TAHAKOPA VALLEY.

Otago Witness, Issue 3006, 25 October 1911, Page 39

TAHAKOPA VALLEY.

Ofctober 21.—The weather has been broken since my last notes. We have now had a sufficiency of rain and look forward hopefully for warm weather to bring on the grass and crops which are a little backward The Amends.—l noticed a lette-r in the Witness- criticising my history of the dairy factory as given in my last letter. I beg to assure Mr Hourst-on, or whosoever is the writer, that the omission of which he complains was unintentional, but I feel that it can in no way injur© the man who so ably carried on the factory for a few years under the very capable management of his son, who had been trained in one of the best factories in the Dominion. The time evidently was not ripe. Each one, had a separator and had got into a rut they did not seem willing to leave. Well, I trust the factory which

' opens <m Monday, the 23rd inst., Anil be better supported. J Social.—A social was held in the dairy j factory last Monday at which' Dr King presided in his effective manner, keeping a goodly gathering entertained on subjects light and serious, instructive and amusing, ending up with an offer of a piece of ground for a non-sectarian church, similar to the one in the neighbourhood. He offered to give i all the timber necessary for the building. The magnificence of the . offer came as a great surprise, revealing ] an additional interest in the Valley and I in the spiritual interest of its residents. •j The gathering was further entertained i with speech a>rad song till buckets of steaming tea with a plentiful supply of sandwiches, cake, etc, silenced the tongue . while the teeth took up the running. The proceedings were brought to a close after midnight by the singing of "Auld Lang Syne." Owing to the darkness of the i night and the bad state of the roads it was 2 o'clock in the morning ere some of the "socialists" got to bed. ! Electioneering —There is some disappointment that the Minister of Agriculdid not stand for Clutha, for most people in the bush district feel they are deeply | indebted to him* for his untiring efforts on their behalf;, but as he is standing for another constituency, we wish him a' triumphant and substantial majority in Egrnont, believing that in honouring him the settlers "will be doing honour to_themselves, and' doing good to .the producers ' on -the land.

General.—An aged settler named Griffiths, in trying to separate' two fighting bulls, got knocked down by the struggling animals, and was seriously injured. Wild pigs are much in evidence in the bush, and some cleared land shows evidence of their numbers in the rooted patches there.