RECOLLECTIONS OF WAIKOUAITI

Otago Daily Times, Issue 21569, 15 February 1932, Page 10

RECOLLECTIONS OF WAIKOUAITI

TO THE EDITOR. SBs, —I was interested in reading in Friday’s Daily Times letters from Miss Huie about the Waikouaiti Lagoon and from Mr R. Norman respecting Maori cabbage plants. In 1865-1866 I lived on the banks of the Waikouaiti Lagoon. I knew what is now Miss Huie’s house intimately, and, in fact, have a photograph of it and part of the lagoon in front of me now. The water of the lagoon in those days used to come right up to Miss Huie’s property, and extended, I think, as far as where the railway station now stands. I do not remember any offensive smell from the lagoon in the sixties, but do remember that the floor of the lagoon was not as clean as it is now, and that the Maoris used to do a lot of eel fishing in it. I have not been a resident in Waikouaiti for many years, but have never seen the upper reaches of the lagoon so dry as they have been for some time. The local authorities should consider some scheme either to reclaim the upper reaches or hold the water back and keep them covered. The lower reaches should be improved and made suitable for canvas and flat-bottomed dinghies, and an additional attraction for visitors would thus be provided. Maori cabbage was fairly plentiful in the sixties on the north bank of the'Waikouaiti River (I was never at that time on the south bank). I have gathered many an armful; it was considered a good vegetable, and was good feed, also, for my pet rabbits. I do not recollect having come across any wild cabbage since the time I mention, but I expect the wild rabbits ate all the plants.—l am, etc., A Boy of the Sixties. Dunedin, February 13.