STATION LIFE IN WAIRARAPA.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXIX, Issue 4254, 7 November 1874, Page 3

STATION LIFE IN WAIRARAPA.

[by a bohemian.] jS t o. 3. On Thursday evening, the driver of Her Majesty's mails from Greytown through the Lower Valley and to the Coast, conveyed me about three miles but of the town. There was a lady passenger, he explained, who wished to get so far on her journey; and, although I might remain at Greytown during the night, he fetching me on in the morning, he hoped I would not mind going on. Seeing that it might prove' pleasanter for all parties concerned,- I went on—much to my regret when I arrived at the inn the driver had lauded so highly. But I had discovered that the contract for the delivery of the Valley mails had been obtained by a worthy, who, after amusing himself with some of the 'cutest men in the Wairarapa, had been arrested in Sydney as having been a cattle-lifter in the olden times, and the claimant of various aliases. His driver, whom he had victimised to a certain extent, is now carrying on the contract; and he would appear to be a law unto himself in the matter of time. In one respect he is a perfect, genius. If procrastination be the thief of time, as we have often been told, he is the aider and abetter of procrastination. Should he leave Greytown on the afternoon the coach arrives, he might as well have 'all his parcels collected before the mail is delivered, but he collects afterwards. Of course the storeheepers humor his weakness by never' packing up for hiin till the very last moment. I What some passengers may think of his arrangements I do not know, but it was an open ! question whether he left on Thursday evening or Friday morning, and a passenger who trusted to obtaining a seat- on Friday morning might have been tempted to objurgate. However, he should be judged, I suppose, as warriors and statesmen very often are, by his success. At about half-past ten o'clock on Friday morning he landed me safe and sound, after traversing twenty miles of uncertain roads, belonging partly to the Provincial Governmpnt and partly to Local Itoad Boards, at Mr. John Martin's, Otaria station. In the distance we had seen the hospitable owner of the station, mounted on a powerful chesnut cob that is kept for his especial use, and on arriving he was there to meet me. Of squatter hospitality I shall say but little. All that I could say of it would be a many times told tale. At the station you are just welcome to whatever there is on it. A horse stands saddled in the stables for your es2>ecial vise, and you may either ride him or saunter about the green fields, and listen to the breeze murmuring amongst the trees, as you list, —aud let me tell you the breeze at Otarisv 1 and the wind at Wellington are two widely different affairs. The former is soft, balmy, and pleasant ; the latter violent, harsh, and as bleak as if it were impelled from a cavern by steam power. More lovely weather than there has been at Otaria during the past three days no One could conceive. The breeze, you could not call it wind, has been from the S.E. or S. W. In the 'morning there is not enough to stir a leaf on a tree. About 10 a.m. it freshens, and about 5 p.m. it dies away. As I sit writing, with open window, honeysuckles in full bloom twining around the verandah posts, beautiful red and white moss roses shedding their fragrance around, the bees humming amongst the flowers, with a glimpse of the course of the swift running Kuamahunga in view, and with the mighty ranges of the Rimutaka, with clouds resting on their summits, I seem in another country to that of Wellington. Occasionally a bee comes in at the window, just has a look round, and flies out. Without being specially partial to bees, I must say I prefer their humming to that of the boisterous blowflies of Wellington. It is, I am bold to observe, more civilised than the other, and " the same I am free to maintain." The proprietor of the station and I have been for a ramble this morning. We left the house at 10 a.m., strolled by the river for an hour, and then returned over hill and dale, by half-past twelve o'clock, to refresh upon some deliciously tender and fat wild ducks (caught by the natives, I suppose). Some scores of ducks similar to these we had disturbed during our morning's walk. This is one phase, and not an unpleasant one, of station life'in the Wairarapa. I do not believe that there are many persons in Wellington who know what squatting or sheep-farming in the Wairai'apa really is like. Strictly speaking the district should be divided into two—the Upper "Valley and the Lower one. The Upper Valley is an essentially agricultural district, in which the settlers keep a little stock, and likewise grow corn. The Lower one is mainly in the hands of five sheep-farmers, and notwithstanding-Mr. Waterhouse's lugubrious predictions will, I expect, so remain. Of course, tho argument is a perfectly correct one that if it were cut up it might support many score of small settlers, instead of a few shepherd kings and their employes. But this hardly seems to me to be a correct way of stating the case. Beef at Od. to Bd. per lb. is a convincing argument to a housekeeper in town that it is well Home one pays attention to the production of beef and mutton. Your small farmers in very few instances do this. They look to their wheat crops rather than to their wool bales for their profits. To me, there seems a mission for both runholder and farmer. From a run adjoining the one I am on, there were, but recently, 300 bullocks sent to the Wellington market. From this one there were 150 sent, and a number of others will soon be ready. But this is not all. There is a large quantity of low-lying land in the Lower Valley of the Wairarapa, that Providence never intended to be ploughed up. It has a thick sward of tho richest .English grasses and clovers, aud unless heavily stocked,,would soon be knee deep with rank and luxurious vegetation. Almost as fast as this is eaten off, it grows again. To plough such land up would be an agrarian crime—it would bo as much vandalism as to. plough up the Leicestershire pasture fields. This is the natural home for tho squatter and the runholder ; but there are duties that wo may reasonably expect him to perform in return, although tho obligation be merely a

moral one. In one way or other, it is understood throughout the civilised world, the breed of stock should be improved. There is yearly a sale of colts and fillies, belonging to Royalty, in England, from a stud kept for no other purpose than improving the breed of horses. Continental governments keep studs for the very same purpose, and so does tho Indian Government. Where are we to look in New Zealand for stud rams, blood stock, and purebred cattle, but to the runholders ? A wellbred bullock or sheep eats less, and arrives at the same weight in two years as a badly-bred one would in four. It is simply a matter of notoriety that the pure-bred stock we have in the colony is imported, for the most part, by runholders.