FARMING PROGRESS

Waihi Daily Telegraph, Volume XXVI, Issue 7907, 26 September 1929, Page 2

FARMING PROGRESS

TRIBUTE TO WAIHI PLAINS LAND RAPID STRIDES OF DAIRYING BRIGHT FUTURE FOR DISTRICT “Each time I pass this way I am more impressed with the progress of the district as a farming centre,” was the opening remark of Mr E. J. Munro, of Tauranga, who spent a few hours in Waihi on Tuesday en route to Auckland by motor car to a representative of the “Telegraph.” “And,” proceeded the visitor, who has spent the greater part of his life in the Bay of Plenty and been in close touch with farming and farm lands for many years, “I can well recall the time, some 16 or 17 years ago, when, like so many others, I never dreamed that this then dreary and poor looking tract of country would ever be worth much for agricultural purposes, and certainly did not for a moment imagine that it could be converted into the smiling and profitable dairy farms one motors by to-day. It is a wonderful transformation and a remarkable illustration of what can be done on what w r as deemed to be almost useless land when handled by practical men and given the right manorial treatment.”

CHEAP COUNTRY “While mining is, of course, the mainstay of the township of Waihi to-day and must continue to be for some time,” added Mr Munro, "dairy farming is destined to play a very important part in the progress and prosperity of the town and district in a few; years, as the courjn’y is still comparatively cheap and there is much of it yet to be brought under cultivation. The top soil, if it may so be described, does not - appeal to the average eye, perhaps, but as they say ‘the proof of the pudding lies in the eating,’ and the fine pastures to be seen on the Waihi Plains bear striking testimony to its suitability for dairying and its ready and splendid response to fertilisers.” “In addition to dairy farming,” concluded the visitor, there are big possibilities for .sheep raising in these parts. The lands to be seen about the foothills and going away towards Whangamata and Waitekauri would make ideal sheep country and should certainly appeal to southern sheep raisers if brought under their notice. They cannot get country equally suitable down their way at anything like the same price they can get it about here, and much of it comparatively close to the town. I venture to say that it will not be very long before we will see sheep on all the more or less broken and hilly country between Waihi and Katikati and there is quite a lot of it still in a state of nature.”