PRODUCTIVE SOUTHLAND

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 7, Issue 85, 27 June 1944, Page 2

PRODUCTIVE SOUTHLAND

LITTLE-KNOWN PROVINCE

Southland, that little-known, southernmost portion of the British Empire, has the most reasonable and steady level of land values in New Zealand. Its climate and soil fertility permit of a wider range of diversifted farming than anywhere further north. The province has consistently Avon South Island, Dominion, and occasionally world championships for fat lambs, cheese, and (Rugby football; its yields of oats and wheat are among the highest in the world; and nowhere e'se are there such extensive natural oyster beds as in Foveaux Strait, no scenery more magnificent than that in the Eglinton Valley. This sums up a description of Southland as given by Mr L. A. G. Barrett, of Massey Agricultural College, in an address to members of the Feilding Branch of the Farmers' Union at Bunnythorpe. He said that the boom in land values ill 1921-22 had not affected the far south, where farmers considered their holdinges as permanent homes rather than as places to buy an'd sell on fluctuating markets. The virile climate and Scottish ancestry j had produced a virile and compan- j ionable people; and though a rainfall of up to 45 inches in the coastal district made farm drainage essential,, that extensive area averaged only about one fall of snow annually, and that of perhaps two inches, which lay for a day or so. The province had given a lead to New Zealand in the liberal use of lime, two tons of which were often applied annually per acre from the large deposits available, locally. A start had been made on the quarrying of whole hillsides of serpentine rock at Mossburn, which district had for years supplied Britain, Europe and America with Chewings fescue seed for aerodromes, golf courses and lawns. Growth of spring-sown wheat (with an average yield of 44 bushels) and oats (nearly 60 bushels) was assisted by short summer nights and long days in which twilight lasted until about 9.30 p.m. Alongside the Edendale Dairy Factory, which in 1882 won the Government bonus of £500 for tlie first 50 tons of cheese made under the factory system and successfully exported to a foreign market, was the largest and most efficient sugar of milk factory in the world. Its annual output of about 1000 tons represented 25 per cent of. the toltal world production. Southland Stilton cheese,, the recipe for which had been closely guarded by the Saxelby family at Woodlands for nearly 60 years, came to be recognised by Australian, American and European connoisseurs and importers as the best of its kind in the world. "And yet" concluded Mr Barrett, "Southland is comparatively unknown; even to New Zealanders."