Mp SETTLEMENT

Evening Post, Volume CX, Issue 78, 29 September 1930, Page 17

Mp SETTLEMENT

(To the Editor.)

I Sir, —The folly of planting land in trees that is essentially suitable for farming pur- ' poses is, in my opinion, strikingly exemrplified in the case of the Karioi estate on the Main Trunk lii.c near Ohakune. This estate contains over 30,000 acres, most of which is flat land. Prior to being resumed by the Government and transferred to the Forestry Department, it was leased at 6d per acre. It grows surprisingly good crops of swede turnips, and, if required, although not desirable, fair crops of oats^ The last manager of the estate told me that out of twelve successive crops of swede turnips, none was a failure. Turnips sell readily as winter feed for sheep and cattle, and are in demand among the sheepfarmers of the surrounding districts. The block is watered by inexhaustible streams, and is adjacent to a railway station, and to general public utilities. I have been credibly informed that the block did not cost the Government more than £1 per acre, compensation included. Here, then, was an attractive opportunity for the Government to grass land after turnips, top-dress it, subdivide it into blocks of from 100 to 200 acres, erect modest buildings, and give men of small means a chance to make good. The settlers could do casual work in the surrounding districts to augment their farming returns, and would constitute themselves a welcome and stable source of assistance to sheepfarmers and public bodies. Interest and sinking fund charges would probably amount to very littlo in excess of the rent of a five or six-roomed house in the city; but the settler and his family would have an additional last line of defence against a shortage of essentials in food. And yet, with good intentions but doubtful judgment, the Government prefers a gamble in afforestation to a safe investment in closer settlement.

There are thousands of acres of land within an arc of, say, 30 miles of the Karioi estate that are suitable only for afforestation. Why not afforest these lands? Why "gamble" with what is possibly the biggest block of flat farming laud on the Main Trunk line between Te Kiiiti and Hunterville? The former manager of the estate told me that, in his1 opinion, a block of fully 22,000 acres was suitable for closer settlement. The rest, so he suggested, should be planted in trees. In one respect, I did not agree with him. His view was that the farming land should be subdivided into blocks of at least 1000 acres. He was obviously thinking of farmers who had a moderate amount of capital in money, horses, and implements^ etc., to carry on. He was not thinking of the farm labourer type—the type that, for lack of opportunity, has been driven to. the centres, and is helping to congest the labour market. Nor, I think, did he make sufficient allowance for the radical alteration that the top-dressing of I pastures is making in farming conditions. Top-dressing with artificial manures, undeniably, is a great boon to the small settler, as well as to the big. I think it is only fair to say that the present Government is not responsible for what might aptly be termed "The Karioi folly." On the other hand, it is responsible to the extent to which it perpetuates the folly. The transaction was arranged between the Minister of Lands and the Minister of Agriculture in the Reform; Government. Neither, bo it seems to me, gave as much consideration on that occasion to the struggling small man as he might have done. —I am, etc..

J. E. HAMILL.