PROGRESS OF WAIKERIA

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume LXXXIII, Issue 19830, 3 May 1927, Page 9

PROGRESS OF WAIKERIA

ASSET TO THE STATE SELF-SUPPORTING INSTITUTION Splendid work is being done by the Prisons Department on the 2000 acres of farm land occupied by the Waikeria Borstal Institute. The farm is situated between the Mangatutu and Waikeria Streams, eight miles south-east of Te Awamutu, and consists of undulating land of light loam and river and swamp flats. The area was first opened as a prison farm in 1912, prior to which it was unimproved Maori country. Half the land is now improved, and of this area 500 acres is in permanent grass and the balance is in temporary grass and improved swamp. In addition, there are 60 acres in swedes, 20 acres in mangels, 15 acres in field carrots, 12 acres in soft turnips, 10 acres in maize, and 10 acres in black barley. Turnips weighing 141 b. and mangels weighing 261 b. have been grown. The farm is divided into 45 paddocks and is carrying 210 milking cows, 400 head of dry stock, 300 head of sheep and. 200 pigs. Vegetables of all kinds are grown on a rich area of river flat. From a third of an acre of this land tomatoes which realised £llO in the open market this year were obtained. There is also an orchard of 10 acres on the farm.

Tho dairy herds, of which there are two, have done particularly well this season, the average production per cow already being 3301 b. of butter-fat. Five of the cows have yielded over 5001 b. butter-fat, while numbers of others have given over 4001 b. There are 120 inmates in the institute the majority being first offenders. The men do all the work on the farm. They work well and give little or no trouble. ( Every inducement is offered to them to : behave themselves and work hard, for ithe privileges are worth haying. They are given excellent food and are housed in most comfortable quarters. The institute has reached a stage when it costs the taxpayers nothing. Revenue totalling £6OOO was received from the sale of farm produce last year and it is expected that the ..revenue will increase by £lOOO a year for the next eight years. The Minister of Agriculture, Hon. O. J. Hawken, visited the institute to-day and expressed appreciation with the farming operations that were . being carried on and the methods employed. He was very pleased with the condition of the stock and the yield of the various paddocks. The only fault he had to find was that insufficient fertiliser was being used. He said that if the'quantity was increased from 24cwt. to 3cwt. to the acre a vast improvement Would be shown.