ALONG THE RANGITIKEI.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1508, 24 January 1901, Page 58

ALONG THE RANGITIKEI.

PROSPECTS OF FRUIT CULTURE. MANGAONOHO TO ' OHINGAITI. (By Dr H. M. Levinge, M.B. 5 ) The distance from Mangaonoko to Ohingaiti is about four miles. The road is bad and several dreadful hills intervene. Indeed, this country for miles around is like the ocean in a storm. Ridges of hills rising like gigantic waves appear everywhere. The Rangitikei River has washed away enormous tracts of land. When the Easter flood, which destroyed the Vinegar Hill bridge subsided it was found in. stagnant places from six to nine inches of. fine sediment covered the grass. The subsoil is papa rock, impenetrable to water, and rain eomiob send down vertically, bub must take a horizontal course. About; Taranaki, although the rainfall is much greater, rivers scarcely flood (that is, become muddy), and their banks are not eroded. The reason is the subsoil is open as sand, and water penetrates perpendicularly. Luke all rapid rivers, those reaches of the Rangitikei flowing south, shew great wear on the eastern bank, and prove the river is moving from east to west.It is said that if a railroad is made between north and south, the eastern line wears out first, owing to the earth constantly turning from west to east on its axis. The pressure is greatest on the eastern side. The Rangitikei River has white perpendicular cliffs from fifty to two hundred feet high, and it often struck me what a splendid opportunity for growing fruits of superior quality—viz., oranges, figs, peaches, apricots, grapes, olives and almonds. We know fruit trees which will not succeed in the open produce the most perfect fruit win a trained to a wall. Here walls have been formed by nature; and in those places where the cliffs face nerth, of course, the maximum amount of heat and lio-fit would be got. High winds are always from S.W. or S.E., so they could not damage. Frosts at night could not occur because the cliff from facing the sun all day would a6sorb heat which it would radiate off at night. Thieves could not break through and steal, for the owner might have his garden in terraces twenty or thirty feet from top and bottom of the cliff, and the only approach would be a cage let down or a ladder from the bottom. Grooves could be made, or trenches dug obliquely in the perpendicular cliff, and sufficient good earth lowered by a cage from the top to nourish the trees. Water, too, for irrigation, could be laid on. Here is a hint for our agricultural department to cut out Tasmanian fruit, and their only chance of success. The mixture of winter and summer is the curse of New Zealand. Midway between Mangaonoho and Ohingaiti the Makohine Viaduct is met. At present a tunnel is seen opening into the chasm from a considerable height on either side, and two iron trestles each 240 feet high have grown from life bottom of the V-shaped gap, which is 726 feet wide. The whole thing has the most grotesque appearance, reminding one of Jack the Giant Killer, or some hideous ogre who throws objectionable characters out of the tunnel and makes stepping stones of the trestles to get from one side to the other. Most of the people I met seemed to think there should never have been a viaduct attempted, because there is a way round the side of the blind gully which would only make a large curve. Anyone can make a drawing of the viaduct track, and the wry D avoid it, by making a circle. The diameter is the viaduct and the semi-circle of the circumference would represent the way round so as to avoid making the

bridge. It seems certain to me, if these tunnels had been led towards the upper enu of the Makckiue Gorge —instead of directly across the middle of the gorge, it would not have been much of a curve at all. Railway curves are surprising, when we remember they lengthen the line, and railways cost oil ar average £7OOO per mile. Four miles beyond Ohingaiti the line crosses a level plain before entering a tunnel, and yet there is a great curve described in this plain.