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New Zealand Times, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 8737, 20 May 1914, Page 10

As land grows dearer and more difficult to obtain in New Zealand, more attention is being given to parts of the Dominion which hitherto have been regarded as practically desert regions. The once-despised pumice country on the banks of the Upper Waikato, from Taupb southwards, is coming into cultivation, and further north, in the kauri gum districts of the Auckland Peninsula, land which one time was considered as unlit for permanent settlement is giving -ood returns to fruit-growers and dairy-farmers. News now comes of remarkable developments in the extreme north, New Zealand’s Ultima Thule, the country about the North Capa and Capo Bemga. Gumdiggers and cattle-raisers so far have been the sole exploiters of the long peninsula, which stretches from Hohoura to Parengareuga, away to the crags of Maria Van Diemen, but at Parengarenga a fruit-growing colony is now being formed, and some of the great swamps which have been fossicked for kauri gum are being drained and orassed for stock. There are several thousands of acres at Spirits’ Bay, the place of ghostly native legend, which are being put to profitable use, and excellent crops of oats, turnips and potatoes are being raised on land which was quite recently thought to be a hopelessly sterile wilderness. The Viceroy of India opened the new docks at Bombay. A message of congratulation was sent by the King, who, as Prince of Wales, laid the foundation-stone in 1905. Hii Majesty declared that the docks “are constructed on such a scale as to constitute Bombay one of the finest porta in the world.”