OUR BUSH LANDS.

Evening Star, Volume IX, Issue 2734, 21 November 1871, Page 2

OUR BUSH LANDS.

In the August letter of the New Zealand correspondent of the London Times are some interesting comparisons as to the growth pf the two islands. From them we select the following:— The Middle Island may be divided into two parts. The West Coast country is all bush, and, with the exception of a few narrow river bottoms, too wildly rugged for any but mining purposes. The blast Coast country and the extremities are move diversified : they consist of broad open plains and , clear hills, with a few hundred acres of bush here and there in the neighborhood of Dun* edin and Southland. The greater part of the island displays a conspicuous absence of forest land, and the first settlers could havp ridden hundreds of miles without meeting with auy vegetation higher than their horses’ knees. The ground, too, is generally sound and dry, and, where level, forms a suffi* ciently good road for ordinary traffic. The North Island, on the other hand, everywhere presents far greater obstacles to immediate occupation. With the exception of a portion of the Hawkes Bay country, there is nowhere any great extent of either clear land or of natural grass fij: for feeding stock. Throughout the whole island the forest primeval prevails on flat and hill; even the so-called open country is covered with native shrubs, toitoi grass, and the Phormium tenax, through which the horseman in most places found himself unable to penetrate, and a man on foot could neither see nor yet be seen 20 yards away. Owing, probably, to the deposit left by this rank overgrowth, and the moisture of the climate, the land is soft and boggy. Tracks, once made, soon become imputable if much in use. The profitable pursuit of agriculture is, therefore, confined to the neighborhood of the metalled roads. ' These differences in the natural features of the two islands mean that the settler in the Middle Island found himself able at once to feed his flocks and herds without trouble and without the expense of creating artificial grass ; that he is able to put the plough into his land, where it is sufficiently level, without preliminary expense, and that he can take his grain to market without having first to unite with his neighbors to form a road. All these advantages have naturally tended to attract labour and capital 'southward, because both’could lie made more immediately reproductive there, and they would sufficiently account for the larger population and the more rapid progressjjof the country possessing such comparatively greater facilities for occupation, even had the Northern Islanders no hostile natives to contend with, and if the enormous tracts of Maori land even now sealed to settlement had been available. Now, however, it is, I think, generally acknowledged that the soil and climate of the North will be found in (be end to compensate the farmer-grazier in

making them productive. The ' aori-.-s, hy their desertion of the Miilcll" I land in favor of the ' orlh, testified their appreciation of the latter, and they are no mean judges of good land. In the north the Knglish grasses and clovers grow with a luxnranec and rapidity unequalled in the south. hj rust in winter and drought in summer are unknown, and if a wet autumn spoils the corn the loss is made up in the exra crop of grass for winter feed. Though a North Island man may spend from LI to L 5 per acre in clearing his land, his permanent return will far more than compensate the additional expenditure. The economv of occupying bush land is hardly yet sufficient appreciated. The want of timber is an absolute prohibition to the occupation of land by a large population un less they happen to be within easy reach of coal. The small settler draws upon his bush from the moment he puts himself upon his ground. Whether he desires to boil a kettle to build his house, to make his furniture, or to fence his land, the bush is always in request; and the extra cost which has to be incurred in many necessary operations in a timberless country amounts in the aggregate to more than the saving affected by having his land cleared withoiu cost, at least as far as small holder is concerned. Of course, the happy medium is to be preferred, and where patches of bush occur in the fern or grassy clearings as they do in Southland. Dunedin, and everywhere about the North Island, the best conditions of settlement are presented. 1 am however, confident, that the timber of the North Island, which will be very accessible when the main trunk line of road is farmed, and which is even now being opened up by means of cheap wooden railways in Wellington, oan be made the means of locating an enormous agricultural population and of creating a profitable export. The wholesale waste of magnificent trees has hitherto been a consequence of the want of knowledge as to their real value. The New Zealand settler who chops down" and burns the giants of the forest does not know that he is destroying a far more valuable crop than he can ev<-r replace upon his land. The timber merchants of the old countries do not warn him against such waste because they probably are ignorant of the character and qualities of the timber doomed to so ignominious and useless an ending. Now that the means of internal communication are being so rapidly improved. and we are being brought into so much more intimate connexion with England and with Europe, I see no reason why, through the medium of our timber, the two antipodes should not be made to benefit mutually by each other s need. The demand for sleepers for the projected railway works is likely to direct attention to the value of timber land. The North Island could supply all New Zealand requirements, and much more besides, were a hundred miles or two of wooden railway constructed, and the timber trade should be a continuous source of revenue to the projected main railway line, which penetrates the chief forests of the north.