TEN YEARS AFTER

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 3, Issue 272, 17 February 1941, Page 5

TEN YEARS AFTER

MUCH NEW BUILDING ADVANCE OF MATATA (By O. Hope)

•What impressed mc perhaps most of all Avas the way the suburban area of Wliakatane had been built up since 1941. I remembered when there were plenty of paddocks between the houses in Kopeopeo—in fact most of the houses Avere not within hailing distance of each other. "But that was ten years ago," said my guide. "You remember how the State built a few dozen houses just before the 1931 election out towards King Street—well they have been building a hundred houses a year ever since. So there is not a vacant section on the town side of the Wliakatane River, and the outer suburban district now embraces Poroporo and Paroa. "Seems a long way out for these people to live," I remarked. "Not so far now that we have the electric bus system giving these residents frequent opportunities of getting in and out of town. Of course there have been revolutionary changes in transport siifce the days of the old petrol buses, and people don't think anything of living five miles from their place of employment." Changes on the Plains. Next day my friend insisted that I should travel round the County to see the. revolutionary changes of the last ten years. "Of course it was the soldier settlement schemes which gave such an impetus to closer settlement out on the Plains," he said as we were gliding along on the straight flat bitumen roads between frequent farm dwellings. "Whatever have been the misdeeds of an All-Party Government in the last ten years they certainls' did make a fair job of settling the soldiers on the land." I remarked. "I have always wanted to go over the Rangitaiki Plains again to see what these soldier farms look like. I have so often heard them quoted as the biggest and most successful soldier settlement in New Zealand." My friend explained that the reason was that in 1941 the surface ol the Rangitaiki Plaivis was only being scratched, so to speak. In those days the old hands used to say there was not much more room for settlement or increased production, but such pessimists had had to eat their words. "I suppose yon wouldn't find a rush bush or a stick of tea tree on the whole Plains now," I remarked as we passed mile after mile 'of hedges, plantations; and uniformlysmall paddocks. "Not unless there are any kept as curiosities or relics of the old days," was the reply. "Of course that is one result of the completion of the land -drainage scheme which was only half finished when you were here last. Now the land has had time to consolidate and any really low land has been kept dry by an efficient system of pumping such as they have had in Holland for generations. New Crops For Old. I remarked on the vast amount of cultivation evident on the plains. There was a time when most of the land had been in jgrass Avith a feAV patches of maize and houses few and far between. "Yes, this land is too valuable for running coavs on iioav," said my guide. "This soil will groAV anything practically, and noAv that the labour jDroblem has been solved bj r the use of improved machinery it is groAving prodigious crops. The Government brought over experts from the irrigation areas of California and Australia to gi\ 7 e things a start" "Ten years ago this Plain Avas just one big coav ranch," I remarked, and people used to say that the ideal size for a farm Avas 200 acres with a herd of 15,0 coavs. But there AA'as alAvays a lot of argument about the shortage of farm labour, especially after the boys went overseas. "Oh yes," said my guide, "that* brought matters to a crisis, and a lot of people started to go out of dairying and into maize groA\ r ing. There Avas a phenomenal demand for maize with which to feed the pigs in the Waikato and Taranaki Avhere of course, they cannot groAV it. Then AA'hen the soldiers came home the Government bought up the whole Plains and made 10-acre holdings. (Continued at foot of next column)

Of course, there are still lots of cows being milked in the County, but not in the wholesale manner that was a not-al together satisfactory feature of the 20 years interval between the two Great Wars." I called to mind that when I was here in 1941 a feature of life on the Plains was tho presence of big petrol driven lorries rumbling around the dusty roads collecting cans of cream every half a mile or so. "Yes that was a most inefficient way of doing things," added my friend, "although at the time we thought it was the very last word in efficiency. Still, look at the changes you nave seen, in the last 40 years. I suppose you can look back to the time when llie whole cf these Plains was a swamp -inhabited by wild ducks and pukekos? Oh ! those were the good old days! I exclaimed, thinking, of how I travessel to Whakatane by coach in 1911.