BREAKING IN LAND.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVII, Issue 20604, 1 July 1930, Page 14

BREAKING IN LAND.

Sir, —In my time I l ave broken in lands .if heavy bush at a cost of £1 7s 6d per acre for clearing it and £1 per acre for grass seed, and bought the land at 10s per acre. I had other heavy bush land given me by Government under homostead law at the cost of survey, 2s bd per acre, and it did not; cost me 10:-: r>er acre to fence it: I hid two sheep to the acre cm the farm within a year from t.h« iiine I acquired it. L have bought good land at 10s per acre, put a fire through the flax on it and had good grass on if, and it still grows spbndid grass after 60 vcars in grass. I have cleared seconddass land at a cost, of 10s per acre and £1 for grass seed, an:! had four sheep to tho acre on it iuside of a year. At tiio end of three years I have ploughed this land al; a cost of tillage of £1 per acre and grass seed again £l, and the land had earned this last charge of £2 per aero before the cost had to be charged up io it. I have seen poor pun land ploughed at a total charge of £1 10s for working it up after a fire through the scrub, bonedusted and sown down in oats at a cofcf, of £1 10s per acre, and seen one ton and a-half of oats come off this same land. Land of this sort I have seen bought for the rates on if, Is tc 3s per acre, and fenced at 10s per acre. The whole question is the wage que.rtion. If men would go on' the land with the idea of making a home: all would be well, and we should have no one looking' for work and unemployed men. Gforce, L. Thomson.