ESSAY ON THE NATURAL RESOURCES AND CAPABILITIES OF AKAROA HARBOR AND ADJACENT COUNTRY.

Akaroa Mail and Banks Peninsula Advertiser, Volume VI, Issue VI, 27 December 1881, Page 2

ESSAY ON THE NATURAL RESOURCES AND CAPABILITIES OF AKAROA HARBOR AND ADJACENT COUNTRY.

Prize Essay written by Mr Spurr,

In dealing with this subject, the more | we think about it the more inclined we feel to say that tho difficulty would be much greater if we were asked to point out what the place was not adapted for, than to stop at recounting its capabilities. Blessed with a climate and soil unsurpassed by that of any other spot in the kuowi.< world, we believe that the well-directed energies of practical men would enable them to turn to profitable account any or all of tbe common industrial works. For the present, we shall content ourselves with drawing attention to the following subjects :—lts capabilities as a shipping harbor, the advantages it offers | to seekers of pleasure and health, as an educational district, and its undeniable adaptability for the production of meat, butter, cheese, and fruit. The Harbor.—A safer or more commodious port could not be found on any part of the New Zealand coast ; spacious and yet land-locked. Capable of holding a thousand vessels of the largest tonnage, it also has the most necessary and desirable requisites that a harbor should possess, and they are, shelter from storms, an easy entrance, and good holding ground. Its sloping beaches offer every accommodation for building wharves, docks, and, in the outlying parts, bathing places. Comparing the land portions of Akaroa and Duvauchelle's Bay with that of Lyttelton, we have no hesitation in asserting that a far larger town could be built in either place with less than half the trouble and expense that it must have cost to have brought the latter-mentioned place to its size and position. And what could be better adapted for euburbb, where schools

colleges, and residences for invalids might be erected, than the gradual rising slopes surrounding Akaroa and Duvauchelle's Bay. It may be said, All this looks welh on paper, but how is it to be achieved. Our answer is by labor, combination, and capital ; and our after pages will show how these throe things are to be obtained. That there is a portion of the. capital required in the place already, there' is not a shadow of a doubt. Many larger towns have been formed from much smaller

beginnings than are required to get the proper start here; and if the inhabitants (the merchants and monied men especially) would put their own shoulders to the wheel, they would find that instead of having to beg and pray for a railway, ac they are doing now, the railway would be brought to them without asking for it. Make the place worth one first, and then it must come.

How to attain this very desirable end it is our purpose to show. We begin, then, with our first-named product, meat. Every one is well aware that ftt the commencement of each dairy season great numbers of calves are killed, 6ome of course for the rennet, but how many aro actually thrown away, and one naturally asks why. Some would tell us because their land would not support more. Granted. But is not the fact that they cannot obtain a fair price for their cattle, when they ate reared, another and far stronger reason ? And might not that cause be easily averted, and a source of profit be obtained from what is now a positive loss ?

We hear of other ports—Dunedin for instance—making great preparations for sending their surplus stock away, erecting jam manufactories, etc., and why, in the name of all that is wise and sensible, should we not do the same ? why should we always be the last to make a step in the right and onward direction? there really is nothing to prevent us ; why not erect a meat preserving establishment in our own district, and send the article direct from our own port ? no doubt we should be able to gain some benefit even by other ports sending it away, as we should sell our cattle, but the gain would be very small in comparison to what it would be if we sent it direct from our own port. By selling our stock to other people we give the cattle-buyers, the driver, and the preserver the lion's share of the profit, not to say anything about the superior condition the animals would be in through not having to travel. Again, the system would also be of benefit to the farmer in another, although perhaps less direct way, as assuredly they would when once sure of being able to get rid of a surplus stock, be induced to keep a superior description of stock in their yard, thereby ensuring the production of superior meat, butter, and cheese, and surely their own common sense would make them improve their

pastures. With reference to butter the same arguments stand good, and there cannot be the least hesitation in asserting that we need not let any other country out-do uh in the excellence of this article, The

only thing we can see that stands in the way at present, is the price. It must pay the dairyman as weil or better than oloes his cheese, or he will not produce it, and this objection would cease as soon as a good standing market v.-cro obtained.

Cheese.—Of course it is a well established fact, that r-heese is tbe stanle product of the Peninsula already, but it is also quite certain that a very little trouble would make its importance as an article of commerce, ten times more valuable than even in the best of times it ever has been yet. There is not the slightest doubt that last year's events have shown us that if we go the right way about it, an inexhaustible and valuable market for that produce is to be obtained, and tbe ensurement of that market is easy. Good judges of cheese, men living in other countries, unbiassed men. have told us that the greater part of the cheese made in the Peninsula, and sent home, has been as good as any produced in any other part of the world, but experience has also shown us that the good has been spoilt and therefore condemned through the admittance of a badly packed inferior article amongst it. To avoid this for the future, when large shipments are to be made, farmers should not be allowed to pack their cheese in fifty different ways. There should be at least two packing establishments erected, one at each centre of population, where the cheese could be packed uniformly. At each of these places tbere should be a thoroughly competent judge appointed to preside, his duty it should be to test every cheese that came in for shipment, and superintend* the packing thereof. Let his salary be dependent greatly upon the state in which the cheese arrived in market, in fact give him a greater interest in the affair than the payment of a fixed salary would do, make it to his interest to make a good shipment, and the farmers' ultimate success in this branch of industry is certain.

We believe that if this system was adopted by tbe Farmers' Association that the beneficial result arising therefrom, both to farmers and the community at large, would be incalculable.

We come now to the last, though not by far the least important, of our above named products, viz., Fruit, and we must confess that considering the importance attached to it in other countries, we are very much astonished that so little notice has been taken of it hitherto.

We do not here allude so much to the growth of the larger kind of fruits, as apples, pears, plums, etc., as to the propagation of the smaller ones, raspberries, currants, blackberries, etc., which are equally as payable and far less expensive in their cultnre.

Take raspberries for instance, the first trouble, that of clearing the land and setting the canes, is the greatest. Ihe first year they produce fruit and in the third they arrive at full maturity, supplying fresh canes for plantation and only requiring cleaning out.

On account of its many rivulets and licit soil on their banks, this place is peculiarly adapted for the growth of this kind of fruit.

If this branch of industry were taken in band diligently the district of Akaroa with its outlaying bays is capable of brin<jin at least two thousand pounds a year for that especial fruit alone. In proof of this we would beg to draw attention to the progress made in this peculiar branch by tho fruit growers in the little island of Tasmania, which ia truly called the garden of the South. (To be continued. J