A NEW PROVINCE.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LX, Issue 18342, 7 March 1923, Page 7

A NEW PROVINCE.

■ \ -'• • "- ENORMOUS ARABLE AREAS.

! GREAT VALLEYS AND PLAINS. POTENTIAL DAIRYING LAND. [by OUtt SPECIAL COMMISSIONER.] No. n. No traveller by the main coach road between Rotorua and Taupo can form anyadequate conception of the immense area of potentially good farm land which lies on both sides of that most primitive and inadequate highway. He may notice- as occasional observant persons do notice, the success of the fow cultivations close at hand, but he certainly cannot see the scores of thousands of acres of easy undulating country, the great flats, and beautiful open valleys which spread for mile beyond mile both eastward and westward. It is not until one turns off the main road and journeys for some distance as I did that one can see anything of the huge area of rich reclaimed swamp in the valley of the Waiotapu, or the still greater area of alluvial flats in the valley of the Waikato: and even then the vast spread of the Kaingaroa Plains would bo hidden from them, and they would have left behind them the great flats and terraces which reach from the main road to the foothills of the Paeroa ranges. It is common enough, 1 know, for people to form. strong opinions regarding land from impressions gained during a rapid if bumpy journey by motor-car. but the man who judges the resources of a district in this manner is not to be reiied on. I have ridden and walked and driven for hun- | dreds of miles in this part of New Zealand ; I have been over all its ill-formed roads and many of its '..Maori and wildi horse tracks, and in many places where ! there are not even tracks; but each time I visit this country I find new areas of promising land to surprise me and new possibilities for settlement to please me. The Evidence of Experience. This main coach road from-' Rotorua to Waiotapu and the by-road into the Waiotapu Valley is one of the main entrances into that (jreat new province whose early development I have •ventured to prophesy will soon astonish New Zealanders. The new province is entered as scon as one descends from the Mamaku plateau to the plain about Rotorua, and Rotorua is already playing an important part in its development, and wilt undoubtedly become its northern capital. If Auckland business men visiting that charming thermal centre for pleasure or sport would take the trouble to visit some of tho farms about Ngongotaha, such as that created by the Martyn brothers, or those nearer the town recently made by the Messrs. Webster, Wrigley, Res, Hardcastle, and others, or if this is too much trouble, would even study the wonderful vegetable gardens at the Grand Hotel or Mr. J. N. McLean's home farm, they would see how remarkably productive these soils can be made with proper cultivation and suitable manures; and if they cannot see that just the same results can be won on exactly the same class of soil which spreads over hundreds of thousands of acres south and east and west, then their vision is not equal to their business acumen, and they will have to take some of the journeys that I have taken and see for themselves that in the Waiotapu Valley, and in the Waikato Valley, and in other valleys, and in a hundied other places just the same results are being won by just the same methods. : " It-they do this they < must be convinced that the vast area of pumacious and rhyolite soils which constitute the new province I aim describing will eventually, when give* proper means of communication, becoire a province of small farms intensively worked and" immensely productive. What such development will mean to themselves and ..to their children they are shrewd enough to know, for they must know, that under, such circumstances these now useless millions of ■ acres will carry a, dense and prosperous population which will vastly increase the trade of, Auckland and benefit every part of New Zealand. t f Tba Waiotapu and Waikato Valleys. • Let me give just a bird's-eye sketch of the country which lies to the eastward -of the Main Rotorua-Taupo Road, and through which I passed on my way : to Broadlands. It is a district rarely. seen by the ordinary traveller, and is, f think, one of the most important parts of. the new province to be. On the left lies the great flats of the Waiotapu Valley, dotted here and there with the new homesteads of the Reporoa soldiers' settlement. There must be over 20,000 acres of flat or plough - able land, in this valley, much of which is reolaimed swamp. When Messrs Stead and Watt farmed a litis more than half this flat country it , carried 1500 cattle and about 8000 sheep. I do not hesitate to say that when fully settled find fully improved -it will carry over 9000 dairy cows and yield nearly £200,000 yearly in butter-fat and stock. -But the Waiotapu Valley is not the only flat country, for it debouches without a break into the still greater- Waikato Valley, which stretches for nearly 30 miles toward I Lake Taupo, and which contains to the ' eastward of the Waikato River alone over 125,000 acres of flat country and fully-as much easy arable land, while just above the valley levels, connected with it in -places''.'•■ by gentle slopes, spreads the Kaingaroa Plains, which contain about 300,000 acres, most of which is ploughable, and much of which consists of better soil than is now. being so successfully farmed on .-.,') the Tokoroa Plains south of Putaruru.. . Is there any other part of New Zealand where such a vast area of unused land and ploughable land can be ? found capable of being turned into ..email ana productive farms? But can it be turned into good , farms, is a question that may be asked. To my mind there is no doubt about it. If I had only seen the resultsV-.'. ; won at Rotorua on similar soils, or at different places along the road between Rotorua and Waiotapu, I could say "Yes" with absolute assurance, but right in the midst • of this great extent of arable country lies Broadlands, where irrefutable evidence can be found that not only the better types of soil have already been made into good pasture and cropping farms, but that the lighter and poorer types can, at a lower cost, be made to grow grass roots as luxuriantly and abundantly as some of our high-priced dairying lands and beyond Broadlands is Wainui, where further evidence may be found that these soils can be turned readily > into I dairying or stock-fattening country, and beyond Wainui, right down to the south, of Lake Taupo, the Maori settlements, the land of the Prisons Department and scattered pakeha holdings show by their patches of luxuriant grasses , and clovers, by ':. their, plots of tall maize, by their heavy potato yields, and by their wonderful vegetable gardens, how productive such soils can, be made by ordinary cultivation and an exceedingly small amount of manures, Ido not hesitate to say that '£ ' believe " that * a large proportion of this country can be turned into dairying and fattening farms if reasonable means of communication are provided; and this being the case, it is easy enough to point out that here . lies the field for immigrants and sturdy young New Zealanders, for that increased population and wealth production which this country so sorely needs. 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