THE COUNTRY.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LV, Issue 16798, 14 March 1918, Page 8

THE COUNTRY.

WORK OF PIONEERS.

UPPER? WAIKATO SETTLEMENT.

[ntj,bTjm SPKCIAL COMMISSIONER.] YouN'o Taraati Roi Rewiti met me with a horse at the forty-mile peg on the TaupoRotorna Road, and we proceeded by a Maori track through scrub country toward To Toki, a native settlement on the banks of tho Waikato. Tamati was somewhat taciturn, and I was content just to look at the country. "' It is worth looking at here— on account of its picturesqueness, but on account of its possibilities. For several miles behind mo it stretched as an inclined piano towards the foot of the wonderful Pouroa Ranges; ahead of me it sloped gently to the valley of the river arid beyond the river spread in mathematically level fiats to tho edge of the Kaingaroa plateau. Northward these mathematically level flats extend for nearly thirty miles, or far up tho Waiotapu Valley! while tho buttressed edge of the Kaingnroa stretched north and south nearly twice the distance, much further than the eye could see. The vast scale of the valley" is impressive, and some day, when it is broken in to fields and pasture, and dotted with tree-sheltered homesteads, it will be really beautiful Tamati guided me through the scrub to where the bank of the Waikato went steeply down to swift-flowing waters, and then' informed me that the horse could go no further. I argued that it could, for I had no desire to carry luggage, but he was adamant, and- so we had to scramble down a breakneck track to the* edse of the water, then a few coo-ee>s and whistles brought a boat, from tho opposite bank, and 1 was lowed across to meet my friends, who have just commenced the pioneering work of breaking into farming use a block of about seven thousand acres. The Makings of a Farm. I have given details of the Maori track from main road; the steep descent to the edge" of the Waikato, and the row across The swift river, just to show what difficulties are encountered in settling newcountry. .' This is at present the easiest way my. friends have of communicating with thVouter world, and the route through which all their goods must come at present. The nearest township is TaupO, nearly twenty miles away. Rotorua, the next nearest, is 43 mi'es away. . The amount of freight on £40 worth of timber recently brouglit in was £30, and then it had to be rafted across the river and sledged some distance. It is difficulties and expenses like these which handicap the settlement of the Taupo country as it does of' many other parts cf the Aurk'nnd Prrv'nce, and this great tract of arable country in the valleys of tho Waikato and the Waiotapu will never have a favourable chance for development until the railway is pushed oh from Rotorua to Taupo, or until a good load is made on the eastern side of the river. My friends are living in te"t= set in a e'enrm? amid the ;cinb, , but already work has commenced on j house-building, so some of tho discomforts i of pioneering will disappear. I have to confess, however that I saw no great hardship in camping there; the tents were pitched by an experienced hand ; tho cookiny was ?. v -co"'"."t. »nd 'f o»p wanted ' 'esli trout it was there for the taking in illimitable quantities. The block of land which I saw in the very first stages of pioneer farming is typical of a very great extent of country I on the eastern side of the Waikato Valley. ' It consists pi, a H section of the big flat which, as'l mentioned, is over 50 miles in ' length, vsecl'on of the escarpment o' the ; Kaingaroa and a portion of the higher ; plain. The 'flat by tho river is about: 1000 ft above sea level; the higher plain.' about lSOOfi; the bulk of the land is' ploughable, but all of it is covered at pre- ; . sent with scrub., fern, or tu?s«'ic v S'mceits area covers about 10 square miles its . breaking in is no small colArnet, and ] even its exploration is not a' light task, i Soon after my arrival we started out to cross the ;•• main j flat, pushing through the wet '" scrub by wild horse tracks toward - the . Kaingaroa country. Although the big ,fiat seemed '• absolutely regular from a distance, there ■was plenty of variety— whore, in some wonderful way, clovers and English grasses have taken hold, swamps covered with flax and toitoi, bearing promise of rich pasture to come, delicious little creeks j and springs, and,- of course, changes of soil and vegetation. The Farm to be Made. In spite of distance from towns and lack of road communication, this country offers many advantages for settlement, * and it requires, but little imagination to realise what a fine estate can be made out of these 10 square miles of land I have men-' tioned if labour and money and timo are devoted to the work. Under the j plough the big flats can be turned into [i fields and pasture, belts of timber trees will take the place of the monotonous manuka • and' manaoa. The creeks now running '. through mere jungles of scrub will become grass, margined streams, and probably; fast express trains will speed down the valley, taking sightseers and health-seekers from all parts of the world to Taupo and the great National Park on the central mountains. Without doubt a : road will have to be made before this big valley can- be properly developed, and when it is made it will be a very important road, for it will tap the large areas of arable land on the eastern sids of the Kaingaroa Plains and other Crown lands near Taupo. There are attractions, too, in building up new estates in this part of New Zealand which' should appeal to the wealthy young Englishman who loves sport. The river frontages to the Waikato offer the finest fishing waters in the world, and provide • excellent water-fowl shooting, for duck and teal, pukeko and bittern, and'Tiosts of other birds have their breeding-grounds on the flats, whilst inland are hares? and pheasants and the •everlasting quail. The Financial Side. The main 'point in the settlement of this class of country is of course the financial aspect. At the present time the prices of fencing wire, grass seed, manures, and all the things needed to build up a farm are so high that it does not need nearly one hundred per cent added in the shape of freight to constitute a serious handicap. The value of land has low in order to make it worth working,'!'and economies-,,mu3t be used which are certainly v out of I .the reach of poor men. It is possible, r of.course, by the use of expensive machinery to greatly reduce the cost of clearing and cultivating. No doubt if suitable motor tractors were utilised the scrub could bo crushed or felled much cheaper than by tho hand slasher, and at the same time tho land could be ploughed at a less cost than by horses. These great, flats lend themselves admirably to working by machinery on a large scale, and of course the use of motor tractors should largely reduce the cost of freight. But these thinirs necessitate a considerable outlay of capital, and" are not possible without proper roads. Given pood roads and the opening of the big areas of Crown lands now lying idle in this particular district, and there is little doubt but what capital and labour would be forthcoming, and where (here are only one or two men now pioneering in this Upper Waikato Valley there would soon be hundreds. The absence of means of communication always means that land has to be worked in large areas, and that the private capitalist has to open the way for the working settler. The only alternative is for the State to shoulder this class of work and incidentally the profits. If it pays the owners of larcrc improved estates to sell them to the Government for cutting up into small farms, it should pay the Government to improve its own estates for the same purpose, and this will have to be done before the wealth production'and tho farming populations of New Zealand can be increased to any extent.