Past and Present.

Waipa Post, Volume XXIV, Issue 1585, 13 December 1924, Page 10 (Supplement)

Past and Present.

OLD SCENES RECALLED.

THE PROGRESS OF SETTLEMENT.

Let us just quote a few lines from Mr James Cowan's absorbingly interesting 'book, "The 'Old Frontier," in which the author devotes some space to his recollections of the orchards of the olden times: "Memories ! One strives to marshal them into some order, but the most that can be done is to recall the things that chiefly fixed themselves on the youthful mind. There was the home on the hill, on the famous battleground, the garden with the sweet old flowers, the cherry orchard, the huge almond trees (with flat stones at their butts upon which the Maori children long .before us cracked those almonds) —trees grown in the old days from the Rev. John Morgan's orchard —the wild mint that grew in the tiny creek that went rippling down a swampy gully near the big acacia grove; the dam and the lake-like pond la the -Tautoro swamp; and, above all, the peaches. The peaches of those happy dream-days on the old Orakau farml! —peaches vanished, a kind never to be tasted by the present generation. Orakau, Kihikihi. Te Awamutu. and Rangiaowhia were then the favoured land of the most delicious fruit that ever this countryside has known. Peach groves everywhere, the good Maori groves, trees laden with the big hoissy peaches that the natives called '..ko-i rako ' because of their whiteness. Tons of peaches grew in those groves, and those wanted were gathered fcy the simple process of driving a cart underneath a tree and sending one of us youngsters : up to shake the branches until the cart was filled with fruit. Some of the best peaches were preserved by the housewives of the frontier in a way never seen now; they were sliced and sun-dried on sheets of corrugated iron, in 1 the strong heat of the long days, and then strung in lines and hung in the high-ceilinged kitchen, criss-crossed in fragrant festoons, until required for pies. As for the surplus fruit, the pigs got it; many a cart-load of peaches was given, to them, or they were turned out to feed on the heaps of fruit lying under the trees. Porkers fattened on peaches!" What a memory. One sighs for the good old days. And yet the land is still here, the climate is with us; so who is to say that Te Awamutu district is not admirably suited to fruit growing? Truly, it is " the Garden of the Waikato.' »