THE PIAKO COUNTY. (By our Travelling Reporter.) The Waitoa Estate. (Continued.)

Waikato Times, Volume XVI, Issue 1383, 14 May 1881, Page 3

THE PIAKO COUNTY. (By our Travelling Reporter.) The Waitoa Estate. (Continued.)

Evkrybody who has firmed the best land of this North Island knows that for the first few years the befat cour&e to follow with it is to sow it in grass and feed it off, and that it will in that way alone get rid of the fern root and become sweetened ready for grain growing as well as if ploughed any number of times and at a quaiter of the expense. This evidently has been the com se selected by Mr Collins, foi he has had no grain ciops yet, bnt he has a voiy nice held of 550 head of cattle of mixed breeds, -md somo oO head or so of calves and young stock. Hoie again I am veiy glad to sec the Aufklander's favorite Hereford with his honest bitr white taco and burly form made much of. A fir-,t-iate imported Heiefoid bull is tho sue of many of this herd, and the young stock aie particularly worthy of admiiation, and full of life .md good feed. One rising young gentleman, a two-year-old bull oi a pure sboithom bleed, &ent from England by Mr Lai k worthy w,i.-> introduced to me as The County Boy. He is a dark red, and his head and fore-qu,irteis could not be beaten by any bovine beauty I have seen out here. He will be a tiemendous fellow in another year, and it is to be hoped that he will exhibit his perfections m as many of the shows as possible out here. Mr Collins staited sheep bleeding only last year with 000 ewes of a f Lincoln bleed from Pilworth's flock, and rams, from Williamson's. He had ioO l.imbs presented to him by his little family this beabon, and they look all in the best possible condition of fleece and carcase. The Lincoln breed is one of the best for level lands, and its wool for weight and strength, always fetches a good price. Crossed with the Koinuey Marsh and tho Meiino bteeds, it is in great favor in many patts of this island. There are 11 good horses, 7of them being draught, and the remainder buggy or saddle hacks, and I gazed fondly on about, a dozen pictures ot black lioikslme pigs. The mation of the sty who weighed over three hundred weight, and bore a wondoiful f.in.ily to the Tudors ot England, so much so that J c.inuot help thinking there mu&t be some of the Henry the Eights' blood in her, waddled up to me and exhibited a breadth of back and a depth of sides, that in tho shape of bacon would be the perfection of beauty, though one might not be smitten with .such expressive corpulence in any other form. All-round srood egg-laying and chick propagating- fowls, the T;e>t farmers friends, fine old pompous shuargling turkiei, weakly, like other gieat fuols, fancying themselves the louls of the scene, and patronising the men who gave them food, not as they imagined for their superior style of beauty and power, but merely to make tender bellyf uls of them. Good lubberly gee&e stretching out their necks and hissing at passers-bye as if they thought all the world must infallibly turu round aud rim away, or fall down and die on tho spot at such a terufic exhibition of power, and all the others of men's wonderful likenesses to be found in tho poultry yard, made the Waitoa homestead look cheerful and profitable. In going my round I admired the good stock of implements of all kind I',1 ', showing that Mr Collins is a farmer of the modern school, tied by no i/n< rant old prejudices, and believes in getting his work done effeotnally in the quickest way, and at tho lowest price, double and treble-furrow ploughs, two or three kinds of harrows, Cambridge and plain rollers, combined reaper and mower, waggons, drayn, etc., of a pattern that would have made the good old Conseivative farmer of the days when George the Third was King ohink his coppers, puff his fat cheeks out, and pray to be delivered from " them 'ere bloody revolutionists." Everything is provided on the most liberal scale for the growing requirements for cropping in these parts in the day when Auckland will bo prepared to enter the markets with her grain, or any other department of farming, against Canterbury and Otago. There has not been yet, however, much done at Waitoa in farming, the crops last year only oon« | sisting of about 30 acres or oats for hay, 12 acres of mangolds, turnips and carrots, j that, with only just a little stable ! manure scattered on tho surface, produced roots of immense weight, and a high ' amount to tho acre, and two awed of potatoes that yielded ' nine tons to the

acre. There will be more laid down next season for feeding- crops, afc all events, 300 acres being intended for turnips alone, it is said. Another curiosity that might prove invaluable to some large beebreedera,~waB a hive, patented, I believe, by Mr Hopkins, of the Thames, containing slides of artificial comb, anyone of which can be removed^ if reauired, without destroying the bees and the honey obtained from the cells, which oan then be replaced and used again by the bees. These hard-working gentry were busily' filling up the cells of one of the slides ! removed for my inspection, and did not appear to be at all riled by the interference with their meat safe, as a noble image of his Creator Would have been. It must not be imagined that because these great plains are level and monotonous to the distant view that they are devoid of all picturesqueness to the inhabitants of them. Besides the beauties of the gardens, the homesteads, the paddocks with their bright hedges, the rivers and the winding little secluded glens, the soft, shady copses and the blooming orchards ; there are lights and (shadows over the distant purple ranges, the peaks and passes, and rivulets of which ohanpre hourly their glow and tint with the slope of the sun .aid the passing of eveiy cloud, and on one side, from the Waitoa station, may be seen the silver Rpaikle and shimmer of the grand waterfalls of Wairiri tumbling for several hundred feet in one sheer cascade over the face of the hills. It is a marvellously beautiful scene at morn, or by the evening aoft lights, and looking by moonlight across the flats to the distant little town, lying so quietly J and poetically on the plain, one may sentimentalise, and feel infinitely refreshed by so doing after a hard day's commonplace work. Time will soften it moie and more, and in a few years the black - biid, the thrush and the nightingale, will 'idd a new pleasure to those of the fivisrrance of the clover, the whitethorn, and the rose, tho loving touches of Nature, as soft as those of a mother for her sleeping b.ibe, will tenderly bring every corner and slope under her influence, till the picture of gentle, calm, homely beauty is complete.