0AMARU.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXVII, Issue 18, 4 May 1899, Page 28

0 A M A RU.

(From our own correspondent.)

_„ , . May 1. lhis season s harvest is the most prolific that the Oamaru district has had for many years. Some very heavy yields have been obtained throughout the various parts of the district. Mr. Ryan of Ardgowan, threshed 106 bushels of oats to the acre in a small paddock near his homestead, Mr. Gilchrist had 70 bushels of wheat at the Devil's Bridge, and Mr. Rodgers' paddock at Taipo averaged up to 50 bushels for the whole 200-acre paddock. The country in the vicinity of Oamaru bears now a different appearance to what it did some five years ago. a hanks to the land policy of the Government we have now an industrious farming community settled upon estates, which, heretofore, yiel"ed profits only to ab-entee land empanies. The Maerewhenua, Ardgowan, and Tokorahi estates have been resumed under the Land for t^ettlement Act, and industrious and thriving farmers are building up comfortable homos where there was scarcely a habitation a few years ago. Waikakahi has just been balloted for, and the fortunate ones are already preparing for next season's crop. The Elderslie estate has also been acquired. The work of survey is far advanced, and all possible speed is being made to get the ballot over in time for this season's sowing. Our Catholic community can scarcely be said to have benefited proportionately by the breaking up of these estates. At Ardgowan and Maerewhenua they are, numerically speaking, better represented, for the conditions upon which those estates are let were less exacting than the terms imposed upon the tenants of the estates acquired later. The consequence is that those most in need of land, through not having thejjcapital arbitrarily deemed necessary by the Land Commissioner, are rejected. The majority of our people, who are in need of land, must necessarily suffer in consequence of these restrictions, for in general they are not over-burdened with this world's goods, so it behoves them to use every effort to remove those restrictions and, if possible, to bring about a return to the system at first in existence. The readers of the N.Z. Tablet are no doubt aware that on church property— in church buildings more especially — Oamaru claims pre-eminence over any other provincial town in the Colouy Our Basilica would be an ornament, not alone to a provincial town, but to a city, and we are not insensible to the compliment paid us by his Grace the Archbishop of Wellington in chousing for the design of his new church, at Thorndon, a facsimile of our Basilica. We are justlyj ustly proud of our church, and the sacrifices made for its erection, and they were Lot few, are forgotten in the knowledge that what is given in promoting the greater glory of God ia repaid tenfold. Great things have been done by the generosity of the Oatiiaru people in the past, but a good deal yet remains before we can claim all the honour. The debt ou the Basilica, although comparatively small, is a very inconvenieut burden, and a great effort is now being ma le to reduce it. A Shakespearian bazaar is to be opened on the 23r 1 inst., together wi.h an art union, in which prizes of exceptional excellence are being effjred. The winner of the first prize is guanuteed a purchaser at £40. and the paintings aad other works of art are fully worth the intrinsic value set opposite each item on the art union tickets.