BUSH SICKNESS TROUBLE.

Dominion, Volume 3, Issue 888, 6 August 1910, Page 8

BUSH SICKNESS TROUBLE.

OPENING UP OF ROTORTJA •V ' LANDS. '■ According to Mr. W. S. D. Macdonald, member for Bay of Plenty, the repeal of the Thermal Springs Act will, help to combat, bush sickness lvliich is fairly'common on the east-coast of the • Auckland province, • the officers* of tho Agricultural Department are now '.experimenting for a cure for this • sickness, but the only'practical remedy so; far known is to cliango paddocks in the open country to which stock may be transferred. The repeal of .tho Thermal Springs Act: will allow a large area of country to be throwji open for settlement on the borders of the district where bush sickness is met with and so help to combat it.' The Thermal Springs Act was passed in ISBI to preserve as a national estate tho, district' in whicli mineral" waters and thermal activity wore found, but tho progress of settlement now. makes it imperative that the land where no activity lias manifested itself should be thrown'open. Already somo forty thousand or fifty thousand acres, have been removed from the. operation of the Act but some -250,000 acres of Crown land and_2so,ooo acres of Native land, much of it iu the vicinity of the town of Rotorua, remains ' locked; up. Tho greater part of the land is not of 'very good quality, but with the aid of manures it can be made productive and payable aiid Mr. . Macdonald thinks that hi time, Rotorua ' will become a, largo commercial centre as well as a tourist resort. .