KING COUNTRY LANDS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIII, Issue 19221, 9 January 1926, Page 11

KING COUNTRY LANDS.

DETERIORATED PASTURES.^ LEGACY CF THE WAR YEARsN INCUBUS OF UNUSED AREAS.'. No. 11. The King Country is not the only dis- i trict possessing deteriorated pastures. It has earned a reputation in that respect i simply from the fact that its early prom- j isu was so good that great things were j expected of it in the matter of production. This promise to a large extent has i been fulfilled. The deteriorated pasturo i is confined to the hill lands of the back- | blocks, which required careful lis'idling j during tlnj war years, and did not get it. F.nancial considerations and a dearth ; of labour added to the tribulations of the settlers during r difficult period, all contributed to the slipping back of holdings that had been famous producers. They i will come back in the majority of cases, | but certain things should be done to acceleriite the redemption of the district and to enable the settlers who have striven nobly to make good to reap at j least soma reward from their labours. It is typical of the pioneering life that j the settlers still discuss the causes and effects of the pasture deterioration from : the ftaodpoint of the man who has been ! more or less misled or gone astray on , good farm practice. He blames himself entirely. No extraneous influence enters 1 into his calculations. " If 1 had dons • this or that," he says, " I would have been all right and the countrj&would not have gone back. I should have kept cattle with the sheep on tho rough country, and should never have attempted to i • dairy off the best pasture." Effect of Beef War. Just so. But momentarily he forgets i that for tho last few seasons a isuicidal war haa been waged in the British markets between tho great beef-producing ' companies of the world. Tho result is ! that tho New Zealand frozen beef, indus- j try, on which much of our farming prosperity depended, has been reduced to a negligible factor. Our settlers who had ! been accustomed to relying on their beef ! for a substantial portion of the farm ro- i turns found themselves cut off from that item of revenue. Mote important still, the cattle that wero required to keep tho bush pastures t from deteriorating in most cases could not be carried, as they were unprofitable stock from,the financiers' point of view. 1 Farmers were forced into dairying on land ' that, although carrying a great growth i of pasture, was absolutely unsuitable for dairying, and showed rapid deterioration as a result of such operations in the first two or three seASona. The Settler's Seal Problem. The problem that affects the King 1 Country farmer is not so much tho ques- ( tion of getting his pasturo back to its 1 best producing capacity. Ho is .solving that through the common sense methods ' of fertilising, subdividing and stocking. ' Tho ordinary pastures that can be ploughed and treated in the usual way ; need not be considered any further than providing the . holders with reasonable I financial .assistance. There is a greater problem to be solved ; in regard to holdings in the backblocks ( which embrace a greater miiount of hill 1 country, a considerable portion of which , should never have been included in the ! original selection. Tho majority of these holdings are suitable only for sheep and : cattle grazing and originally had to' be , of fair extent to enable the settler to j undertake his operations. Those men who hold from 1000 to 2000 1 acres of hill country now find that several hundred acres of their holdings are quite useless for farming. But they still have ( to pay rent to the Government and local taxes on a substantial portion of the land from which they can never hope to obtain any revenue. The Burden of Useless Land. Practically every section its what is known as the Mairoa district has a "white elephant" of this description to carry. On a holding of 1000 acres probably 200 are practically useless for producing purposes and the burden of rent and taxes on such a percentage of unproductive land is a serious handicap to the This was not felt to any great extent in the earlier years when the best portions of the holding were being brought in and were yielding prodigally. It was a problem i;hen to find sufficient stock to keep the feed down in the spring and summer months. When the deterioration of hill pasture began, with the result that the carrying capacity of the whole area decreased, the incubus of the non-producing portions of the holdings began to be felt. It is questionable if this aspect of the hill lauds difficulty in the King Country—and perhaps other districts —has received iiufficient consideration. The surveyors who originally laid out the settlement schemes no doubt used great discretion in their work. Certain areas were re- : garded as purely grazing lands tmd wero ( subdivided accordingly. 'ln hill country carrying denssi hush, ! however, it is impossible to asses* the t quantity of land that can be brought in and kept in good pasture. The shady j slopes of the King Country that are sub- , jected to the vigorous westerly winds, ana frequent rains, and receive little sunshine j are best left alone in most cases. According to the percentage of this class of i country on the section is the value of the i holding determined in. the final analysis. , Afforestation Suggested. The problem of tho hill lands of the ■ King Country can never be solved until | this factor is taken seriously into con- ( sideration by the Government. It is suggested by some of the settlers > that these unproductive areas should be resumed by the State and used for forestry 1 purposes. The suggestion is worthy of i serious consideration. The settlers cari ( make no reasonable use of such lftfid and ; should be relieved of the burden of paying ( for it. Exactly how these areas which are ( distributed through the various holdings could be utilised is in itself something of a problem. It is, however, an important phase of a g;eat national question, and in any scheme of assistance for hill country farmers must be considered. That the- Government ir» in earnest in its endeavours to assist in restoring the deteriorated hill pastures is manifested not only in the work of the Royal Commission appointed to investigate the position, but also in the activities of the instructors of the Department of Agriculture. The officers of the department have done great work in experimenting and in instructing settlers, and their labous are bearing good frut. The problem, however, in not altogether academic or scientific. There are financial and human aspects to it that require the exercise of statesmanship and a practical knowledge that only the man most interested possesses.