HOW WE SHOULD START NEW SETTLERS.

Otago Witness, Issue 286, 23 May 1857, Page 5

HOW WE SHOULD START NEW SETTLERS.

(From the New Zealander.)

One of the most gratifying extracts we have made for a long time from any of our New Zealand contemporaries, was the paragraph we quoted the other day from the "Otago Witness," headed " How they Start new Settlers in the Taieri," and -telling how twelve worthy East Taierians went with theif ploughs to the North side of East Taieri, to give a start to Mr. Charles Todd, who had just located himself in that district. Two days were in part devoted to this work of good neighbourship ; on the second day there were nine ploughs foing at one time ; and with such energy and etermination did these voluntaryists devote themselves to the task that, before the party separated, about ten acres op new land WERE TURNED OVER.

There is no doubt that the young man thus honoured deserves the esteem which we are told he enjoys among his neighbours. But those neighbours appears to have been actuated by a stronger and more praiseworthy feeling than even that of friendship for one individual, for we further read, " This is, however, not the first time that the East Taieri settlers have acted in this way ;" — we mean by the desire to extend the helping hand of welcome to those who have come from the Old World to make this distant land their home, and, by preparing a sufficient homestead for them, to put them in good heart for the arduous enterprise of reclaiming and cultivating the woods and wilds of these Islands, on which they are about to enter. . The settlers of East Taieri, in fact, have in-

troduced into the Province of Otago the system which, in many parts of the United States, and perhaps even more so in Canada, is called " The Settling Bee," " The Clearing Bee," &c, through the agency of which so many thousands of our settlers in those countries have, in the brief space of a day or two, been provided with a comfortable though rude dwelling and with a cleared and ploughed homestead — have thus been at once furnished with ample protection against the weather — and have been enabled to set to work immediately sowing and planting seeds and vegetables from which they and their cattle and poultry will soon derive no small portion of their sustenance.

The importance of such mutual help in young countries, where labour is hard to be procured at any price, and where materials and provisions have to be brought from long distances, cannot be too highly estimated. Would that the system were in as general operation here as it is in the other Anglo-Saxon communities we have named. Were it so, there can be no doubt that many a heart pang would be spared to the new settler and his family, which is now too often felt, as the thought arises that, once located in the bush, they may regard themselves as all but shut out from the world — that they have come to a place where the selfish motto is too practically acted upon, " Each for himself and God for us all" — and that they may be well satisfied indeed if the end of their first year of bush life see them in possession of any dwelling superior to a raupo hut ; or with from 10 to 12 acres cleared, fenced, and partially ploughed ; and possibly having got the crops off sundry patches of potatoes and maize, but not more than was sufficient for home consumption.

The benefits arising from this system of neighbourly help would not be confined, either, to the precise locality where it was practised, but would be felt all over the Province and colony in the impetus that would be given to the most desirable kind of immigration — that composed of parties having some capital, but also able and willing to labour ; for the intelligence sent to "old friends at home" of this manner of giving " new settlers a start" would overcome many an argument now raised by the anxious wife and mother why the hardships incident to densely-popu-lated countries and to the struggles of Labour against the over-commanding influence of Capital should be still borne up against, rather than break up all the ties of home and native land, and seek a distant country, where the first rough work of clearing and turning over the soil demands physical energies and powers of endurance for which the past life of the father and sons has not been a proper .training. Many such parties, we know, have come out here as well as to other parts of this colony, who, after spending much time and money, have left for home again, or gone to other colonies in search of casual employment, broken in spirit and bereft of resources, who, we firmly

believe, would have remained amongst us as useful settlers had the first great difficulties besetting their entrance on their new course of life been smoothed away as the settlers of East Taieri dii honour to themselves, as well as to their young friend, by doing the other day, and as they have done on other occasions.

Far be it from us to say that no such instances of " the welcome hand" being held out have occurred before in this colony or Province. But from all that we can learn, they have occurred at distant intervals — in isolated cases which are the exception and not the rule. Glad shall we be if the. attention we have called to the example set in the above district of our southernmost Province has the effect of inducing the settlers in this Province (and in the city as well as in the country) to think more deeply of the inestimable advantages they can confer on new settlers — in the one case, of aiding them to found.their " home in the "wilderness," and in the other, by forming a society for affording to newly-arrived immigrants every possible information as to the kind of employment open, and as to the quartity and ruling prices of land in the market. Well does the great German poet say — " Thousands when in union joined, Can mutual aid and help supply" ; — and the lesson loses none of its force even when applied to tens and twenties of families scattered over a large and often only partiallyreclaimed district.

Mrs. Beecher Stowe's new story has already reached 100,000 copies, and the demand is unabated. It is estimated that by Christmas a quarter of a million of copies will be in circulation — a sale which, in so short a time, is quite unparalleled.

Water as an Aliment. — Hitherto water has been employed, not as an actual nutrient, but as one of the supplemental to digestion — as constituting the vehicle of the digestive fermentations, and the solvent of the aliments taken into the stomach. Boussingault's experiments, however, would indicate that the lime of calcareous or hard water is assimilated to the bones of animals ; from which it may be inferred that spring water moderately impregnated with calcareous matter is much more proper as a beverage for children and young persons than river or pond water. Dietetically, spring water is the purest ; physically, snow, water. Well water (pump water, &c.,) is hard, from the presence of the insoluble carbonate or sulphate of lime. Rain, river, and pond water are ammoniacal, therefore solvent and soft, and so far suited for dyspeptical persons, also for culinary and pharmaceutical purposes ; but to healthy persons, and more especially the young, and growing, such waters are every way inferior to hard or spring water. Two main evils may be named of rain and river water : first, they contain abundance of sulphurets which oppose the saccharine process of digestion, and generating sulphureted hydrogen gas, have been considered as predisposing to typhus fever and material diseases. Secondly, soft water abounds in decomposing organic particles, and animalculae and cryptogamic vegetation. These appear to be unassimilable to the animal constitution, but remain in it as insectivorous parasites. — Records op Longevity, ry Thomas Bailey.

A Wrinkijs aboot the Age op Horses. — A few days ago we met a gentleman from Alabama, who gave us a piece of information in S regard to ascertaining the age of a horse after he or she has passed the ninth year, which was new to us, and will be, we are sure, to most of our readers. It is this — after the horse is nine years old, a wrinkle comes on the eyelid at the upper corner of the lower lid, and every year thereafter he has one well defined wrinkle for each year of his age over nine. If, for instance, a horse has three "wrinkles, he is twelve — if four, he is 13. Add the number of wrinkles to nine, and you will always get it. So says the gentleman; and he is confident he will never fail. As a good many people have horsea over nine, it is easily tried. If true, the horse dentist must give up his trade. — Southern Planter.