FLAXBOURNE SETTLEMENT.
Junz 26. — It is now nearly • four years since the famous Flaxbourne estate was settkd.^ Th-j whole fac-3 of the country i.s ■chaciged —new fe'ices, rtaw roads, new cultivation, and now buildings, where a little ever three ysars ago there were neither fences, road*, buildings, nor cultivation. From one poini 'alone over 200 stacks of grain could be- counted this autumn, where formerly was unfenced tussock. Here ther^ was before the tettlement neither ohildr&r nor eohools; jiow we have two fichoofe, with an attendance of ». -early hO children This has all been done not in good years, but in tad; for, truly, if any settlement ,ever had bad luck from the first it was Flaxboume. TII3 first raar stock were too dear for most of the settlers _+o buy, cons-jqurntly-most of them pad their two first half-year's rents Tor nothing. 2*e <ct year came. one. of tha worst drougir.s Jknowii here, 'fc-rge manuka 20ft high dying from the effects. And this year, when we naally did- look for come return, and the crops wera heavy and pi-omisiriur well, camo the cateipillar scouree. stripping the gram as it ri palled, m many oase* leaving nothing but straw in their wake. To cap all, and what makes all the rest harder to bear, tho railway which we were promised two y*aT3 ago, the South Main Trunk, is fifcill at jSeddon, 15 miles fa-cm the centre of th-s "setfclement, a.nd bo' another mile has been • opened sinw. some years before the opaiiner of Flaxbourne. We had tho Minister for Pilblic Works, the Hon Roderick M'K^nzie, here a few months ago, ar.d he promised that the railway 'be opened to Ward, our -maan township, for the carriage of grain next Feb a*uary, but I am afraid., unless we are well backed up by Christohurch and Wellington, ths formation of the - South Ma,m Trunk will be as slow in the future as it has beer in the past. However, notwith&tajtdin.g ali the aforesaid drawbacks, the settlers on tha whole -are well-contented, a-nd have every faith in the future of the'i(district. The main support of this laith is the- railway, without which heavy crops Are of little- avail.
Permanent link to this item
https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/OW19090630.2.140.2
Bibliographic details
Otago Witness, Issue 2884, 30 June 1909, Page 39
Word Count
364FLAXBOURNE SETTLEMENT. Otago Witness, Issue 2884, 30 June 1909, Page 39
Using This Item
Allied Press Ltd is the copyright owner for the Otago Witness. You can reproduce in-copyright material from this newspaper for non-commercial use under a Creative Commons New Zealand BY-NC-SA licence. This newspaper is not available for commercial use without the consent of Allied Press Ltd. For advice on reproduction of out-of-copyright material from this newspaper, please refer to the Copyright guide.