PUTARURU TO MOKAI.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLV, Issue 13762, 29 May 1908, Page 7

PUTARURU TO MOKAI.

''• A NEW ROUTE TO TAUPO. 'AUCKLAND HIGHLANDS. ' TIMBER MILLING ENTERPRISE No. I. f FROM OUR SPECIAL COMMISSIONER. I alighted from the express at Putaruru in the midst of a heavy storm. This little .;• township has only recently awakened to ; the call of that industrial expansion which ' is so marked in all other parts of the Auckland province. It started its career as a sort of back ;; station on the great Patetere Block, own- ' ed by the Thames Valley Land Company, and in the coaching days was known as the "Turn-off" for visitors to the Hot Lake region. Apart from the adventur- .: ous spirits who ventured to view the won- ' ders of the Pink and Whit© Terraces, tha place was comparatively unknown, or if known was looked upon as Australians look upon their never-never country. Putaruru began its industrial life when - the Taupo Totara Timber Company commenced its operations there. This enterprising company has pushed a private railway fifty miles to the southward, connecting their mill at Mokai and their magnificent forests there with Putaruru, making the place a great timber depot. TIMBERMEN AS PIONEERS. The bush millers of New Zealand have been responsible for many important ventures, and have opened the way to many now flourishing farming districts. The .. timber man of the north, like the miner of the south, is often the real pioneer of civilisation. His bullock trucks and tramways are the forerunners of roads and railways. His booms and jetties arc the nucleus of new harbours. The daring of some of their schemes, the originality and '-ingenuity they show has had no counterv part among other industries, save, perhaps, gold mining, and even gold mining j is conservative now compared with tint- ; her getting. This Tauno Totara. Timber Company ■ had to build a railway fifty and a-half •'•■. miles long, construct' a great bridge over ■ jthe Waikato River; erect a mill for the ''purpose of supplying timber for its own ,'"' use, and undertake other costly tasks beH: fore it could cut one plank to sell to the \, public. Its railway has opened a newtourist route to Lake Taupo, and has a 1../ ../ tered the freight system for the Northern i districts of Hawke's Bay. Station-owners 'cart.their wool, via Wairakei. to the" siding," and carry back goods from Auckland, which hitherto they have, been forced to obtain from Napier or Wellington. By favour of the Taupo Totara Timber' Company, passengers .are conveyed along the line to Mokai, and thus save themselves many miles and much expense inthe journey to Taupo. It. is an amusing fact that owing to the line not coming ;• under the provisions of the Government railways passengers are booked simply as luggage, and one goes as a portmanteau, . -: or a swag, or perhaps, it' of extra import•'S.r; ance, one may be booked as "Provisions." :' ■ A NOVEL JOURNEY. ■' No matter how one is booked, the journey between Putaruru and Mokai is decidedly novel and interesting. Seated out'side, on the tail of a van, one swings ithrough scenery that reminds me in places :. *5f the Scottish Highlands.' There are the! ■ bracken-covered, slopes, and ridges crowned with rock, and swift-running streams. [. And yet, somehow, it has a character of ■''•-, its own, and might well be designated the Auckland Highlands. Breezy, bracing upland country it is too, with its glens and. dells .and rugged peaks. More upland ?' ! than highland, perhaps, after all, for |y ..there arc great stretches of comparatively T * level country, and easier, slopes by far . than one usually sees in Ross-shire or In- "'/, yerness, or Caithness.

■i The lino for the first part runs through the Selwyn Estate, through great blocks .'lot country that have been offered in vain to the public at a rental of a few pence per acre, per year. Between Putaruru and Lichfield most of the country has been taken up, and is showing admirable results under cultivation. I saw turnip crops equal to some of tho best in the Wai- . kato, and young grass as, promising as anyone could expect to see. The land lying idle now may not be nearly so good as that which lias already been settled, but it is only about a tenth the value, and thus. offers a wider margin for im.provement. No doubt, colonials are wise ' in preferring the more, easily handled bush lands, which can be grassed after si good burn, and remain in grass for a good many , years. Such land, after the bush is felled, does not take much labour to work it, .'■ and whilst simple grazing is profitable it is more attractive, perhaps, than any land Which requires the plough, hint how the old Lairds of the Highlands would have rushed to secure possession of these ..' very'.estates, which we despise! They • .carried clans of sturdy fighting .'"men on worse soils than the rfelwin Estate can show, and under climatic conditions infinitely more rigorous. ; Any young man fond of sport might do worse than start sheep-farming in this part of the Auckland province. • Tho short lease of. twenty-one yearn, ■with right of renewal carries a light rental, and is likely to carry a light rental, because being based on the unimproved • value it is. not likely to go up in proportion to the increased productiveness. It is under the freehold, however, and only under tho freehold that men will use these .inferior lands as they ought to be used. 'Under tho freehold it would pay a man with a family to plant the rougher country with timber trees. It might mean waiting fifteen or twenty years before -returns •come in, but in fifteen or twenty years timber- will be valuable in this part of New Zealand. . i Men could make for themselves beautiful hollies in this wild part of the Auck- .;' land "province. The land farmed might hot yield much per acre, but it is fairly certain that without much expense most of it could be made to carry a sheep to the acre, and this would give a fair re- > turn, on three of four pounds an acre. WILD HORSE COUNTRY. South of Lichfield the Taupo Totara Timber line runs through comparatively level country for many miles. It is mostly so j open and so easy that one could ride or ' drive about it almost anywhere. Tussock grass is the orevailing growth—the same tussock that covers some 22,922,047 acres of New Zealand— pale yellow, dry looking grass, that, like all grasses, varies with the soil. At present the only stock this country is carrying is the wild horse. ; It wanders in little mobs of live and six, each mob with its stallion. They are wild so far as any attempt to tame them "or improve them" is concerned, but they ''graze' undisturbed by the passing train, 1 anil one could shoot them from the van ..with a good rifle. It would be just as );well if someone did shoot out the bulk of the male animals and thin out the weeds. With new blood these droves of ' horses might be improved, and as they number up to thousands they ought to be worth some attention. We had tea and scones at Kopokarahi 'while waiting for the down train. Even J on a bright, clear autumn day this place looked desolate and, of course, it is deso'late, being a'score miles or so from any other place and exposed to all the winds that blow. ■'•'..^ From Putaruru to Kopokarahi the country is largely easy in character, the bulk of it being ploughuble. Why it should be

lying idle when in Canterbury mountainsides that carry barely a sheep to twenty acres are profitably aceupied, is more than I can say. It is not a question of tenure after all; - for the greater part of the South Island sheep-country is held under the pastoral lease. If must be the character of the people or their training. Aucklanders have not had much experience of sheep-farming. If they had, they would see the possibilities offered by these lightsoiled plains and downs, so" wonderfully healthy for stock, so rapidly transformed under root crops. I should, like some of my Canterbury and Otngo friends to see this country, where the ground is never wet and the snow never lies, where trout streams run crystal-clear through every volley, and where drought is scarcely known; where you can plough to most of the hill tops and top off 20 or 30 sheep to the acre on swedes in the rainiest of winters. I do not think they would consider a rental of eight or nine pounds per thousand acres dear.

HUGGED SCENERY.

The character of the country changes as one near*- the Waikato River and becomes more wild and broken. Bare, gaunt hills, nameless and seemingly never to be named, rise here and there, and strange trachyte cones, like ancient towers, lift fiom valleys that have no beginning and no end. Away to the right of the line frown naked cliffs of rhyolite, where the river has bitten its gorges through the old lava flows, or where it has followed the course of some vast earthquake rent. , The country here is wild and savagelooking, and still if has great broad flats and wide easy slopes in places. The Waikato looks sullen and gloomy where it runs under the company's magnificent bridge, which cost I don't know how much to build, but I am told that it give* good fishing here, and it certainly offers some snug camping grounds. South of the river the line rises steeply in numerous curves, and I hear stories of the engine crew handling their load down the sharp inclines. With a full freight of totara-laden trucks behind, I can imagine that it is not child's play for driver or brakesman. They require cool heads and steady nerves for the work at any time, but. in winter, rain storms and treacherous white frosts—well, it takes "men" to carry the work through. If the journey had not been interesting in itself, my fellow-passengers would have made it so. One was an old Aucklander, who remembered the citv in its youth,'and told stories of its places, and people that the newer generation never hear. Another had been through the South African war, another, though a young man, had completed his service in the Coldstream Guards, and was takingwork in a" timber mill, in order to buy himself a fruit farm at Tauranga. It grew cold and dark before the journey ended, and a- white frost made the air bitingly keen. We were nearly two thousand feet above the sea level, and altitude counts in the late autumn. Timber is plentiful, however, at Mokai, and blazing log fires are a great counter to frost.