George Turner lifts a post for a fencing job on a new block. (Elsdon Craig Photo) THE MAN WHO BREAKS IN THE LAND by ELSDON CRAIG FEW farmers who are producing to capacity on their own land have a prouder record of achievement that Mr George Turner. Mr Turner is a Maori who has no farming land of his own. He has devoted half of his working life to breaking in land for other people under the department development scheme. He and his four hard-working sons have watched without envy or regret dozens of more fortunate people than themselves succeed as a result of the sound foundations which their knowledge, energy, and purpose have laid. But Mr Turner considers he is well rewarded for his efforts. He can call himself a New Zealand farmer in the true sense of the term because he farms New Zealand and is pleased to be able to add to the national wealth. For the last four years he has been farm manager on the Paewhenua Block, near Te Kuiti. He began his career with the department in 1937, when he helped to break in the Kopua Block, of 460 acres, not far from Pirongia. Today, he had the satisfaction of seeing three enterprising former Maori Battalion men. Jim Nelson, Peter Daniels, and Charlie Lingman, successfully settled on the land which he transformed, with the help of others, from scrub country to smiling dairy farms. After a few years at Ngutunui from 1939 onward, he returned to Kopua just before it was settled to supervise the fencing and subdivision. Mr Turner cast his mind back to the hard, slogging days at Kopua as he surveyed on the hill his new house recently erected by the department. “I lived in a tin shack in those days,” he said grimly. “Yes, it had two rooms. I was in one of them and the tractor in the other.” When he came to Kopua, only 140 of the 1100 acres was in grass. The rest was unfenced scrub country. Mr Turner said he “scratched his head a bit” when he saw what lay before him. But he had the answer to his problem in his four husky sons. “Yes,” he added, proudly, “they are the only labour I have employed here. We have done all the work ourselves.” In the first year they burnt off 640 acres, got the contractors in with their tractors, and grassed the area in the same season. Next year this hardworking family broke in the rest, except for 140 acres of hill country, which they will deal with as soon as it is ready to take a fire. Meanwhile, father and sons have erected no less than 20 miles of fencing. “I have got on a lot quicker with this block than with any of the others,” said Mr Turner firm-