PROGRESS IN THE MANAWATU

Evening Post, Volume CVII, Issue 143, 18 June 1924, Page 11

PROGRESS IN THE MANAWATU

>-^^«)JIK change in rural life and in df*-^^ *fle aspect of the country- § U 1 side in a typical district of J New Zealand would make a fascinating study for the modern historian, who looks to trends and tendencies in affairs rather than to actual events, who is more of a sociologist than a chronicler. It is easily within the memory of the oldest inhabitant in the majority of our settled rural districts to recall the days when the virgin forest stood where the town now stands, but of the later changes—less obvious, but almost equally important—there is less material available. Perhaps the Early Settlers' Associations of a later day will take this subject for reminiscence. When most of the countryside, for instance, is. equipped with hydro-eleu-tricity, it will be something to hark back to the time of the kerosene lamp, just as to-day the motorist may ' occasionally think of the prehistoric age of road transport by horse vehicle. ; N In such instances the special issues oE newspapers devoted to rural development may be unearthed from old files to illustrate with valuable records and photographic reproductions the life and atmosphere of a bygone period. It is somewhat in this mood that one would approach a comparison between the Manawatu of, say, fourteen or fifteen years' ago with what it is to-day. It is true that the period is not long as time goes, but the changes have been remarkable both in town and country. One has only to quote this, for example, from one of the first of the- long series of Manavatu Special Show issues of the "Evening Post", to realise at once the change :— Both by process of improvement and by process of time, prices of land have risen very gTeatly in the Manawatu. Generally speaking, in Kairanga County, where the best land lies, the rise has been £20 an acre in fifteen years—that is, prices have doubled. The best portions of it fetch up to £40 an acre, and anything over £30 is the ruling market figure nowadays. Land at this price is five-sheep-to-the-acie quality, and for dairying will practically carry one cow for each acre all the year round. Approximately the same prices rule for all the rich levels from the Lower Oroua to the Lower Manawatu. Between £20 and £30 an acre is the standard for the next best land in the Oroua and Lower Eiwitea Counties, a rise of £10 an acre in as many years. . . . The country is good. The neat, newlypainted homesteads, the beautiful gardens, the smart turn-outs, the dog-carts, and buggies, all show that the man who is living on and by the land is living well. . . That was in 1910. What a rush there would be to the Manawatu if in ' 1&24 you could buy the best land for £40 an acre. If the land doubled and trebled between 1900 and 1910, it has doubled and trebled in the intervening period between 1910 and the present day. People talk of land sold at the rate of £•200 an acre in some instances, which, if true, must make the Kairanga about the highest-priced agricultural land in the whole world, bar none. In any case, there is one very great change in the countryside in one district of the Dominion. In "The Post's" special issue of 1910 entitled " The Real Manawatu," from which the above quotation was taken, the Manawatu district, with Palmerston North as its centre, was assumed to comprise the following seven counties: liangitikei, Kiwitea, Pohangina, Manawatu, Oroua, Kairanga, and Horo■vvhenua, covering an area of approximately a million and three-quarter acre 5—1,752,3205 —1,752,320 to be precise. The capital value of the land in 1910 was given as £18,500,000 and the unimproved value as £12,500,000. To-day the corresponding figures are roughly £32,300,000 and £21,500,000—a total of £53,800,000 as against £31,000,000 in 1910. On official figures the land has therefore nearly doubled in value all over the district. There has been both an increase in production and an increase in price obtained for produce. Meanwhile, the population of the whole district has increased from about 50,000 to something like 63,000. The population has therefore not doubled by any means. In some districts, according to official figures, as, for instance, Pohangina County, the population has .actually decreased from 1797 to 1333. But, the population of Palmerston North itself has actually increased from about 10,500 to 17,500, an increase at the rate of about 75 per cent. This is an" indication of a process which has been going on with increasing rapidity of late years, the process known as' " urban drift " —the drift to the town. It was first noticed in 1906, when the country population exceeded that of the towns. In 1910 the ratio between town and country was about s!i-50; to-day it is about 56-40 in favour cf the town. Some reasons for .this

change in the countryside will be suggested later. While, therefore, the aggregate value of production from the land has practically doubled and the price of the land itself has far more than doubled, actual population on the land has not increased at anything like the same rate. What is the reason for this 1 In 1910, in the course of a rapid survey of the Manawatu district by way of motor covering a mileage of some 200, the conclusion was reached that nearly all the land was capable of much closer settlement than in the areas then held. An old settler who accompanied the party declared that there was no land like the Manawatu in tne world. " There are thousands of acres to be subdivided yet," he said. "It is an ideal land for dairying, and now that scientific farming has come to stay, subdivision must follow. The large estates will be subdivided because it will pay to subdivide."

A recent survey over much the same country showed that in the fourteen years which had intervened the process which the old settler had declared inevitable had not really taken, place to anything like the extent he anticipated. There v/ere soldier settlements, but otherwise the land looked comparatively empty. Manawatu people who know their district would, one feels sure, be prepared to admit that the Kairanga, at least, would bear subdivision down to 50-acre farms, or farms even smaller. The average holding must be*far in excess of that figure. One dS informed during the latest trip that the land was "very firmly held." So it appeared to be. The Kairanga is a great place for pedigree stock and stud farms, one heard, and a considerable acreage would doubtless be required as well as considerable capital for that class of farming. The Kairanga is certainly not a poor man's land. On land at about £100 an aero there is no room for the slovenly typo of farming that still lingers on poor lands and in bush sections. The overhead cost is so great- that only the most efficient kind of farmer with a keen instinct for the business side can look for success. It is clearly an arena for the survival of the fittest. The idyllic idea of rural life is incompatible with the circumstances. But there is a great demand for the latest type of labour-saving machinery and the things that help in production.

The introduction of labour-saving Machinery is probably an important factor in the comparatively small increase in the rural population. If the machine saves labour then the same farm can be run with less labour than before, or a larger area can be managed, while production increases. But other factors are entering into rural life which may, and undoubtedly will, increase" its attractiveness and therefore tend to redress the balance which has recently swung in' favour of the town. These are the increasing uses of motor transport, not only in the shape of privately-owned cars, but in the form of public motor service along the main highways to the principal centres. This is quite a post-war development, but one of vast importance. Palmerston North, as will be shown in a succeeding article is the centre of a series of motor services radiating in every direction and connecting the town with .the country in a way that was unknown a few years ago. The second factor and one of perhaps even greater effect is the bringing of electricity to the country on a large scale. Only those who have used other means •of obtaining light and power-kerosene, accetylene, gas, and the old methods can quite appreciate what an enormous difference it will make to the whole country side, when eyeryhouse is connected with the supply 01 electricity from the great power station of the Mangahao hydro scheme. This had not even been thought of when "The Post" began its series of special issues and it was in the nature of a fantasy to refer to the farming of the future and life in the country in an age of universal electricity. This is now no dream. The last special of "The Evening Post" at the time of the 1923 Spring Show gave some idea of the progress that had tnen been made in bringing electricity on the farm as a prospect of the near— almost the immediate future. What has been achieved since then will be explained in another column. Sufficient to say here that over 300 farms within a^ considerable radius of Palmerston North are already receiving electricity for light. The net result of these and other developments gives a real meaning to the heading: "The Changing Country." It is changing, and all for the better in the civilising influences now at work. In the main, human nature will settle the problem of the "urban drift." If to the' natural advantages of country life which always appeal be added most: of the attractions of the town, then the country will win back its share of the people and both town and country will ba the bettor for iW