Ploughing Bush Land

Feilding Star, Volume X, Issue 83, 17 January 1889, Page 3

Ploughing Bush Land

(Kaupokonui correspondent). A few years ago I advocated stump I extractors as a means of removing stumps from our bush grounds, and a friend of mine had serious intentions of procuring an extractor from Australia and taking contracts to uproot stumps. Little did I think then that the strongest stump extractor one could get was to allow the stumps to stand for four or five years wb.6n they would require very little extracting. Only the other day I witnessed the plough working in trash ground, the bush being felled only six years. The fact of ploughing being done in forest land in a space so short at once places this bush district far ahead of any other forest district in this Island. It is no exaggeration to say this,, for in respect to grass growing, apart from ploughing the land, the district is much superior to any in the colony, and the fact that the bush land can be ploughed in a space of time so short is evidence that the forest land can be brought into cultivation at a time at which, in other bush districts, timber has hardly commeuced to decay. The cost of clearing the land preparatory to ploughing is comparatively small, in fact the cost of bringing bush land into cultivation makes it a serious rival to open land. When bush land can i»e cleared of all timber except ratas and pines and the roots grubbed for 16s per acre the advantages of bush land are plainly seen. The fact of the bush land being ploughable at a small cost may stimulate other settlers to give it a trial. It is undoubtedly a good thing to be able to say that bush land felled six years ago cau be ploughed at a small price equal to the cost of clearing flax from open land. - Hawera Star.