THE WAIMATE PLAINS.

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume I, Issue 53, 13 October 1880, Page 4

THE WAIMATE PLAINS.

TO THE BDITOE OF THE STAB.

Sib, — The small areas of the Waimate sections have called forth very general condemnation. It is, of course, competent for any purchaser to buy several adjoining sections, but, practically, the purchaser cannot be sure of doing so to advantage, as with the auction system the most ignorant bidder at the sale fixes the price. One of the greatest evils that arises when Government divide land into sections of too small areas is the time lost in non-production while the , adjustment of quantity is gradually taking place. It would be much cheaper for the Government, and better for the purchaser, were the land divided into farms, instead of sections or paddocks, as b&s bees done on the Waimate. Farming is now generally looked upon as a commercial concern, and the old feudal feeling that imbued people with the idea that in the possession of rural land there was something more than its value as a necessary material for raising produce, is fast dying out. This oldfashioned feeling is at the root of the proverbial ambition of Englishmen to own a piece of land for the mere sake of owning it, without having any definite idea of making it productive, and much grief invariably fellows when this ambition ia reached. The email sections of the Waimate blocks could only be separately occupied to advantage if a large population of consumers were in the immediate vicinity. As high prices will be given for the land, it will require to be worked in such a way that the greatest possible value of produce will be raised for the minimum of expenditure. For instance, it would be necessary, that each farm should have on area large enough to keep -fully employed, in their respective seasons, all the most approved labor-saving machinery. The profits to be derived from grazing cattle, to supply local markets, are too uncertain to be depended on to pay interest and working expenses on land that costs a high price. A much safer calculation, and, m fact, the only one that can be depended on, can be made on the European markets for such produce as could be raised by mixed farming on the^ Waimate. Wool, tallow, and grain, are staple products, upon the price oi Which all forming calculations should, be based. As the whole world is in competition in the production of these articles of commerce, it is evident that the purchasers of the Waimate ought to be careful not to give too high prices, and also to select such areas as can be worked to the best advantage at the lowest cost. No person of observation, who has seen much of the settlers on the land in New Zealand, can fail to be struck with the struggle they have to earn a living. The reason invariably to be given is, the low price of wool, tallow, beef, or grain. It is rare to meet with a settler who will admit that the true cause of his difficulty is that he cannot produce commodities at & sufficiently low cost. He has to work with a single-furrow plough, or pay wages to have his corn bound by hand ; or if he has his work done by doublefurrow ploughs, and the reaper and binder, he has so much capital sunk in machinery and teams which are not /fully employed that the interest on this capital adds, in proportion, enormously to the cost of his produce. The same argument holds as to the grazier. He either has not the best improved machinery for cultivating roots, or if he has such, he has not full employment for it on his limited holding. The law of the survival of the fittest bears heavily on the New Zealand farmer, who has not the sufficient quantity of land to enable him to raise produce at such a price that it can enter successfully into competition in the markets of the world. The political visionaries' idea ct a happy and contented people, settled in a rural district on 50 acres to a family, living on the products of their own labor, giving and receiving mutul help, when reduced to practice, means Encumbering the land with a population of paupers, who, of necessity, become apt pupils of that arch teaoher of depravity and crime — poverty.— l am, Ac, Ntm.