UNUSUAL TRADES

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXV, Issue 22963, 15 February 1938, Page 15

UNUSUAL TRADES

SYDNEY SETTLEMENT MUSHROOMS AND RABBITS WORK FOR UNEMPLOYED I The quaint but lucrative professions followed by a number of formerly unemployed men who have taken tip properties at the Hammondville Pioneer Homes Settlement at Sydney were described by Canon R. B. S. Hammond, founder and governing director of the organisation, when ho arrived by the Awatea yesterday. Canon Hammond, who is one of Australia's best known social workers, will spend a holiday in New Zealand. Established little more than, five years ago by Canon Hammond, the settlement now possesses 109 families. The conditions which must apply beloro a man is entitled to join the settlement are, firstly, that at least three young children must be in the family, and secondly, that the parents must be unemployed and evicted, or under notice of eviction. Each is given a dwelling ami an acre of land to work.

One of the settlers, Canon Hammond said, performed an almost -prodigious feat by hewing out a large underground chamber out of solid shale and making use of it for the growing of mushrooms. The cost of the manure was expensive, but the sponsor of the idea hoped to obtain an average of at least £2 l()s a week from his labours. It was possible to obtain crops all the year round, and the entire output was absorbed under contract, 2s a pound being paid. A similar chamber was to bo constructed by another settler.

Angora rabbifs provided an occupation for another man, the fur often being knitted into garments on the settlement. The skins from Chinchilla rabbits formed a livelihood for a third family, and there, were several settlers who found poultry-keeping an interesting and qmto profitable task.

One of the main purposes of Canon Hammond's visit to New Zealand is to inspect the properties of the Waikato Land Settlement Society, which he examined some two years ago. "The scheme, which has been sponsored by Mr. D. V. Bryant, is a great one," Canon Hammond said, "and i shall be most interested to see how the settlers are adapting themselves to the new life which has been opened to them."