LAND RECEIPTS.

Mt Benger Mail, 27 October 1937, Page 4

LAND RECEIPTS.

MARKED IMPROVEMENT IN TWELVE MONTHS BIG INCREASE IN CROWN AREA PRODUCTION Wellington, October 19. The improved condition of the farming industry is reflected in the increased receipts of the Lands Department from Crown tenants, the total, excluding discharged soldier settlement receipts, last year being £1,402,596, which is an improvement on the previous year of £126,000. Crown lands revenue dropped in 1933 to £742,000. There were remissions of rent during the year totalling £170,977, and arrears of rent now amount to £942,000. The most active feature of the ; department’s work is in connection with small farms settlement, and the annual report, tabled in the House, states that several of the development blocks were completed sufficiently to permit of their being subdivided and the sections placed under the individual management of their occupiers. In ■no case has a tenure been given, but where the revenue is sufficient the occupants collect portion of the daily cheque, while in other cases the men have remained on a wage basis of £4 a week, less 10s for a cottage. The carrying capacity has increased enormously on most blocks, and from six blocks under the control of the chief drainage engineer the butter-fat production shows an increase of from 50 to 100 per cent over the previous year.

In the four main King Country blocks butter-fat production has increased in the year by 80 per cent in value, wool by 168 per cent., pigs by 118 per cent. Of the individual holdings the report suggests that it can be safely said that generally they are a success. The board is conservative in cases of the purchase of one-man farms, the valuation being such that capital charges do not exceed £1,000; otherwise they are not allowed to be taken up. Under these conditions the holders, it is stated, cannot fail to prosper; but such properties as these are unfortunately not now forthcoming, and so small a percentage of the available properties measured up to the board’s standard of valuation and carrying capacity that it withdrew its invitation to applicants to locate farms for individual purchase.

“During the year there has been comparatively little extension of the area included in >,the small farms scheme,” adds the report, the main item being furtherance of land development operations, which /has been very successful. The principal reason for not launching out on new work has been the need to take into account that three-eigths of the wages cost has from June 1 last been charged to capital, and must therefore be loaded on to the land. Much of this is marginal land, which cannot be developed economically by ordinary settlement, and w'hich cannot bear any portion of the labour costs and the boai’d could not .conscientiously uxxdertake additional work on such lands knowing there would be losses of capital.