FARMING AT ROTORUA.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LVIII, Issue 17724, 8 March 1921, Page 6

FARMING AT ROTORUA.

SOME ENORMOUS YIELDS.

CHEAP DAIRYING LAND.

[BY OCR SPECIAL COMiIISStONXB.]

It would be daring, perhaps, to prophesy that Rotorua will at no distant date become one of the great agricultural towns of the Dominion, and yet no one who has studied the districts of which this famous holiday resort is the centre will deny that they have immense agricultural resources awaiting development, and that sufficient progress has already been made to indicate that agricultural development is already well under way with most satisfactory and promising results. The amount of arable and pastoral country surrounding Rotorua is exceptionally large. On the shores of the lake itself there are between 30,000 and 40,000 acres of flats, and the adjacent hill country in many places is of the easiest description. Proofs of the suitability of this land for farming are found from Te Ngae to Hamurana, and are multiplying daily. Beyond Eake Rotorua a good type of land stretches eastward around Rotoiti, Rotoehu and JEtotoma to the verv slopes that descend to the Bay of Plenty. The great plateau which stretches northward of Rotorua is at present largely covered with valuable forests, but wherever this has been cleared, pasture of the most luxuriant type has been established. It is to the southward, however, that the greatest extent of open arable land is found, for it stretches unbroken, except for island-like groups of hills, for 50 miles or more. There are several hundred thousand acres of potential farm land tapped by the roads which radiate in all directions from Rotorua, and great areas v/hich, if too rough for farming purposes, offer immense possibilities in the way of afforestation, for one has only to see the Government plantations already established and to hear the opinions of experienced officials to realise that this is one of the most wonderful timbergrowing districts in the world. Small Farms Well Tilled.

It has heen asserted a good many times in the columns of this journal that not only are the vast areas of light pumice soils in the Rotorua. and adjacent districts capable of being transformed into useful farm lands, hut that under proper_ methods they can be brought to a very high standard of production. Unfortunately the officials of the Lands Department, as well as some of the leading members of the Government, still believe that this class of land because it is alleged to be pooT, can be 'best worked in large areas in a poor way. Proofs of the advantages of the small farm well tilled can be found in nearly every part of the vast pumice area which covers somewhere about 5.000,000 acres, but in no part is it better exemplified tlian in the environs of Kotorua. A little while ago, at the invitation of the president of the Rotoma A. and P. Association, and in company with representatives of the Chamber of Commerce, banking and other institutions, I paid a visit to several different holdings on the very borders of the Rotorua township, which acre for acre are yielding as much as. some of the richest and highest priced lands in the Dominion. The most striking of these® properties perhaps was Mr. J. N. McLean's general farm of 33 acres, 4 which during the past 12 months Is stated to have yielded a gross return of £2230, or an ayerage of nearly £67 per acre. The yield was made up as follows:—Honey £20, pigs £470, milk £350, vegetables and fruit £220, eggs £790, poultry £380. Prices were high last season, and Mr. McLean is iii a favourable position to market his products, but after making every allowance, it has to be acknowledged that few farms in any part of New Zealand can. show better gross returns than this. Mr. McLean made a very important suggestion when he urged that soldier settlers should not be encouraged to work their holdings on the single purpose system. "It is the mixed farm which suits the small farmer," he said. " Poultry and pigs provide manure for vegetables and fruit and pasture; these - provide food for pigs and noultry and cows: one helps the other. When one sees the" prodigious yield of root crops, fodder crops, vegetables and fruit, on these well-cultivated plots, one understands how much of the actual monetary returns come from the soil though they may come in the shape of eggs, poultry, pork, milk, butter. Making New Dairy Farms.

On Mr. J. R. Webster's farm of a similar area to that of Mr. McLean's, thera is the; same evidence of high production due to more or less intense cultivation. The yield of field and garden crops is remarkable and proves beyond all doubt that these pumice lands have illimitahln possibilities. I was, however, especially interested in a new block of 20 acres which Mr. Webster has recently broken in. It has often been stated by people who pose as experienced fanners, that the pumice lands can only be made productive by" the expenditure of large sums of money, and by a long period of working. My own personal observation teaches me that no virgin land not even bush country, can be broken in so quickly or so cheaply as the pumice lands. In Mr. Webster's cose, he'showed me a paddock which had been Cleared of scrub and fern in the early summer. The land was ploughed once, harrowed once, tine cultivated .twice, rolled twice, and sown down at the end of January, 1920, with 31b. cow grass, 31b. western wolth, £lb. white clover, £ib. alsike. lib. timothy. 41b. oats, together with 1001b. super, 1001b. bonedust, 1001b. superphosphate, 6001b. lime. In three months after sowing the owner was milking cows on it, and it carried equal to a cow to two acres. This paddock was shut up for three months in the dead oi winter, then it wag top dressed (by drill), with 2cwt. of super and guano, and at the time of my visit was carrying more than a, cow to two acres, and the stock could not eat down the feed, for the whole paddock looks as if it had been shut up for hay or seed. Some farmers may exclaim at the amount of manure used, but since the land was purchased at £3 an acre, and is within about two miles from- the centre of Rotorua, one of the best markets in New Zealand, and since the cost of the lands freehold, and th» cost of putting it down in pasture did not exceed a total of £510 per acre, there is still a large margin, left for future improvements. Mr- Singjeton, one-of the .chiefs of our dairying division, estimates that it takes £I£o worth of land in the Dominion to keep a dairy cow; on this estimate—Mr. Webster's pasture—keeping a cow to two acres, should be worth £7d per acre. Since it cost him less than £10 an acre there is a margin of £65 per acre over average good dairying lands, the interest on which alone would provide quite a substantial sum per year from even a small farm. In view of such examples as these and others in the same district, it is ts matter of supreme regret that the Government, instead of paying high prices fbr improved farms, did not improve, at their own expense, some of the great areas of idle Crown I lands in this district for soldier settle- i ment. If it had cost them even £7 an j acre to make the neceesarv improvements, it would, still have been infinitelv cheaper than private estates, and would have added new areas to productive use.