PROMISE FOR FUTURE

Daily Telegraph (Napier), Volume 59, Issue 74, 30 April 1930, Page 5

PROMISE FOR FUTURE

EAST COAST RAILWAY LANDS. ORCHARDS AND DAIRY FARMS. THE RESULT OF FERTILISERS. Settlers in the Waikare and Matahoura districts flanking the East Coast Railway are full of hope and confidence in the future of their districts when brought to their full productivity. As mentioned already in these columns, the men who man.the farms in this area have already worked wonders with a combination of hard toil and superphosphate since they have had the railroad at their back door, but they are looking even further in the interests of their district. As one farmer put it to me the other day, they have as yet "only scratched the surface." The flat land in the area, consisting of a layer of about six inches of fine black soil over pumice, has already shown a wonderful response to rational metbods of cultivation, allied with liberal dressings of the superphosphate in which the settlers place so much trust. The through freight of 15s per ton operating on the railway for fertilisers places them in a valuable position in this respect, and there are numbers of settlers in tlie district who consider that within the course of the next few years a continuation of modern methods of farming- will see the flat lands devoted to orcharding, dairying and the fattening of blackfaced lambs. The close proximity of the railway and the facilities and efficient' 6ervice afforded thereby are points in the favour of establishing tnese branches of farming in the area on a sound basis. if the land ' can stand it, and I, like the Settlers, am firmly of the opiniott that it can. The land has already been proved suitable for apple culture, and many of the settlers have small, but excellent, orchards on their properties, well-laden trees testifying to the sqitability of the soil. It will possibly take a few years before the land can be brought up to a high-grade dairying standard; but if tbe settlers carry on with the good work, that they are doing ,nt present I see nothing to stand in the way of this district, served with an efficient railway service, becoming one of the most prosperous small farming areas in the lyhole. province.