To the Editor of the Lyttelton Times.

Lyttelton Times, Volume V, Issue 302, 22 September 1855, Page 4

To the Editor of the Lyttelton Times.

Sir, ■ — No circumstance has of late been more dispiriting to all well-wishers of the Province than the fact of many vessels seeking produce here having been compelled to go away without cargo, not from want of produce, but of the means of bringing that produce to the Port in reasonable time, and various are the devices for a remedy to this evil, the more magnificent and unattainable being with many the most attractive: and indeed,how we are to bring next year's crops from the Plains to market may well occupy our attention, and it seems to be a great problem to solve, and, unless our friends at Christchurch (more practical than usual) should at the proposed meeting' in their great seat of learning and commerce, devise some plan for our rescue, the Province will be in a state of despair; for we are beset with doubts and difficulties of every kind. Doubts whether the land will not be thrown out of cultivation ; doubts whether we shall ever have a cart road completed to help to bring produce to Port; doubts indeed even whether such a common-place thing as a cart road would be

useful at al; doubts whether our little steamer will comei aud doubts whether it will be of any service if i should come. But, injhe midst of ail these doubts, there is one subjeq of congratulation and of hope for the future^ in the fact that from one bay alone in the Pninsula have been shipped 100 tons of potatoes! in addition to other produce ; and I wish to calthe attention of some of your readers, viz., otners of laud round Port Victoria and intending farmers, to the great advantage they would derive from the cultivation of the land in th neighbourhood. I will only enumerate a fei localities from whence, (had their position bed properly estimated,) we ought to have been ale this year to have loaded a dozen vessels for Astralia, viz., Rhodes' Bay, Charteris I^sjy, Gebb.V Fiat, Governor's Bay, not to ijaentton mcierous bays, &c, on the Peninsula and around lie Port, where both cereal and root crops could c successfully raised. I need oiif glance at the advantages cultivators here wold enjoy over those on the Plains, for they mftt be obvious to every one. The proximity tojheshipping,and the consequent certainty of thj best market; the addition to the price of ther produce to he secured in the saving in tie cost of bringing it to the ship's side: thesejtnd other advantage:? are clear, and I only hopelhat whilst we are settling our little quarrels hoy to deal with the produce of the Plains, therj will be found some to whom these advantages lull be an inducement to turn their attention tqthelaud in the locality pointed out, and thus seuire to the Province those valuable markets wpch, if we are not on the alert, may slip through our fingers. i I am, your obedient servant, i b.