THE BUSH COUNTRY OF THE MANAWATU.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXIII, Issue 5268, 11 February 1878, Page 3

THE BUSH COUNTRY OF THE MANAWATU.

(riiOM.i COKIIESPONDENT.) ■ The mind of the stranger passing through the district of Manawatu must be powerfully : struck by the generally thriving appearance and apparent stability of the settled portions of the country, and much more will his admiration be excited, especially, if he has lately come from Europe, by the rapid growth of all the; lettlements he sees. When he is told that ten Tears ago saw the first settlers laboriously, struf.vliug to get their household gods up the waters of the Manawatu, that five years ago there was only one or two whares m Palmerston flat, and that the township of Feilding did not then exist, he must indeed admire the wonderful adaptability of the Anglo-Saxon race for colonisation. # . Each year as it passes sees groat changes in the whole colony; but more especially perhaps is the improvement maiked in those districts where the work of reclamation of bush land is .being carried on. The warfare the bushman is obliged to carry on with the primeval forest is indeed a severe one, and probably the inland, parts of the County of Manawatu give more i wonderful proofs of progress than any district in New Zealand. Settlers have been pouring in during the last few years, and _ each week lees the completion of some new piece of bush reclamation on the principal road lines In the country districts acres and acres of felled bush are each season being burnt off, and the . number of cattle is yearly greatly increasing. This year there arfe many farms which produce from fifty to-sixty calves, and already the exportation of cattle is becoming a recognised ■ource of revenue to the district. With regard to the township, the present improvement is not so marked as that of the districts around them. The largest to.vn of the county (Palmerston) is just emerging from that period of stagnation which is sure to follow the cessation of public works and the consequent withdrawal of public money from the immediate vicinity of any new township. Palmerston has now to draw its support from its surrounding country. There is, notwithstanding the withdrawal of external assistance, visible improvement daily occurring. _ Shops and private houses are springing up in the town, of a much better class and more stable character than those which in many cases they replace. The great drawback continues to ha the scarcity of ready money, and consequently there is an unlimited resort to the credit system. This will wear off.in time as the land immediately surrounding the town becomes more productive, and as soon as' the exportation of cattle, &c., shall more visibly, increase. Palmerston having the start in the .county ought to keep it, although it has already a formidable rival in Feilding, supported by an. active and energetic body, working solely for the benefit of their own settlers. In Palmerston however there is already a feeling of quiet and unostentatious prosperity, which speaks more for its ultimate prosperity than the more rapid and evanescent growth which it at first evinced. The appearance of Feilding as at first seen strikes the beholder as “ poor,” from the great number of unpainted two-roomed cottages which the Corporation thought fit to put up for the accommodation of the early settlers. There is a lack of large buildings, which is not apparent in Palmerston. Still Feilding is now developing very rapidly ; the Corporation are spending money freely, and doing a great deal to open up the country around. Surveys and road and railway making are going on steadily on the Corporation block, and already the settlers in Feilding consider their “upper” part of the country quite as important as the “lower,” and are seeking to draw the East Coast traffic away from Palmerston by the construction of a separate road from the Gorge. There is no doubt that Feilding, with its foreign capital and the comparatively cheap labor it gets from its immigrants, is very favorably circumstanced, and through the undivided authority exercised and the energetic direction of all means to one purpose displayed by the Corporation officers will become a most formidable rival to Palmerston, and in this it will be most materially helped by the development of the ICiwitea District, whose settlers at present, and for a _ long_ time to come, will draw their supplies directly through Feilding. The townships which are now rising in this block are an evidence of the rapid settlement going on, and of the amount of real reclaiming, and the improvement which is being carried on in the back districts in the heart of the bush is undoubtedly very great. The township of Halcombe, lying in the centre of the bush country and on the line of railway from Wanganui to Foxton, only requires time for its development, and from the work done by the Corporation in Feilding at present, the ultimate success of the second township in the Manchester Special Settlement cannot be doubted.

Ths r ailway contemplated from Wellington by way of the Hutt and Waikan.ae will be of the utmost importance to the bush country of the Manawatu, and will certainly further the interest of Palmerston and Feilding to a very great extent. The railway from Wanganui goes through both Palmerston and Feilding, and it is still a matter of doubt as to which will eventually assume the lead in the county, a matter which will certainly depend on the amount of the surrounding districts on which each has to depend, or in other words, whether the lower half of the country will prove more valuable in its productions than the upper.