NOT QUITE THE THING.

Patea Mail, Volume IV, Issue 345, 7 August 1878, Page 2

NOT QUITE THE THING.

(2’o the Editor of the Patea Mail.) Sir, —Having noticed a local in the Wanganui Chronicle of the 22ud July, reflecting on a settler in an up-conn try district having taken up a piece of Government land, enclosed and laid down in grass, &c, 1 shall feel obliged if yon wiil allow me, through the medium of your columns, sufficient space to make a few remarks in reply, as evidently 1 am the person referred to. With regard to the settler improving the land and intending to purchase it at first opportunity, I must give him and the public to understand, that he was two years ago informed by me, before ever he had made any improvements on the land, that I intended to purchase the piece of land, whenever it should be offered for sale. It is only within this last year that there have been any improvements made on the land, ami I must give him and the public to understand, that it was not for the improvements that I intended to purchase the land, and that he would have been paid for all his improvements, provided I had bought the land.

lie the laying it down in grass, I must say that the agrieved settler, if he can he called such, as the local all titles to some of his neighbors having cast an e”il eye on his valuable improvementsGo use a colonial phrase) ho has made a “ perfect mull” of the land, for, in my opinion, it would be much better in the rough, than with the fern burnt off, and sown with about two seeds to the square yard. With reference to the position of the land, any person, that has any knowledge of the situation, will admit that it suited me a great deal better than what it did the other, it giving me a straight line, whereas on the other hand it has not improved the block of the purchaser, as regards shape. Had the said piece of land laid in such a position, that it would have suited the purchaser better than his neighbor, he would have had no opposition whatever. —lam, &c., L. BREMER. Waverley, August 3, 1878.

The following is the local referred to—- “ Not Quite the Thing.—A settler in one of our up-county districts, some little time ago, enclosed and laid in grass a piece of Government land adjoining his own property, intending to purchase it the first opportunity. The land will be offered to-day, but we Lear that some of his neighbors have cast an evil eye on this little bit of improved land, and mean to run him for it. However, the present occupier has laid in lots of scrip, and is fully determined to frustrate his kind friends good intentions.”