OTOROHANGA COUNTY.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LX, Issue 18342, 7 March 1923, Page 3 (Supplement)

OTOROHANGA COUNTY.

ABUNDANCE OF CHEAP METAL. The Otorohanga County has just come into being, its territory being portion of the original Waitomo County, practically the whole of the Wharepapa road district and the Mangaorpngo road district. It runs east to the Waikato River, the boundary running thence along the line of the Owairaka Stream to the Puniu River, near Te Awamutu, thence westward pest Te Kawa to the Waipa River, then north to Pirongia. It then follows the boundaries of the Raglan and Kawhia Counties on the west and the Waitomo boundary on the south. The capital value of the district is £2,500,000. Unlike the Taumarnnui County Council, which has just come into being, tho Otorohawra Council takes over tho control of a district that is fairly well roaded. Indeed, the county contains some of the finest roads in the province, the result of enterprise in the past by other authorities. But the district has had the great advantage of unlimited supplies of high grade metal with which the bed of tho Waipa River is filled. Pieces of road in the vicinity of the stream have been meddled at 2s a cubic yard. It is claimed that the council can metal three miles of road for the price of one mile of metalling in most other counties. Until a few months ago all the metal taken from the river lied was loaded by head into drays driven into the stream, but a privato concern has recently adopted mechanical means, a half-yard grab operating on the drag principle from a hawser rigged across the river. It is thus possible to load metal into drays without a single human effort beyond tho manipulation of clutches on the engine. For some fen weeks the plant has been at work in the seme place and a hole about 40ft. lias been made with no sign of clay being reached.* The metal from the deeper levels is of better quality than that obtained on the surface, and there is every indication that Otorohanga will have an increased business in metal. At picsent tho shinglo is being sent as far as Pukekohe and Morrinsville. Seven or eight miles up the Waipa there is a vast deposit of high grade shingle, and the Public Works Department once considered the question of laying a railway line to it, an amount once appearing on tho Estimates. Local residents are of course anxious to see this work carried out. One of the first acts of the Otorohanga County Council, which came into existence last year, was to raise a loan to assist farmers in the Maihiihi district on tho east sido of tho county to cope with the rabbit problem. The council purchases netting and supplies it to farmers on easy terms. So far as is known this is the first council to adopt such a plan. It enables the district to tackle the pest, in a comprehensive manner.