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Patea Mail, Volume IV, Issue 397, 5 February 1879, Page 2

The A 7. Z. Times says ; —Those of our readers more directly interested in the matter may recollect that nearly five months since (on the 4lh September, 1878), we said, “ that Wellington province seems likely to redeem its character as a grain growing district.” We hear from, good authority that from one small port on the East Coast four hundred tons of grain will probably be shipped to this city during the early part of the coming year. The New Zealander in arguinginfavor of wider publicity being given to sales of Government lands ays:—“ The Government having land to sell, should deal with itinthe manner in which a private individual would, provided it takes upon itself the responsibility to sell the freehold of the public estate. For instance, how many of our readers in Wellington or in the Wairarapa would have known that a land sale would be held in Patea on an early day next month if we had not dug the announcement out of the Gazette and given it publicity ? But there are exceptional circumstances shortly arriving which will demand exceptional treatment. The Waimate Plains, the land on the Waitotara River, and the Te Aroha Block, and many other fertile areas will have speedily to be dealt with, and in our opinion the portions of these lands that are not to be reserved for the former owners and, perhaps those which may be sold tinder the deferred payment system, should all be catalogued and described and widely advertised not only throughout New Zealand but through the Australian Continent in the chief centres of population _ The fame of the fertility of our North Islands lands has gone abroad, and tho additional expense incurred in advertising would be recouped a hundredfold by the? enhanced value the land thus sold would realize.