THE HAORAKI PLAINS

New Zealand Herald, Volume LI, Issue 15520, 30 January 1914, Page 5

THE HAORAKI PLAINS

POKENO-PAEROA RAILWAY. WEALTH PRODUCING COUNTRY. IMMENSE POTENTIALITIES. ' No. in. [by our special comjussioneb.] No one can visit the Hauraki Plains without being convinced that the PaeroaPokeno railway must be counted as one of the most important and promising railways in the Dominion. The public are inclined to believe that this new name Hauraki Plains only includes the 90,000 acres covered by the drainage operations of the Government. If people could only realise what immense potentialities there are for a railway even in 90,000 acres of rich alluvial soil one need not adduce any further argument, but if there is any meaning in a name the word plains should include the whole of the level area indicated a.nd there are over 200,000 acres of continuous level country to be tapped by this proposed railway between Paeroa and the basa of the western hill borders of the plain. The railway after leaving Paeroa would run for nearly twenty miles without touching a hummock higher than a tall man, and in the remaining twentyfour miles of its route would traverse a very great extent of rich level land in the Waikato watershed. I do not think I am wrong in saying that in the estimated length of forty-four miles, which is supposed to cover the distance between Paeroa and Pokeno there is not much more than four miles which can be counted as hilly country and these hills are comparatively low and are good farming country. Not only is there a length of forty miles of level country but it stretches for many, miles on each side of the line and all of it when drained is capable of making rich grazing and agricultural land. 1 fancy it would be very difficult to find in any part of the South Island, even if the best portions of Canterbury are included, any continuous stretch of forty-four miles of such rich soil as is to be found along the railway route from Paeroa to Pokeno. I believe this proposed railway would tap over 300,000 acres of what will eventually be among the richest dairying country in New Zealand, and not only useful foi dairying, but also for nearly every othei form of agriculture. At the present rate of production in New Zealand neaily everj acre of this huge block could be made tc yield an average of £10 per acre per yeai and every hundred acres would carry £ family prosperously. It is easy to see therefore, what freight and passengen would be supplied to this railway. Plain Land and Hill Land. In estimating the prospective use. of i railway it is not fair to depend onl; upon level land. The hill country on botl 1 sides of tho Hauraki Plains and on eacl side of the Maungatawhiri and Manga tanga valleys is already being here ani 1 there utilised for pastoral purposes, am 1 it is an absolutely certain fact that th< ' settlement and stocking of the low coun try will bring the high country into use and from what I have seen I am sur 1 that all the hill country which lies be ' tween tho goldfields and the main line t 1 Auckland can be made to carry stock I The removal or modification of the absuri ■ restrictions placed upon the Hauraki district ■trict by the goldfields regulations hav * already caused a mild boom in Haural . pastoral leases and there is every indica tion that the country long looked upon a purely a mining district will be carryin , hundreds of thousands of sheep in a fe' ' years. The hill country on the wester c side of the Plains has been, and still it largely inaccessible for lack of communis tion, but the construction of the Poken< | Paeroa railway will remedy this and brin it into comparatively close touch With th 1 Auckland markets. With the price c ' wool and mutton reaching so high a ficui ' the people of New Zealand cannot alio' r any hill country to remain uncrossed an 3 the State has only to offer dairying com a try even at a h;igh price to attract a hoi ® of applicants ready to work it. 4 A Roundabout Railway. e s If the claims of the Paeroa-Pokeno Tai f way rested solely on the amount of ne t country it would open up and serve ° would still have greater arguments in i i favour than almost any other line in Ne '• Zealand, but it must be looked upon i r. the main link in the great East Coa a railway, for it would shorten the route 1 this line by about forty-six miles. I g the present time every passenger ai jj every pound of freight from the Tham valley and the important Ohinemuri go! jj fields districts have to be carried round 1 „ Morrinsville and Frankton to reach tl .. Main Trunk line and the same thing w: r . apply, of to the East Coast lii n unless the Paeroa-Pokeno section is co i» structed. The East Coast line, it mu (" be remembered, will tap a district as larj as Canterbury and capable of producii n quite as much wealth and carrying qui i. as large a population as that magnifice j L province. Imagine what the South 1 landers would say if the railway betwei Dunedin and Christchurch were carrii say from Ashburton to Methuen and th< down to the Rakaia before it reached tl 1, Cathedral city, and yet this is just abo 3, parallelled by the Thames-Waihi and Ea n Coast conditions now. a d Advance of Dairying. * My recent trip over the Hauraki Plai ft and through the mid-Waikato districts h strengthened my old opinions regardii the wonderful promise of this great fan ing region. There are signs of progre on every hand. Dairying is making wo derful strides and I believe we shall s this year at least a twenty-five per cei increase in its butter output, and perha ie more. Some of this increase is due to t 18 bringing in of new land and to the i crease in herds and a good amount is d . to the effects of the cow-testing assoc: tions. Whilst in Paeroa I had sevei re conversations with Mr. Byrne, the ch officer of the Thames Valley Cow-Testi Association. This gentleman has a perff in genius for presenting facts in an ilium: ating manner and has' done great work ut advancing the testing movement all o\ I" New Zealand. He told me a good © :l " stoiy. A farmer in the district had er animal in his herd which he did not c< Dr aider of much account. A neighbour ca: or along and wanted to buy it; an offer v 10 made of £5 for the animal. The owi 10 wanted £5 10s and no sale was made. 1 ra thought so little of the cow that he & ne its calf for five shillings. Then he v 1 " induced to have his herd tested and to v surprise this particular cow yielded soi ce thing over £20 worth of butter-fat for i season, and later lie had an offer of i ; ' r for tho animal, which was refused. Cc testing is not a subject which interests 1 ve public, but as Mr. Byrne points out, im we only lifted the average yield of < herds to the yield of good Danish he: UT it would mean a gain to New Zealand of over £3,000,000 per year. ire ed Future Prospects. g -_ The future prospects of all this coun lTt on the route of the Paeroa-Pokeno r way are so promising, so immense, t it sounds like exaggeration to estim them in any form of figures. Even un of our present crude methods of farming ma man can make a farm of fifty to one h dred acres yield him an income la u ], enough to bring up a big family in ci lar fort. No doubt the bulk of the land ' lnK be devoted to dairying, and much ol ar when fully improved will carry a cow 0 { tin acre. With a moderate amount 1Jr _ cultivation, and the growth of fod 0 { crops like maize for summer feeding a t roots for winter feeding the 300,000 a< rv mentioned could be made to carry t pjs number of cows. The average yield o a t<3 cow from butter-fat alone in New Zeal j n is about £8 10s, whilst the returns f: cen skim, calves, etc., brings the average t 0 returns per cow to somewhere about for the season. It sounds almost incr ble that 'we should be able to i bi- £3,000,000 per year from the land wil a ten radius of {he Paeroa-Pol

railway route, and yet who dare deny that , this possibility may be fulfilled when the £ whole of the level country is fully drained and worked, when the hill land is grassed and the growing of crops becomes as regular a thing with Auckland farmers as it is with those of the South Island. A Flood of Traffic. , What this magnificent stretch of coun-, r try will do when farmed on the same" i intensive scale as in Lincolnshire, and j when our dairy cows, instead of averaging £8 10s for butter-fat, average £12 or £15, as will almost certainly be the case • at no distant time, I leave to the imagin- ' ation of my readers, but they may be as- • sured that with human labour and skill . properly applied all the estimates given , can be greatly exceeded. With the' great East Coast railway pouring its illimitable freight from the rich j coastal flats of the Bay of Plenty and the J fertile hills that stretch from Katikati to 1 I the Eastern Peninsula what a huge flood . ' of wealth and passengers will be poured ' continuously through that gateway gorge . > which opens between Waihi and Paeroa. Is it reasonable that this vast traffic ; should be carried an extra forty-six j miles round by Morrinsville and Frank- j | tor. when it can swell the volume of its ' trade by crossing the flat H'aurakS Plains ! and by tapping the productive swamp lands between Maungatawhiri and Pokeno? There is really no need to ask ; such a question. As soon as New Zea- ; landers take the trouble to see for themselves what huge opportunities are offered , the Paeroa-Pokeno railway, or, at any rate, a line between the Ohinemuri Gorge , and the Main Trunk will become a welli forged i link in our national system of railways.