries en route, it returned to consider its report, and after due deliberation it decided against the idea. Regarding that portion of the district specially dealt with here it stated, in eSect: "A sandy desert with a little oasis called Otaki."

A sandy desert! Surely those gentlemen never went further than the sand dunes with which the coast abounds. In those days, perhaps, they had not learnt to look beneath the bush-clad areas, there to find the rich alluvial soil which exists to-day. And who, in 1880, ever thought of draining the Pahiko and other swamps.' But, subsequently, the railway came, the bush was cleared and the swamps were drained. Now look at the "sandy desert!"

Otaki is the centre of a vast area, producing abundance of fruit, vegetables, and milk. Wellington supplies a market for all these things, and cries out for more. So Otaki will go on increasing its output] ' because, as the Hutt Valley becomes more settled, the demand in the city will grow. But Otaki will be able to meet that demand, and there is even now an indication that sooner or later the dairy farms on the richest of the land' will give place to the market garden. Mr. T. W. Kirk, Director of Orchards, and an expert who knows New Zealand well, and particularly "The Coast," is enthusiatic regarding the possibilities of the district for smaller settlement, and he expressed himself to the writer in these emphatic terms: — "I think I'shall live to see the day when there will not be a hoof on this country, except on those portions of it specially adapted to dairying." Practical farmers in the district say : "That is what it will come to, right enough."

SUPPLYING WELLINGTON'S MARKETS