MARKET GARDENING.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XV, Issue 203, 26 August 1880, Page 4

MARKET G ARDENING.

Under this heading the following letter appeared in a recent issue of the Post :— Sib, — We see many proposed receipts to alleviate the troubles of tbe times and the Chinese question ; I will give mine. Let a few of the unemployed, say iour or five steady, strong men, join together ; let them choose one of their number, whom they can trust, to act as " boss" for tbem ; and let them take five or six acres of good land at the Hutt. They can get it known at a fair price. Let them set to work, and, instep, d pf scratching the ground and sticking things in, and trusting to the flood for manure, let them cultivate it as farm land ought to be cultivated. Let them live a frugal life, abstaining from visiting the theatre or the. public-house for a few months, and as soon as their produce is ready for market let their salesman cart it in, and take such a price as will bring them into competition with the Chinamen. Let this be done, and the profits, ior the first six months — which in the case '..of the Chinamen would be forwarded to absent , friends in China — be expended in putting up a small dwelling, andin extending the business. The beßt Peruvian . guano can be obtained in Melbourne at | £6 5s per ton cash, and super-phosphate at £8, and shipped direct to Wellington as dead weight, whereas a Chinaman the other day asked me 16s per cwt. for guano. Let my proposal be tried by a few resolute steady men; their example would soon be followed by others, and you may be sure we should soon hear the last of the Chinese question, and the Hutt would resume its old appearance. Our so-called Liberal politicians are never tired of preaching on the blessings of peasant proprietorship. I would remind them that in countries, such as France and Switzerland, where peasant proprietors are most prosperous, their success is achieved, not by holding meetings of the unemployed, and by listening to stump orators, but by hard solid work. If the unemployed of New Zealand would trust to their own sinews and muscles instead of the ranting of interested trading political adventures, New Zealand would recover itself from the knock-down blow it has received during the last few years, just as rapidly as France recovered itself from the disasters of her defeat by United Germany.