THE HERETAUNGA PLAINS

Daily Telegraph (Napier), Volume 59, Issue 101, 31 May 1930, Page 3

THE HERETAUNGA PLAINS

PICK OF THE DOMINION'S FARMING LAND. PRAISES SUNG BY SOUTHERN WRITER. "After visiting practically every part of the Dominion, the present writer, though he is Canterbury born and bred. awards the palm to the Heretaunga Plains from the aesthetic as well as from the agricultural point of view. Of course, after a loug dry spell tlie country can Iook very different, but in the springtime it is very beautiful indeed." Thus "Cantab," tlie agricultural corrcs])ondent of a well-known Chi'isschuxcli paper, in tlie course of an article devoted to a resume of agricultural and pastoral activities in Hawke's Bay. The writer must liave visited tlie district during the lieight oi a good season, and lie lias certainly fonned a high opinion of tne provluce's farming lands. He writes :■ — "Passing north tlirough the Takapau plains one is rcminded very forciblv of the light to medium reaches of the Canterbury Plains. From Waipukurau, north, the country is gently undulating, with very ricli flats here and there, nameJy, at Te Aute. There are several swanips of considerable area, and one of these is now being drained and should make available a very large area of really high-elass land. Around Te Aute, where the Maori Agricultural College is situated, tlie land is extremely rich, and the Williams family, vvhich owned much of this land in "the early days, were evidently no mean judges of quality. "The country continues to be undulating, mostly low limestone hills, until the Heretaunga Plains are reached, where Hastings is situated^ on what is generally considered to be the pick of the farming land in this Dominion. A visit paid to Hastings and its surrounding district in the Spring time is something to rliapsodise over. "There are the beautiful dark swards of ryegrass, with odd patches of lucerne here and there, and wlierever one looks one can see avenues of splendid trees, stately poplars and canopied willows, which at the first glance seem to bound most farms and to subdivide many of them. Tlie landscape is further improved hy the number of orchards, there being no fewer than 300 registered around Hastings. "The Heretaunga Plain is not large, the best • of it lying in a space of ahout twelve miles hy ten miles, but the soil is particularly fertile and the early settlers have shown their wisdom by adding to Nature hy the planting of very many trees. In this connection tlie work of Mr William Nelson can Be specially mentioned, and all the properties that he owned are real pictures with their avenues of trees."