BORSTAL LANDS

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume XXII, Issue 174, 8 July 1932, Page 11

BORSTAL LANDS

OPEN FOR SELECTION. PART OF WAIKERIA. Part of the land at the Waikeria Borstal Institution at To Awamutu which has been worked for some years by the inmates of the institution has now reached the stage when the overnment feels that it should be disposed of, in accordance with original intention, and the Lands Department is now offering for selection five sections on the main road past the camp, aggregating 472 acres, in areas ranging from 84 acres to 113 acres. This is the first public offer of land brought into production by the Prisons Department. The total area of the Waikeria farm is 4815 acres, about half of which is in permanent pasture, the balance being in temporary grazing pasture, in process of being cleared, or still uncleared Provision has been made for optional tenures, and the half-yearly rentals for the five sections range from £l9 12/6 to £32 10/-. The Minister of Lands (the Hon. E. A. Ransom) stated on Wednesday that some of the sections now offered were in full grass, and some in more than half grass, but all were in good pasture. and the farm dairy herds had been running on the property. The farms were therefore highly developed. Ever since the establishment of the farm, he said, it had been the Government’s intention to make the land available for setlement when it reached a sufficiently high state of development, and then to move the camps on to other undeveloped areas. PRODUCTION OF THE FARM. Referring incidentally to up-to-date figures illustrating the productivity of the institution, Mr Ransom said that the average butter-fat production from the three dairy herds, aggregating 352 cows, amounted during the past year to 288.61 b., the best herd yielding an average of 3191 b. per cow. The milk produced totalled 2,602,4971b5. and the total butter-fat was 104,7001 b. The livestock at present running on the farm consisted of 1877 sheep 1692 cattle, 332 pigs, and 74 horses. Thirty sheep and four cows were supplied weekly last year to H.M. prison at Auckland, in addition to ten sheep and two cows weekly to the institution itself for consumption purposes. Potatoes and vegetables were forwarded to various North Island prison institutions, and other produce sold during the year was as follows:— Pigs 267, apples 2000 cases, honey 1} tons, garden produce (yielding £360 cash), lambs 1619 sold at 11/8 each (total of £910), wool 44 bales, butter-fat and bullocks (yielding £6223), and ensilage 262 tons.