HEW ZEALAND AS A FIELD FOB IMMIGRATION.

Otago Witness, Issue 2083, 25 January 1894, Page 5

HEW ZEALAND AS A FIELD FOB IMMIGRATION.

The following letter received >»y Mr John Houghton, authoT of " Rural New Zealand* will be read with interest : — Orange, Orange County, California, U.S A , 6fch November 1893. I received your most pleasant little work. 41 Rural New Zealand." My special reason andi excuse for writing you, independent of your interest in the country, is your being familiar with Canada, where I lived for years, and also with California, where we have owned »no\ worked a fruit ranch for the past four years. This I thought would enable you to give relative values as to how a. little money could be invented. We have done some farming and have 8 fair knowledge of stock, also of fruit culture*

You mention three places that especially struck me. Hawke's Bay district for sheep ; those beautiful little valleys off the Canterbury Plains, which, I presume, would be suitable for fruifc (my experience ia yonrs, that the best deciduous fruits are grown where there is some frost in winter) Mud mixed agriculture ; and, perhaps— what I hare thought most of all of— the Taranaki district, the magnificent soil about Mount %mont, Wanganni, and to Foxton.

With a capital of lO.OOtfdoi could one take, say, 6000dol or 7000dol in one of the localities I have named, and buy a small bnfe fertile place with cottage and outbuildings and improvemeats, put on the necessary stock, and then, working such a place — myself and brother, presumably — with a fair amount of industry and prudence, could we net after anch an expenditure, say, lOOOdol (£200) per annum ? I would prefer a smaller place near a market, as we would grow early vegetables, poultry, and eggs, and, as feed for stock, beets, barley, &c., and then buy stock when a bit thin or a bit down in price and fatten for market ; also pigs.-

I notice what you say about dairying and its profits, and also the sheep farming, which, if a man had sufficient land, would probably be the easiest and most profitable, and much poorer land Would do for that. With small capital we thought that perhaps a small place, well located, and rich soil and mixed farming, might perhaps be the best. Growing here our fruit, vegetables, poultry, eggs, bacon, milk, I now know how cheap one can live. We never pay a cent cash to grocer or butcher, but pay entirely in eggs. We long to see natural rain and streams of water. We like to keep a little money in hand, being rather fond of buying up a beast or a few sheep or anything that can be turned over, so like to be within distance of a market.

If you will not think I am trespassing, any information you could give as to locality, for such an expenditure might be of great assistance to us in forming future plans. Why is there not more immigration? Is it too much debt and high taxation P