THE CHEVIOT ESTATE.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 4543, 14 January 1893, Page 3

THE CHEVIOT ESTATE.

[FBOM A BPBOIAL COEEESPONDHNT.I The Cheviot County— for the estate is the county in the eyea of the public, bo much does it| dominate it — lie? in; the south-eastern corner of the old .Nelson Provincial District, is bounded on. the north, by the river Waiaa^ on thp south by the river Huranui, on the west by the low range of hills that separates it from the . Waiau Plaino and on the east by the ocean. In shape it may, speaking roughly,, be said to be a parallelogram, with the eastern and western Bides nearly twice as I long' aa the river frontages. The first white occupier under the Crown was Mr Caverhill, who, in the middle of the fifties, entertained unawares a modern Caleb or Joshua Bent down to spy out the land for the late Mr Robinson, and the report was such that the fiats and best portions were selected and purchased. Mr Caverhill then made the best terms he coald, and exchanged his Crown licence of Cheviot with Mr Bobinson for Hawkeswood, which property Mr Robinson had purchased from Captain Woolcombe, who lived for many years at Timaru. In those daya Mr Edward Lee was, I believe, their nearest neighbour, at Parnaeeue. : ,' Mr Robinson had then just come over from South Australia, and he made a profitable bargain with the hard-up Nelson Government; in fact, it whs understood that the whole property, nearly 85,000 acres, was acquired at a price between five and six shillings per aore. He then stocked it with the beet sheep he could buy from the Wairau. Half the allotted lifetime of man has passed since then, and with it the astute maker of Cheviot. And he did make it;,. for by the plough and fencing and wisely improving he brought up the Carrying capacity to about 90,000 good sheep. He spent between ,£20,000 and .£30,000 in buildings. He made for himself almost the finest country hous e in the island, and built woolsheds,. "cottages, stables, a boiling-down establishment and stores, and provided a splendid shipping apparatus, with which no railway could compete in getting freight to Lyttelton. No better monument could be raised to him than Cheviot. ' The homestead is situated nearly in the centre of the property, about thirty.eight miles from the railway at Waipara, amidst splendid masses of plantations. The flats, as they are called, round the homestead were covered originally with heavy flax and toi-toi. Now, there are Englishlooking fields with English trees about them. The quality of the land is told in the trouble the owners have had. with that sheep scourge, foot-rot, and it strikes me the Government would not have had the chance to resume the property had it not been for foot-rot and rabbits, for the late owner's valuation of four years ago is practically the earns as the last assessment. Sheep-owners know the worry and the trouble of foot-rot, and that it moans changing the stock for Borne sheep frpm moist land ;. Bomneys, for instance. Bub who can~ . • see the end of the last rabbit? Thelate owner put up a defensive fence his' Wauu boundary, costing over. ..4&SQ per mile, over five timeß the price of ordinary , fencing, and yet there are a good many odd rabbits over the property-^more than enough to make the experienced. anziouß, for many worthy and wealthy men have loßt their all through the agency of this harmless-looking little rodent. That this is no idle fear is shown by the drug that large pastoral estates are in the market, and the lavish defensive expenditure going on in the Amuri to-day. The configuration of this estate is very favourable to subdivision. A fair road runs through nice, low-lying, gently undulating flats the length of the property, from Parnassus to the Hurunui bridge, towards the construction of whioh the late owner contributed about £5000. From these flats right and left the country can be cut up over the low hills to the sea and to the Amuri divide, giving wheat and turnip-growing land to a relative amount of hills ; and it must be remembered that these hills are well fronted to the SBa, of low altitude, Bay, up to 2000 ft, and. take I English grasses, and would carry crossbred sheep well. If the Government conclude the bargain and take over the property, the first step must .be a topographical survey— roading and fencing on suitable lines, and not after the idiotic, checker-board fashion, that fruitful source' of litigation. As before stated, Cheviot has a port that no railway can compete with. There are also a telegraph station and a' good coach road. All that is required is from one to two hundred go-ahead settlers, given a liberal land law, optional perpetual lease or freehold. They will require some capital, but with that and good energies Buch aa the maker of Cheviot had, they will nearly double the present productive capacity, making the country gain through Customs and trade what it will lose through Land tax. And this is the only final settlement of the rabbit question here and elsewhere.