OPOTIKI.

New Zealand Herald, Volume V, Issue 1519, 7 October 1868, Page 5

OPOTIKI.

(PBOM OXTB OTO COREESPONDENT.) September 26. A patty have at last gone prospecting, and we are anxiously looking out for news as to what thoy are doing. I firmly believe myself that thorough prospecting in this neighbourhood will develop new goldfields, but perhaps it may be a question of time. If ■WO can only succeed in holding our own against all the.drawbacks to this settlement, those that remain frill be. well repaid, but without the slightest assiptjmce from, the Government it is at present very up"hill work. There are lots of roads and bridges which require nakingto enable the outsettlerß to go onto their land, and if something of that sort was done, it TTOuld be the means of encouraging parties to remain and others to occupy the land in the immediate vicinity. As it is, there are fifteen of tho fifty acre blocks already, under cultivation, and some of them thoroughly fenced with good posts and rails. Others are preparing their ground ready for produce.

There will be a considerable quantity of wheat grown here this season, and I am happy to say it has a very healthy appearance. On the flat, cereals of all kinds have been sown ; hut potatoes •will be the principal produce for exportation, and with the increasing population at the

Thames find a ready market. There are at leasfcfifty or sixty iiore sores under cultivation this year than there was last, and with only about one half the number of inhabitants.} and it standi to reason, with proper the losses not be so severe from cattle and pigs as last year, "When a brush fence was the'general'thing. Tho single men are leaving here for the Thames "by' every opportunity, and'l hear that the "Whitby this trip takes up at least thirty, and no doubt more would have gone, but owing to a orange of paymasters there are now three months' |>ay owing to the militia who have been stationed at the blockhouses, and since! tho departure of the constabulary | at Whakatane.'

What we shall do in case of the reappearance of the rebels in this district it is hard to say. At any rata, we must hope not to see them, for it would be hard to see the good homesteads about here destroyed. :