LAND OF PROGRESS

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXI, Issue 21951, 7 November 1934, Page 15

LAND OF PROGRESS

THE BAY OF ISLANDS RICH VOLCANIC PLATEAU ADVANCE OF LAMB RAISING CONFIDENCE IN FUTURE [BY OUR SPECIAL COMMISSIONER] No. IX. North of TVhangarei on one coast and Dargaville on the other lies the widest portion of the great North Auckland Peninsula. Splendid harbours form its four corners, bounding a land of diversified potentialities, of admirable farming achievements and of highly promising prospects. A glanca at"any map of the locality impresses one outstanding feature. The west coast is as straight and unbroken as a measuring rod; the east coast is a maze of irregularity. Bays, inlets, capes and promontories form a coastline which is anything but monotonous and provide some of the most charming scenic attractions in the Dominion. It is off these picturesque shores that a world-famous deep-sea fishing sport has been developed. The contrasts of the coasts are backed by equally striking diversities inland. Ihe area embraces portions of five counties. Throughout them all the characteristic changes of the north, are to be seen —low-lying swamp lands alternating with the typical peaks and valleys and rich, warm volcanic soils followed by uncnticing tracts of clay and gum lands. The development of agricultural and pastoral resources has been carried to extremely creditable lengths in many parts and the yields of its farmed lands give splendid profits for the work done and great encouragement to continued enterprise. It owes as much to its climate as ifc does to its soils, and although it has made its greatest progress with breeding flocks and dairy herds, it enjoys an unrivalled facility for agricultural and horticultural practices of all kinds. Manifold Variety of Crops There may be other parts of the Dominion with notable aptitudes for specialised production. The central lands of Otago might grow stone fruits of great quality and flavour; the Wairarapa district may produce splendid crops of cherries; and the plains of Canterbury may have established special claims in grain-growing. But the possibilities in North Auckland arc almost; all-embracing. Fruit cannot he grown in greater variety or in greater profusion in any other portion of NewZealand; and nearly every kind of crop needed for man's sustenance can be cultivated in its kindly soils. The road from Whangaroi through Kawakawa and other centres of the Bay of Islands County is only one of several routes which can be taken in journeying to the Far North, but it is one which will prove most interesting to the majority of people. It takes one past much well-farmed territory and much land which aw aits the hand of the cultivator and leads to the storied regions in which the first scenes of pioneering and missionary endeavour in New Zealand were enacted. The part it played in history will always keep the Bay of Islands district in the forefront of public interest; but the part it is playing in a modern agricultural and pastoral advance is bringing it much more definitely into prominence. Dairying and Sheep-raising

Kawakawa, where railway trains run! along the main thoroughfare as tramcars do in the streets of a city, is the administrative centre of the county. Coal and gum have been its chief items of trade, but to-day it is reacting to the trend of the times and norcr looks on butter-fat and fat lambs as its principal commodities. For at Moerewa, two or three miles toward Otiria, are the Bay of Islands dairy factory and the Xorth Auckland works of tha Auckland Farmers' Freezing Company, the former having replaced some five years ago the old factory at Ohaeawai.

But while these two buildings give material expression to the nature and extent of a . province's development,their immediate environment is hardly as eloquent of progress. They stand on tbe scoria-strewn iloor of a broad valley and seem to occupy a really incongruous site. It is not until one obtains a more comprehensive view from th« higher levels as the road leads toward Ohaeawai that one realises that- even here productive capabilities are not being neglected, and that herds and flocks graze in remarkably large numbers. One recalls what has been done with this class of land in such districts as Maunu, however, and anticipates a great change in the appearance of the output of the valley as rocks are removed and pastures are extended.

New Avenues of Production The freezing works at Moerewa have been in operation only since the 1921-22 season. Since then, however, there has been a tremendous increase in the northern output of fat lambs, which have come to rival the importance of wool to the sheep-raisers of the district. The number killed at the works last season represented almost a three-fold advance compared with the total for the first year's operations. The figures for cattle have grown from 4800 to over 16,000 in the 12 years, while last season almost 35,000 pigs and orer 76.000 bobby calves were handled. The fact that neither of the two last-named classes appeared on the first season's killing lists indicates how well northern farmers are exploiting new avenues of production. The road beyond Moerewa climbs to one of the most extensive and one of the longest-settled tracts of volcanio soil in the whole of the North. It is a charming, highly-developed area comparing closely with the beautifullypastured volcanic country around Whangarei and equalling it in the management bestowed and the yields secured. Lake Omapere is situated in the heart of this plateau and around it lie the prosperous dairying districts of Knikohe, Okaihau, Ohaeawai and Waimate North. The visitor, seeing this region for the first time, will certainly be impressed by its manifest productivity. He will most likely also be struck by the acres of gorse which at once mars and beautifies the countryside. This is a legacy of a well-revered'missionary's enthusiasm for farming in the early days of Pakaraka, when gorse was sown to provide fodder for sheep. The plant may have been as useful for the purpose as any of the pasture available in those times, but its introduction has certainly proved a costly experiment to present generations of farmers, who have to work hard and continuously to keep it in check. A Busy Junction At Ohaeawai one reaches perhaps the busiest road junction in the whole of the peninsula, for here, where highways radiate to all points of the Far North, motor-lorries converge on the road to Moerewa, carrying their freights of hobby calves, pigs and fat lambs to the freezing works and their cans of cream to the dairy factory. The factory's territory is, of course, localised, but wherever one goes in the T\hangaroa, Mangonui and Hokianga counties one meets lorries loaded with livestock bound for distant Moerewa. The erection of these freezing works represented one of the most sfcrkig gestures of confidence in its future th-it t.lie North lis* ever had. It is ltn possible to travel far in the .odav wrf&out, realising how well that UJ fidence f has-been founded. flk