Bush Farming in the North Island

Feilding Star, Volume XIII, Issue 14, 1 August 1891, Page 4

Bush Farming in the North Island

(Dunedin Star.) j Having just returned to Dunedin j - after a year's residence on a hush farm in the Wellington district, I think a short account of inj experience •may prove of interest to yuur readers. "Of course the chief consideration in ' taking up hush laud is the amount of j capital an intending settler has at his disposal, ■ aud it is according to his means whether he has a rough time of it in prospect or not. Ikiiowa man wh«> took up a biibh section of 120 acies •who had ou(y a £10 note in his pocket with which to work it. However, after a f**w years' hard toil he got his land cleared and grassed, aud it is now capable of carrying four sheep to the acre all the year round, without j growing turnips for feed for them in thewinter, as is required in Of ago. When the man I speak of took up the land it was ten years ago, when bush land could be bought at a low price, hut since then it has. gone up fuily 500 per cent., because people, hearing of the excellent quality of the land in the Manawatu district, have simply made a rush for it ; and owing to these small settlements, the Manawatu [Railway is aoxr one of the most successful lines in the colony. Anybody desiring to take up good land now must he prepared to pay from £5 per acre upwards, bush standing. I think the most advisable thing, for anybody going in for bush land, is to choose a small sectiou of really first-class land, rather than a section three times the sizH of second -class land ; for a small ami good farm can be worked with m«>re profit than a large and inferior one, as every farmer well knows. The first thing a settler should do is to - exaraiue his survey pegs, so as to make sure that he is on his own -•- section. This to some might seem an unnecessary statement, as he would be sure to examine his pegs. Al- ■ though that is done, still there is -•' -Bnv.b difficulty in finding them at times 'that so'me settlers have been known to * start, felling his neighbor's bush under the idea that he' was felling his own. - -Then, .Hgaiu, when a settler "lets" "hi- bush to be felled he has to be as • fxm:i as possible^ and to make correct ■ measurement in the bush is rather I'iliir-ult work. Suppose a man lets, - f-ay, fifty acres of bush to be felled )>v tu'« ordinary bush-feller, the s-li.-uio^s are that, while he imagines he is getting fifty acres felled, he is in jpalityonly getting about forty five. The way tbe bush- feller contrives to deceive is this : Before he' begins to fell hi« bush he finds the four corner pegs, or whatever number there might be, and drawing them from the . ground, sticks them in again, perhaps a few .yards in the bush, so that the timber he has actually felled will lie less hy that amount than what he contracted for. This is often done. . A settler near where I lived was imposed on in this way, aud I question "whether he knows the extent of it even : now. ( To he Continued.)