A Voice From Wanaka

Otago Witness, Issue 1989, 10 April 1890, Page 12

A Voice From Wanaka

Editob Witness,— Sir : I read Mr Robert M'Dougall'a letter to the Commissioner of Crown Lands, Dunedin, which lately appeared In the press. About five weeks ago I applied to the Waste Lands Board in Dunedin for 44 aores of land under the deferred payment system, situated in West Wanaka on the site where the Minaret bush once stood, but on which there is nothing now left but a lot of worthless brushwood, whioh harbours rabbits. I untion, so that I wish to say a few wocks wnich will embrace both subjects. If my application is granted, it is my intention to remove this brushwood and plant a number of forest trees round the borders and some clumps throughout it. I also intend planting a lot of fruit trees' and will enter upon a system of farming which is badly wanted here— viz., pigs, poultry, and bees. At prosent this piece of ground is a scrubby worthless gully, but if improved in the manner I point out, it would be a much more picturesque Bight. Mr M'Dougall complained that " cutting and newlng of the native bush still continues." Then, I ask, why did Mr M'Dougall countenance this when he has been buying the firewood for years past? I cannot help thinking that the fact of Mr M'Dougall now having a valuable coalpit accounts for the alteration of his ideas. I may remark that no firewood haß been out round Lake Wanaka fora couple of years part, for I out the last, and I always had a woodcutter's license, and Mr M'Dougall bought the wood. Mr M'Dongall says also that " on our foreshore we have opposed the planting likely to grow into a nuisance in the future, so that the original natural beauty of our lake surroundings is unimpaired." What Mr M'Dougall means by this no one here oan understand. Anyone planting trees ronnd the lake edge deserves great credit.— Yours truly, Pembroke, April 7. Bich. SXEVBNS-