IN THE COUNTRY.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LIX, Issue 18173, 19 August 1922, Page 1 (Supplement)

IN THE COUNTRY.

BEAUTY OF DEVELOPMENT.

j BY WAYFARER.

The changes wrought in less than twenty years along the pleasant lands between the hills east and west from . the Waikato to the Waihou are to the stranger again wayfaring about Auckland a revelation of progress. So much has been done in so many ways that it is difficult to appraise adequately all the features of achievement. It is not surprising to find a brisk tone of optimism in the life of the robust settlers. Their outlook is good. The pinch of economic adversity has passed, and with it has gone the stifling influence of pessimism. There is a lilt in their initial community singing that is truer than the most boisterous song one hears in the city. Perhaps there is less need in the country for assertive optimism. The prospects of prosperity are features of the landscape. A great countryside anticipates a- rich season of productivity. All the land is full of the promise that lies on the border of spring. Pasture and tilth, though the latter now is only an occasional study in brown for the wayfarer, have been sweetened and strengthened by fugitive frosts rtlier brisker this winter than are usual about Auckland. These have shortened feed on many a dairy farm, but the real yeoman, rather than the mere speculator, sets the benefits of that against the lesser disadvantages. He points out that herds are in excellent condition, and probably looking better and promising more than ever before at this time of the year. Then, moreover, a multitude of pestering insects has been easily destroyed. For all their notoriety fqr grumbling countryfolk have a keen eVe for compensations. They see bright prospects of a profitable springtime. . The Verge,of Spring. Even now there is but little evidence of winter. Less than twenty miles from the city the earliest of early lambs are already gambolling in the fields, ludicrously ungainly in their immaturity, and delightfully absurd in the antics of their timidity as the clattering intrusion of a train sweeps past. In many sunny place* hundreds of ewes are folded for the season of profit. Everywhere hedgerows of gorse and shelter copses of wattle are golden with bloom, ridiculing the very name of winter. The whole country seems ready for the soft call of a genial spring. It may be said that almost all this part of the province, from the gardens of Auckland suburbs to the backbone of the Coromandel Range, that tempers the east wind for the flocks and herds.along the wide valley of the Thames, is now a dairy farm. It is only in what the homely settlers speak of as "Bill Massoy's district" that the character of 'the soil is revealed by the plough, with white seabirds industriously enjoying its generous • service. What a great holding it all seems to the wayfarer with intimate knowledge of life amidst the primary industries of many countries in the Old World and the New. The change in the landscape from its unkempt appearance some fifteen years ago, when I first saw it. is a vivid lesson in the progress of settlement. It is ""an old saying, that it takes at least a hundred years to produce beauty in the country. That may be true as to the beauty that is skin-deep, butjt has no application to the beauty ofdevetbpment as revealed south of Auckland and eastward to the Thames Valley. Marshes have been brought to rich meadow lands, and a former wilderness of tea-tree and fern on pug and pumice has been given to pasture, trim farms, and orchards. On hundreds of holdings now the pasture is as clean and rich as parks with a cenftury of cultivation to their growth. Homesteads are solid and attractive*, with an air of comfortable prosperity in their brightness. The shack of the iD-rewarded grubber among fern and tea-tree in former days has disappeared, and the motor-car has become a part of the essential equipment of the homestead. It may be noted, too, that fences generally are now strong and seat. and that in many, though not yet in all. localities, the Auckland farmer is reapsing the economic value of shelter trees and hedgerowot. Features of Progress. The whole countryside makes a picture of amazing progress. It is true, of course, that the picture is neither complete nor perfect. Here and there the landscape :is still defaced, by reclaimahle marshes and expanses of pumice lands, but against that defect the development already accomplished is an appreciable compensation. To some extent the quick forward march of development and successful settlement in some localities appears to have been arrested in; similar, and even the same, districts. It would be interesting to know the reason for the apparent halt in development. „ Are the unimproved areas ■ held by owners without capital to continue the great work that has Iwen done so well, and no quickly, on adjoining holdings, Or afe they owned by the Crown, and neglected by administrators without' initiative ? The question should be of more interest to the Aucklander than to the wayfarer, for the core of the city's wealth is in the country. Consider, for example, the wide stretch of promising lands along the railway between Hamilton and To Aroha, and especially the areas roughly west of Morrinsville. The land comprising the Ruakura Fairm of Instruction, and several attractive holdings in and about its locality, afford wondegfjal proof of .\he development that has ffeen effected in a decade and a lustrum. * There was a ti-ne when wise men from the cultivated lands of the South Island hot only thought that effort to develop the lands in the first stretch of the Rotorua line was a hopeless extravagance, but said so. and added their opinion to a settled conviction that this province would always be the poor North. , Time and skill have wrought so many changes in the same " poor North" that it is a matter for surprise and regret that thousands of acres of neglected land should not be brought to the same standard of rich productivity of similar areas in the district The Standard of Herds. Surely nowhere else outside of Ireland could one see, as can be seen in the South Auckland land district, so many attractive illustrations of the perfect Irish -bull." Thus, if you see thirteen cows in a meadow, and all are lying down except one. it's a bull! There are now. hundreds of dairy herds where twenty years ago there were only bcores within the boundaries of a day's journey by train. In respect of many of the increased herds there has been noteworthy development, though dairy farmers still explain that lack of J wealth hinders full improvement of the j breed. But considerable progress has been made, and many farmers are learning to appreciate the value of rigorous herd-testing. In this much remains to be done, but since the results of testing and wise culling are demonstrated in the form of increased financial returns, even the least progressive dairy farmer is alert to the value of herd development.. .it is recognised that the foundation of the prosperity of the Auckland Province is. fcutter-fat. It may melt on occasions, so to speak, but if the product ion be m--1 creased to the full capacity of a countryside the future need not J» viewed with apprehension. There; »J*Jl Twide scone for a wonderful development Sf industry in a generously-re-land. lb** who axe laakiqtf.in S or appreciation of opportunities should spend a winter in Canada, a summi in Australia, and a year only amidst SS - turmoil of Europe They .would gladly return, determined , to strive, for fhe addition «f one great advantage from oldefconntries to the greater natural advantagesof Auckland Province; and tnat, It ™»fss is a goodr-wid everywhere hi tL S'tff" The Auckland provincial highways aw nearly- as bad as Bolshevism. >, y ■ , -