MOTU SETTLER

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXVIII, Issue 20629, 3 December 1941, Page 6

MOTU SETTLER

MR. R. C. CRAIG DEAD SUCCESSFUL FARMER The death occurred yesterday of another of the early settlers of the Motu block, Mr. Robert Clark Craig, a well-known and successful farmer whose property was regarded as a model for high country development. Mr. Cyaig had not been in good health for some time. Born in W/aipipi, Waiuku, Auckland 74 years ago, he came to the East Coast 40 years ago, and first took up a section in the Wigan estate sub-division at Tolaga Bay. He improved this section substantially, but owing to health reasons he later disposed of it, and chose another section in the Motu block, then in ar. undeveloped condition. A man of great energy and of fixed ideas on the cultivation of hill lands Mr. Craig cleared his new properey in a few years and established a high standard of farming practice there, being one of the first settlers in this district to study and apply consistently the principle of rotational grazing. In later years, so successful was his policy, he was able to command top prices for all his surplus stock, , which he selected and culled himself. .Of a retiring disposition, he devoted himself almost entirely to his farming- interests, but he performed many acts of neighbourliness, and his passing will be regretted deeply by the Motu community. Mr. Craig never married, and his surviving relatives are five sisters, all living in the Auckland district. He had one brother killed in action in the last war, and another brother and one sister died in 1933. The funeral will be held to-morrow, leaving Cochrane’s chapel after a service at 11 a.m. for the Taruheru cemetery.