OVER. FROM VICTORIA

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume XLIV, Issue XLIV, 8 March 1924, Page 9

OVER. FROM VICTORIA

A visitor to Hawera recently was Mr P. Richards, of Ballarat (Vie), brother of Mr J. B. Richards, of Stratford. He was keenly interested in the town and surrounding district, and expressed his appreciation of the very striking way in which the work of the Borough Council had been done, specially in the matter of streets and footpaths, and generally the many evidences of progress and enterprise about the town. Speaking of conditions in Australia, Mr Richards said tfiat generally speaking the country was very prosperous —he> referred specially to Victoria —but money was being spent, he considered, much too liberally. The rise in wool had been a wonderful feature for prosperity, and up fo 4»ld had been secured | for merino wool. The yields of wheat, ' too, especially in the Mallee country, near his district, had been very great, and as the price was good, farmers who cropped were also aomg well. He stated wonderful progress and development had been made in that country, which was mainly very flat, by rolling and other forms of close cultivation. By this means very large areas of country had been brought into profitable use. Regular fallowing., too, had been a great factor in improvement' and profitable farming. He said that lambs were reared in large numbers, but as the conditions of growing them were on cheap land and on larger areas, not so much attention as in New Zealand was paid to growing a very prime lamb, and consequently Australian was not so well known as New Zealand. Referring to the cities, he said that the population was going <■ ahead by leaps and bounds and that it was increasing too fast. This, unfortunately, is the experience, of most of the countries oi the world. Mr Richards is thoroughly enjoying his visit to Taranaki, and is taking every opportunity »f seeing and noting the methods adopted by our farmers.