IN THE OHURA.

Dominion, Volume 7, Issue 1898, 5 November 1913, Page 18

IN THE OHURA.

A COMING DAIRYING DISTRICT

SETTLERS' HANDICAPS.

It is a very haphazard view of Now Zealand .that, the traveller gets from the windows of a railway carriago. Along the New Plymouth line the best of the land in the province is to bo seen on either hand, but along .tho Main Trunk for the stretch' from Taumaruimi northwards to To Kuit-i, tho express runs through a long narrow streak of the very poorest land in tho district. No one' looking out of the carriago windows there would imagine that just across tho ridges to tho left lie the fertile valleys. of the Ohura and its tributaries, and the big stretches of dairying country reaching "away northwards to the Mokau, liiver. Probably in no other portion of New Zealand will so much settlement be found so fa/ back from tho railway as here, and few districts havo had to struggle against such heavy odds. Tho first settlement on Crown Lands in the Ohura began in 1903, but to-day nearly tho whole of tho- country has taken up. The extent of the settlement ia not apparent on looking over the country, for a view from the hills shows bush-clad ridges in all directions, and it is only by going up the valleys that one sees tho clearings and homesteads 'of the settlers for mile after mile. In the two counties of Ohura and Waitomo, it is estimated that about a quarter of tho land is to-day cleared and productive. In tho Ohura the Bottlers, in common with, the rest of the country, have felt tho financial stringency of late years,' and this has hampered them in getting _ their country into grass. Before the tightness in the money market camo they had tho two banks with branches in tho district competing; against one another, for business, and the outlook could not have been rosier. Then cam© the pinch, and r he banks had to- close down on advances, and the farmers are in many cases to-day with their sections half improved, .and unablo to obtain the necessary yjfunds to compkte tho work. This has' naturally kept the district . back to : a certain extent,, but its progress has been remarkable, as tho County Council statistics bear eloquent witness. During tho last threo years the capital value of the county has increased from £475.000 to over £1,100,000, and the population since the census was taken in 1911 has jumped from 1400 to over 2000. Although the Crown lands havo been opened only since 1903, four settlers camo into the distriot about eighteen years ago and took up some Native leases. They wero Messrs. C. J. Ryan (how of Taumarumti), W. K. Williams, P. Bruce, and Sutherland. Mr. Sutherland has since left tho. district, but Messrs. Williams and Bruce still r'esido in it. When the first Crown- Lands wero thrown open the six original settlers" on them Were Messrs. 11. B. EsdaiK G. Beresford, G. C. Stevenson, C. Drake, W. J. M'Kay, and Curno Bros.. Tho district is under the Taranaki Lands Office, but. settlement has throughout been from the- Auckland side. Tho selectors of 1903 state that tlie.v were informed- that the railway, then 30 miles up from Stratford, would bo through in four years to tho Ohura, but to-day they still wait its coming. Between 50,000 and 60,000 acres has been cut up into improved farm settlements in sections ot from 100 to 200 acres each in Ohura County, and that portion of AVaitomo County rooming within tho Tarsuiaki land district. Tho balance of tho opened country is in 400-acro to 1200-acro blocks, and practically tho wholo of it will carry two sheep to tho aero. It is estimated that in this same district thero is from 150,000 to 200,000 acres of land, suitable for dairying, and of this only 20,000 j acres ia .to-day in actual productive 1 use. It will-thus be Bebh that there in this part of the country room for immenso expansion. Tho country is,, not another Taranaki, for the, dairying' land is too scattered, and dispersed in different valleys to bo worked with the same facility as in the south of the province, but it is o'no with possibilities that deserve much moro recognition than they - have received in tho past. Two dairy factories are at present at work in the district, one at Aria and the other at Matiere, while a third was established at Niho Niho, but owing partly to the handicap of bad roads and to differences among the suppliers its caree'r was short, and the company is now in liquidation. The factory at Aria is on- tho co-operative basis, and its' output last season was 37 tons of butter. Tho supplies came from 30 farmors. Five years ago this factory had 32 suppliers and an output of only five tons of butter. Dairying began in a somewhat unfortunate way iu the Ohura, but five years ago two projects were simultaneously put on foot. A proprietary 'factory was opened at Matiere, and lour miles away at Niho Niho tho Co-operative Company erected a large factory and began opern- 4 tions. The Niho Niho factory in 1908 had ten suppliors and turned out twelve tons of butter, the amount' increasing t'j 56 tons from 47 suppliers last season, wlion the factory was permanently clesed down. Tho Matiere- factory has been in a much smaller way, and last season's output was only about 25 tons, the number of suppliers being 17. This year, tho manager, Mr. E. Gilbert, states that the output will be much larger, as most of tho Niho Niho suppliers will send their cream into Matiere and the factory should, havo an output of about 70 or 80 tons.

The distriot is a very young one, an-d tho quality of the dairy herds is : by no means what it might be. The averago yield per cow in the Ohura is stated to bo about loOlb;, as against the average of 1651b. for the Dominion A littlo tentative herd-testing has been tried by one or two farmers, but the difficulty is to find some way of getting rid of the unprofitable cows short of absolute destruction. Some of the farmers have culled their herds, but the culls havo I eimply been brought up by neighbouring | farmers and milked again, and the not result amounts to nothing so far as tho district is concerned. At these far-out dairy factories, homo- j separation has perforce to be the rule, for tho carting in of milk twico daily is beyond tho bounds of possibilityover tho roads of tho Ohura. Despite the difficulties, under which tho Matiere factory labours, it pays lid. per lb. of butter-fat for cream dolivered at the factory, and IOJd. whero tho cream is brought in by' wagon. It should bo explained that cream is received every other day, a wagon making a circuit of tho district and picking up tlie loads from the farmers' pack-horses. Townspeople can picturo to themselves what life means in tho Ohura from the fact that crcam lias often to bo taken from five to sewn miles by pack-horse before it roaches tho wagon, which runs twelve* miles out from tho factory. It says something for tho work of the factory that butter made under such conditions should bo ablo to grade at 91J, as has beon tho case during tho last fow years. Tho factory at Matiero is in about tho most accessible portion of tho Ohura district, yet it costs £5 and £6 a ton ill winter to shift butter over tho 17 miles of road between Ongaruo and tho township, and never less than 30s. even in tho driest of summer weather.