THE PUMICE COUNTRY.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LIII, Issue 16121, 8 January 1916, Page 5

THE PUMICE COUNTRY.

ROTORUA TO TAUPO. THE WAIOTAPU DISTRICT. SEW FARMS AND SETTLERS. No. V. [BY OCR SPECIAL COMMISSIO-VEE.J .Another great stretch of pumice country »> which Aucklanders are or should be interested lies between Rotorua and ia upo. If one includes the districts along | the Rotorua-Atiamuru Road, the districts | along the main coaching between Rotorua and Taupe and the great Kaingaroa J ains, it makes undoubtedly the most extensive and important of all the pumice districts. Not only does it include most °t the thermal wonders of tho Dominion and the most interesting tourist and holiday country, but it also includes one of the greatest area's of level or ploughablo i land in the wholo of New Zealand. Im this district tho Crown alone owns over 700.000 acres of land, most of which is unoccupied and unproductive, and so far the only list which our State officials have dreamt of making of this vast national estate is through tree-planting. Tho State has already planted nearly 18,000 acres with various kinds of timbers, and have reserved altogether nearly 300.000 acres for afforestation. Now tree-plant-ing is useful work, but it is of more importance and of more value to the State to cover tho land with productive farms and farmers than to bring it under forests for half a century or more. A serious wrong will be done to the Dominion if our State officials are allowed to go on workins under the impression that this class of land is only tit for timber trees. If I the rough and broken country is planted lit will prove a national benefit, but ploughable land, land that can be made into productive farms, should not bo buried under forests. Forests mean soli- ■ tudes, and this particular part of New Zealand is so interesting, so healthy, and so capable of carrying a vigorous population, that our statesmen should seriously consider this matter of planting trees instead of people. On my previous visits I have entered this great district from the westward by ; way of Ongaroto and Atiamuru, or by way lof Oruanui and Wairakei. On this" occasion I simply entered by the well-used I motor and coach road from Rotorua. For j the first fifteen miles along this road the i country is more or less hilly and broken, and it is here that the State afforestation operations have been carried on so extensively. When, however, the steaming Rainbow Mountain is passed one looks down on a great expanse of level country soveral miles in width and nearly thirty miles in length, consisting c.-f tlat« built up by the ' Waiotapu, Waikato, and other rivers. To j the eastward of these flats the land sud- ; denly rises in a gigantic terrace to the ' great Kaingaroa Plains, which spread on the one hand to the borders of Hawke's Bay and on the other hand to the northern boundaries of Wellington Province. To the westward the land rises in broad slopes and spurs to tho Poreroa Ranges, where on the forested heights and on the dome-shaped, scrub-covered peaks there is land of excellent quality.

Dairying Country at Waiotapu. This Waiotapu district, as it is generally called, is destined in the near future to 'be thickly settled on agricultural lines. | There are fully fifteen thousand acres of J flats which can at once- be turned into first-class dairy farms, and very large j areas which under cultivation and manurI ing can be made into very productivegeneral farms. The great stretch of level country reminds one of the Canterbury Plans, and there are already many evidences that the soil is highly productive. I saw land in the district 'which under • Maori cultivation had" produced eleven | heavy crops of oats in succession without manure, and I saw pasture which looked good enough to carry a dairy cow to the acre pretty well through the milking season. I suppose the district this vear will | send out fully £ 10,000 worth of wool, and I probably so much more in the shape of j mutton, lamb, beef, and store stock. But ; this is only the mere beginning of wealth I production. The export of stock will go < up by leaps and bounds now that a start has been made, and although at present the bulk of the privately-owned land is held in large areas, and the Crown lands are onlj open under tenures which- prohibit settlement, yet the time must come -when there will be some thousands of small farms on this vast extent of arable country, and, of course, with the small farm will come an immense increase in general wealth production.

The Broadlands Estate. One of the first places I visited in the Waiotapu district was "Broadlands," the property of Mr. Earle Vaile, a well-known Aucklander. Broadlands is an estate now of something over 40,000 acres. When I saw it seven years ago its owner was just beginning the task of breaking it in from the wilderness stage. The work done consists of 15.000 acres fenced into 33 subdivisions, 800 acres of pasture laid down with the plough, 1000 acres of pasturo surface sown after burning off scrub, 100 acres in root crops, 50 acres in oats. The stock consists of 2500 sheep, 1300 lambs, 60 cattle, and 35 horses. But these things are merely the visible and tangible results of a few years' labour. The real work consisted of the enterprise and daring of a man giving up an old-established and lucrative business in the city and going j out into the pumice lands wilderness to turn it to account, when nearly everybody thought pumice lands were absolutely worthless. There is no doubt that Mr. V aile could have made money under much more easy circumstances in "the city, but it would be a bad thing for New Zealand if its men chose always the easiest and pleasantest paths in life. Mr. Vaile has done a much greater thing than making money. He has won through a very difficult and risky task, and has opened the way to the utilisation of a great area of counts,, which will eventually prove of immense importance to the Dominion. Three Sheep to the Acre. When I saw fine grass paddocks spreading where once I had seen dense--thickets of manuka and manaoa, and rode across rich pasture where I had shot wild duck and pukcko on swamp and lagoon. I realised something of the pride a man may I well feel in turning waste country to productive use. There was one particular clock of country which at the time of my Previous visit was being cleared of scrub It now consists of 93 acres of pasture put in with the plough, and 50 acres of surfacesown grass It struck me as being typical of many thousands of acres in the same y"? 1 - ked , Mr - Vaile what stock it had carried. He keeps an excellent class of farming records, and was able to tell me accurately We took the area as 150 acres, which is probably above its true measurement, and then "found that with the assistance of 50 acres of swede* tor winter feed it had earned 3| sheep to the acre all the year round. From practical experience of similar areas Mr. Vaile anas that surface-sown grasses on the reclaimed swamps will carry three sheep to the acre quite well, and that on the poorer and drier lands where the scrub is simply burnt and the grasses sown without manure the land will readily carry half a sheep to the acre. But I know from my observation in other places that when this poorer land is top-dressed with suitable lertilisers or ploughed into grass after turnips or clover its carrying capacity will be more than doubled, and when it "is put tor a third time into pasture with a moderate dressing of manure its stock-carrying capacity will be again doubled. So far the worked parts of Broadlands are only practically in their first and most primitive stage of cultivation. The fact that it

costs £2 per ton for the cartage of fertilisers from Rotorua, apart from the railway ireight to Rotorua, makes the use of manures somewhat expensive ; but- while WW land will carry such good pasture simply surface-sown on scrub burns and drained swamps there is no great need for more intensive farming. That will come when the railway runs through to Taupo or when settlers combine to carry fertilisers and produce in motor waggons. Future Development. t»L * Spent , a ic Z most Pheasant and interesting days riding over Broadlands. It is a remarkable estate and has immense possibilities for development, but it needs hundreds of farmers instead ot one to utilise its resources. I have seen its cultivations spread out from a little more than three acres to nearly three square miles m extent, but this is only a fraction of its total . area ' and beyond it are other great estates and greater areas still of idle Crown and native lands which after the war is over our Government should make. strenuous efforts to settle. If given proper means of communication it is essentially the country for the medium-sized ; and not the large class of farm. The I climate is so bracing and healthy that this country should be close! v settled so as to give us an additional virile and ener<~tic population. It is such attractive country •when cultivated that it is a pity to see it lying waste, and it is well watered with clear, swift streams stocked with rainbowtrout, and there running through it is the great VVaikato River, perhaps the most •wonderful angling stream in the whole 7. . .1- J - r i eat changes have been made in this district during the past seven years, but they have largely been preliminary breaking-in of rough places the breaking down of prejudiced against . pumice country, the opening up of practical ways to success. In the next sever, jears the changes will be greater and more, widespread The high officials in our State Agricultural and and Lands Departments \nll awaken to the fact that this Particular district can grow something besides forest trees, and even Auckland city people will realise that they have a great new trading area opened'to them, without any effort on their part.