THE WAIHOPAI.

Southland Times, Issue 17427, 20 August 1913, Page 2

THE WAIHOPAI.

To the Editor. Sir, —"There is no time like the present.” This is a proverb applicable to many things but, to my mind, it applies directly to a few remarks I would like to make in regard to your all important, and rightly so, Beautifying Society. Now that the Competitions star is on the wane. Invercarglllites must, as becomes their energetic and progressive spirit, divert their surplus energies, undoubtedly caused by their rigorous climate, to some other channel, and I can suggest no better on© than their meandering Waihopai. As a visitor from Auckland, I have wandered round the banks and into the natural bush further up stream, and noted with delight the changing beauty of the scene, which however Is small In comparison to its possibilities. The part I especially refer to is the North Road bridge and the next one you meet up stream. Throughout this length of river very few trees are to be met with, and where there is one •small plantation the river is eroding the bank —which needs attention — and in my opinion this stretch could be made truly beautiful by the planting of numerous willows, poplars, and other trees which thrive In moist soil. Of course I speak as a layman, but judging from our numerous northern willowed river banks, the idea Just struck me that it was strange that these banks were comparatively bare. Believing the beautifying of this, your best reserve and asset, to be In the first Interests of your embryo city.—l am, etc., A NORTHERNER. August 19th.