New Zealand Colonist. FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 25, 1842.

New Zealand Colonist and Port Nicholson Advertiser, Volume I, Issue 34, 25 November 1842, Page 2

New Zealand Colonist. FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 25, 1842.

Tiie increase of cattle in the vicinity of the town is attended with inconveniences which go far to neutralise the benefits which the settlement might derive from it. We have always looked, and we still continue to look, to cattle and sheep, as among the main elements of agricultural wealth in New Zealand; and\ve have been rejoiced to see the number of persons of the labouring class, who were obtaining a small number of cattle, and thus laying the foundation of future independence. But it must not he forgotten, that the encouragement of agriculture is at least as important for the progress of the Colony, and that the labors of the farmer are, at the present time, exposed to imminent hazard from the depredations of the numerous cattle turned loose to forage for themselves, without any means of keeping them within bounds.

It is, obviously, the duty of the cattle owner to take means that his cattle shall do no damage. Take the most favorable case that can he imagined of two parties owning contiguous plots of ground, one of whom devotes himself to agriculture and the other to grazing. Every one would feel that unless a fence was erected between tlie two pieces of ground, the agriculturist must he ruined by the incursion of his neighbour’s cattle, and must feel also, that it would be unjust that the whole burthen of fencing should be thrown upon one,-and that the individual who was not the aggressor. In such a case justice would dictate, either that, the expense of erecting a fence should he equally borne by each party, or if one was to he freed from the obligation, that it should be thrown upon the party by whom the necessity of erecting a fence was created. And still more is this the case, when, as happens in a very great majority of cases, the party owning the cattle turns them out upon land which has been appropriated to purchasers from the Company, he, the cattle owner, not having an acre of ground of his own within the colony. It is too much to expect to throw the very large expense of fencing, upon persons who are cultivating ground to which they have a legal title, in order to enable others to maintain cattle free of cost, upon ground to which they have not even a shadow of claim ! The extent to which cattle are kept by parties who have no land of their own, in the vicinity of the town, is already making itself felt in one direction. Some of the Maories from Kia-warra-warra have established themselves upon the Hutt, upon land which has been given out, and the reason which they allege in justification of their conduct is, that from the number of cows turned out upon their old cultivations, they are unable to plant with any prospect of getting a crop, and thaf, consequently, they must remove to a place wliere-\ they are free from this .annoyance. They only feel what every, settler will feel the moment lie’ begins to cultivate on a large scale, and their cause, therefore, is that of the agriculturist generally.

We have to announce the death of Warcpouri, which took place, on the 22nd instant., at Ngahuranga. In our next number we shall

give a cursory account of his life