EAST COAST NATIVE FARMS.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXIX, Issue 3184, 1 April 1911, Page 9

EAST COAST NATIVE FARMS.

REMARKS BY DR. BUCK

Co'-op era five farming by Maoris on the East Coast of the North Island has long been known as a very successful institution. The latest observer, Dr. Buck, Northern Maori member, who has just completed a tour of the district where the movement flourishes, is greatly pleased with the enterprise and industry of his compatriots. He told a “New Zealand Times” representative that he found ■ the Maori slieepfarmers so busy with their flocks and so interested in the* conduct of farming opera* tions, that they scarcely had time to discuss any other subject, and that, if there was a conversation, the subject was almost certainly to be sheep. The establishment of the Tokomaru freezing works, in which the co-operative farms have shares, has been of immense benefit to them, and the Maoris also gained advantage out of the construction of the building. A European brickmaker was employed by the company to burn bricks for'the construction of the works. When he had done all that was necessary for the company, the cooperative farmers purchased a plant, and employed the hrickmaker, utlising his product for up-to-date sheep dip troughs, cement lined, and also for house building. When the Waiapu Diocesan Conference .was held recently, the cooking—always an important and extensive operation on such occasions — was done in a. baker’s oven of modern type, erected .out of bricks from the Maori plant. The owners are able to get good bricks bv this means at a price cmito £2 per thousand cheaper than they formerly paid.