Feilding Star, Oroua and Kiwitea Counties' Gazette. TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 14, 1916. THOSE EMPTY HOUSES.

Feilding Star, Volume XII, Issue 3093, 14 November 1916, Page 2

Feilding Star, Oroua and Kiwitea Counties' Gazette. TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 14, 1916. THOSE EMPTY HOUSES.

The retaidation of progress in our district which is bemj effected by the aggregation of farms going 011 makes it necessary that we should hammer away at the subject, with the hope of sooner or later getting something done. We havo already referred to the empty houses to be found in the Kiwitea and Oroua counties as tho result of the hoarding up of farms. Of this fact thero is plenty of evidence. Tako ono district in the Kiwitea countj- as an example. On a stretch of five miles on the Tapuae road there are no less than eighteen empty housesf and these houses are empty because the farms on which they stood have been aggregated. Somo time ago the Tapuae schoql was closed owing to the dwindling roll brought about by the same cause. Tho bachelor farmer to whom we referred in a previous article owns over twenty original farms in the county, and he and his brother between them about forty original farmsj These are facts which any responsible person can verify for himself. We ask, will any reasonable man say this is a healthy state of affairs for this young country, opened up only a few years ago? Added to tho fact that these farms are not supporting tho families which they ought to be, it is our opinion that the land, if more closely settled, would produce much more than is now being won from it. The first farmer referred to owns about 6000 acres in the Kiwitea county alone, any 200 acres of which would adequately support a family in comfort.