VILLAGE SETTLEMENTS.

Evening Star, Issue 7337, 8 October 1887, Page 1

VILLAGE SETTLEMENTS.

The following extract from a village settler's letter to the Minister of Lands will show what may be done by industry:—" It is just six months and two weeks since I, with my family of six and my good helpmate (tor I should be very little use here but for her), landed at Whangapo—just six months yesterday since we got on to our section. Since then I have built a good four-roomed house, 36ft by 16ft, with 10ft studs, built of dressed slabs and shingled roof, every stick in which I split and dressed myself, and which I value at about LIOO. Mr Kavanagh described it as the best split house in the North Island; I don't know how much of that was flattery, however. I have cleared, and am now fencing with a good post (pterin) and rail fence, some twenty acres, of which three acres are in garden and orchard, four acres in grass, one acre in wheat and oats (seed beds merely for next year), and the balance will be in potatoes, maize, linseed, turnips, carrots, and grass. As we cannot get the ground ploughed yet (settlers not having reached the dignity of ploughs and horses), and the Maoris' prices being prohibitive, you may be sure this I has entailed much labor, everything having to be chipped in with a hoe. Jdy two boys, though young (twelve and fourteen respectively), have of' course been a great help, they having done all the clearing except the largest trees. We have had very little road-work money (some L 5 orL6 in all), for we haye been too,anxious to get a start with the farm to, sp«re the time for road work. Still, we nave rubbed along, though we landed-, with only three months' tucker and 2s 6d.r .We have had to practise the very str?«»est economy, and to live principally on bread and tea, yet we have always had enough, and if no hitch occurs in the payments'-for improvements we reckon we have'enough coming to put us over till our farm begins to tarn something in." '.. : .*-'■.".'