A PROMISING EXPERIMENT.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LVI, Issue 17258, 6 September 1919, Page 8

A PROMISING EXPERIMENT.

The Auckland District Repatriation Board is to be congratulated upon inaugurating a policy which promises to facilitate an alternative and extremely valuable form of soldier-settlement. The board's proposals are simple, direct, and statesmanlike, and they have the inestimable merit of facing the facts of the land situation squarely. One is that, as the Government properly gives preference to experienced j applicants, soldiers without experience have little chance of securing land for a considerable time to come. Another is that the greater part of the Crown lands now re- ! maining are of inferior quality. There is much land of the highest natural fertility still locked up, but the largest, and averagely the most accessible areas, while capable of producing abundantly, require improvement of a special character. In this class are the pumice and gum lands, which in themselves offer a vast field for profitable settlement. Much of the gum land has the additional advantage, from the point of view of soldier settlement, that it is within comparatively easy distance of the city. The problem of utilising these unimproved areas to provide a livelihood for inexperienced men naturally falls into several stages. Obviously the first necessity is training, which is, notwithstanding the settlers who make good without it, a sine qua non of every form of successful farming. Training, as the Repatriation Board observes, can be given to advantage on the poorer land ; in fact, it is not too much to say that the treatment of gum land is a special branch of agricultural experience which can only be acquired on that class ol ! soil. The board has wisely decided to make a start training soldiers on an area near Auckland City, and though its future programme is indefinite there is every reason to anticipate that the proposal contains the germ of a very extensive system of soldier settlement. Much will depend upon the location and suitability of the training farm, and the board is therefore justified in hesitating before it accepts the Birdwood Estate, which has already been the subject of unfavourable comment, and does less than justice to the gum lands of the province. J There should be no great difficulty in securing an area near the city typical in both its merits and demerits of the poorer lands of the province. The settlement of the gum and pumice country is a matter of great moment to the Auckland province. Under proper management it can be made an unusually remunerative business for great numbers of returned soldiers.