SETTLING THE GUM LANDS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume L, Issue 15412, 22 September 1913, Page 6

SETTLING THE GUM LANDS.

Thkee is no part of New Zealand which will in the future carry a greater agricultural population to the square mile than the long-de-spised " gum lands" of Auckland, so that Mr. Massey's intention to have them classified and opened to settlement as the gum is extracted means much to the North. From physiological causes common to all forms of Life— highest as the lowestfruit trees are more fruitful under conditions which tax their energies without positively stunting them. These conditions can be so easily established in the Northern gum lands by intelligent orchardists that it is now recognised as merely a question of time when the "gum lands" will take their place among the great orchard areas o' the Dominion. If they were situated in Otago or in Tasmania, they would long since ' have been " boomed" by government ' and exploited by eager settlers, but being only in Auckland Province they are but slowly becoming appreciated. The truth is that Auckland possesses such an embarrassment of i riches that no individual item ob- ' tains due recognition, although the constant expansion of the metropolis should demonstrate even to the dullest that there is an ever-increasing production from illimitable natural resources.