KINLOCH SETTLEMENT.

Timaru Herald, Volume LXXXIII, Issue 12906, 19 February 1906, Page 6

KINLOCH SETTLEMENT.

A CRITICISM. Applications for leases- in the Li.p. set tlement-, Xinloch, on the south-eastern par of the Bank's Peninsula Hills, close a 1 Christchurch to-day. A Timaru man wh( ■went to inspect - the country with a" view to applying for an allotment if he fount one to suit him, has returned without putt ing in an application. He made a care ful examination of most of the lots, aiu having an ■eye for country " from a va xied experience he was, perhaps, as cap able a : judge as any of the applicants coirli be. . The settlement is 7 divided into 3 allotments. Some half dozen of them ar justifiably made as small as they are, th land being well situated in regard to alt: tude and road communications. The jesi our informant thinks, ought to -have bee divided into grazing runs of a three c four thousand acres each, as the countr is too hilly and precipitous to be worke comfortably in email farms. Some of "th ■ roads laid out mount to elevations of 20C feet, "and"even the best of the sectior (omitting' the few above referred to) ai "as steep as the side of a house." The: nra sections that have a frontage on tl Pacific-' Ocean, and if the occupants these could getlwater carriage, they wou not be so ill off, bat that does not appei to be-»practicable. The compulsory res dence conditions will be a severe tas> the case of most of the sections, as' i building material, and furniture will hato be packed lip' high and steep hil And when the settlers are "settled, .th can do no more with the land, can ma no more out of it, can add no more the wealthy of the colony, than has be done by the late owners, who worked as a sheep run, with contract " cocksfo* ing" added." The smaller Settler can no more; -and the subdivision can or ' mean that about twenty shepherds, soj of them probably not too skilful shephen will bs employed where three or four s ficed before. The country is certainly i cellent sheep country, the soil be hi si" r .volcanic soil, producing an abundance good feed, on which sheep and lambs thi ■wonderfully. H it were reasonbly c venient .of access, it would be a most sirable settlement. But although it within hearing" of the railway "t?Mstle~

trains approach Little River, and is within view of the great ocean highway routes, a r.veafc part of it is practically out of tiieVorld. A considerable number of people have been to see the land, with a view cf applying for allotments, but, says cfuv informant, the number of applicants will assuredly be very much less; and it will be no matter for surprise if the subdivisions have to be abandoned and lots thrown together to make smaLL- grazing runs.