Limestone Plains

Southland Times, Issue 9351, 18 October 1886, Page 3

Limestone Plains

(FROM OTJB OWN CORRESPONDENT.) If 'one had the planning of it tbe circumstances could not be more favourable and conducive to inspiration than the present. It is more than an apology— it is a stimulating reason why one should indulge the " noble rage" and give " the genial current of the soul scope in writing paragraphs to find one's self nested and tbe world shut out by this splendidly Southlandic turn of the weather. The wind has been blowing and the rain has been pouring these twentyfour hours and more. It is still pouring. It is romantic. But we shall have sunshine directly, and an " invisible green" that has been sttuggling at the surface go long will shine out into full vernal bloom, and the lactiferous blade will open again our dairy factory at Fairfax, and the husbandman's patient sosl will rejoice over the birth of a new verdure. I. wisb they would scud off that expedition to the South Pole. It would be a relief to know what kind of a cradle it is that nurses all these giant storms, and to learn something of the wild and frozen continent " where the ice gathers heaps and thaws not, and ruin seems of ancient pile," and of which only the hem, lighted up with volcanic fires, has yet been observed. What will adventurous enthusiasts do for something to do when this little world is all axamined and explained ? Why don't they teach geology and astronomy in the schools 1 They have not so very much to do ? ' This Beason has been a harassing one to the farmer, with all its cold ungenial alterations. He has got hit crops in at la-*t, and is now cultivating, as best he can, the pleasures of hope and imagination. The farmer, honest fellow, has often built palaces in the sum mar air to find them dwindle into small enough dimensions when autumn has blown. But he is as dcgged in his hopes as he is in bis labours. There is a kind of small grievance here just now in connection with roads. It is not the old Trig. E. bone. That has been picked clean and buried. But a «hce of tbe eastern part of the district is paying rates to the Southland County, while tb« only outlet is through Wallace County and over Wallacemade and Wallace-supported roads. These settlers are paying rates to one county but using the roads made and kept in repair by the other county They practically don't belong to Southland, Southland has the proverbial nine points of the law in its favour however, and inverts the old saying into " Fast find, fast bind." It demurs to any changing of the ancient laadmarks. The Wallace Couuty folk, oa the other hand, have been born as far north as their neighbours, and have docidedijviews on tbe subject of rights and bawbees. The cold neutrality of the season has prevented an e»riier start in dairying business. A new and more suitable boiler has been provided at the factory, and a much larger supply of milk than that of^last year is expected. There are so many new dairies now springing up that one begins to be apprehensive the thing will be overdone. Hut then they say that with every tick of the clock a new muuth opens to mew for milk. As long as that continues to be the c«Be it will be no light matter to create a superfluity of dairies. It is thought they can be multiplied in the meantime anyhow without much misgiving. We had the Eev. Mr Thomson, from Victoria, here on Sunday last. He is making a short sojourn in the colony. From the subject of the rich young man in the Gospel, he preached a vtry excellent and able discourse, in which, among other thing*, was discussed the difficulty of surrendering present pleasure or supposed pleasure and advantages, to present duty and future happmess. The air is still and the rain h«w ceased. But not before the sinuous Jacob c«me down a spate, aided by a tribute from the shining majestic masses of the Takatimos. The swelling waters overleaped the normal limits of their channel and swept across tbe road this side of Fairfax, and probably did mischief on some of the recently sown flats. There is rignt opposite the bridge a small peninsula and rarsow isthmu?, wh re the water iB heaped back .upon itself and forced aw»y by a circui-ons channel whore the banks arc low. A great d^al of damage to field and f'-uce atid road has reauited during the past ye.ir. If tho isthmus were cut and the water allowed to g.) fcirnigbt along beneath the ridge, all ordinary rises would be dinposed w£. whatever might happen when the inundation rose to a maximum volume, which is not very frequen f . Thin proposal has been gravely and sagely deliberated on by the collective wisdom of the County Council and the patriotic proprietor of the little ihtbmus was rea<sy to come to an accommodation, but somehow ;:the negotiations have not i>een realised in the actual and concrete. Tbe proprietor of the land on the right bank is the greatest sufferer, and is willing to share, in due proportion, the expense of the undertaking. The summer, howtver, js the beat time to manage a river, and that is probably the reason of the sus« pense. 9th Oct., 1836.