Farming

A Battle in Northland by Peter Freeth Great fighters in earlier times, Maori people of Northland are today winning another battle—the battle of the land. In a region rich in history but poorer until now in its output of primary products, Maori farmers are showing that given the opportunity and the finance to make a start they can wield the ploughshare as before they wielded the mere. Today the grass is growing on Maori farms in Northland. Today, with phosphate, lime and trace elements, the fertility of poorer soils is being lifted and the butterfat yield is mounting. Success at Kaipara One who has given a lead is Mr Ross Wright, a 42-year-old-ex-Maori Battalion major who in 1946 became a rehabilitation settler on the Okahukura block fringing the Kaipara Harbour. Some 23 miles west of Wellsford, this block takes in part of the sandy strip that runs from Helensville to the Waipoua forest. Part of the block is hilly clay country destined for sheep farming. The rest is sandy loam which is providing a good living for dairymen like Ross Wright. When I visited Mr Wright's farm early last year he described the property as a little bit of the Waikato transplanted to Northland. This may have been a fairly accurate assessment but the fact that the farm can now be likened to the Waikato has a good deal to do with the calibre of the man who is farming it. True, he has not had to contend with some of the problems of men on the heavy clay country but this detracts little from a fine achievement. As a rehabilitation settler, Ross Wright was given a decent start but in his 15 years on the property he has improved it out of all recognition. He has cropped and resown his pastures to better grass. He has fenced and drained and top-dressed and bred good stock. He and his East Coast wife have worked and saved and saved and worked. Mr Ross Wright farms near Kaipara Harbour. The result is that from his 111 acres Ross Wright is producing nearly 30,000 pounds of butterfat in a season. He has found the time and the cash to build two haybarns, a garage and a piggery and to begin planting belts of gums and hedges. Yes, the Wright family now has a car but that is only a recent acquisition and when there are six children in a family a car is not really an extravagance. Further North Recently, on another North Island walkabout, I journeyed to Parengarenga, 15 miles from Cape Reinga on the Aopouri Peninsula. This is different country from Okahukura. Most of it is gumland clay and it is swept by the winds from the sea but here 29,000 acres of Maori land are being developed for Maori settlement. Heavy dressings of phosphate and lime are being applied by the Lands and Survey Department and judging by the way the new grass has come in, this land will indeed be an asset by the time it is handed back to the Maori Affairs Department for settlement. The development of such land as Parengarenga augurs well for the future of Maori farming in Northland, as does the effort being made by those farmers already settled at Te Kao and Ngataki, two areas immediately to the south. As I looked at some of the farms at Te Kao and Ngataki in the Far North I thought again of Ross Wright and his progress in lower Northland.