TREE-GROWING COUNTRY.

Putaruru Press, Volume VI, Issue 246, 19 July 1928, Page 6

TREE-GROWING COUNTRY.

WHICH IS THE BETTER ? Matamata or Putaruru ? Healthy Cattle Country. With every justification the district of Putaruru has been extolled greatly as a tree-growing soil, for there is no doubt that certain varieties of arboreal growth thrive in that locality most promisingly. There are some, however, who hold that, good as Putaruru is for afforestation, Matamata land is still better. A well-known farmer, for instance, speaking on the subject to the writer, said he thought the plantations in Matamata district, of 45 years of age or thereabouts, had yielded more timber thaSi had millable areas of similar age in the Lichfield district. He also thought that higher claims were being made than could be borne out by reference to experience. For instance, it was said that trees would grow without any ordinary top soil, on sub-soil alone, but he ventured to differ. The kauri, it was true, would grow on sub-soil, but otherwise one noted that where there was little top soil the trees were stunted and scraggy, and people building their hopes on such ground would reap disappointment. However, Putaruru district is mak-

ing wonderful progress, despite the stupid departmental attitude towards a once-partially-cattle-sick but now wholly-healthy region. One has to go away back to the Mamaku hills now to find really-cattle-sick country. It is the same old story. Matamata was once “ hopeless,” but is now literally a land of milk and honey, and Putaruru is coming into its heaven. At its present price there is no better land buying possible in the Dominion, hut the prices will more nearly equal the values if and when the proposed Commission sits and learns and publishes the truth about the cattle-sickness bogey. Once officialdom gets hold of anything it never changes its mind until long after the ' conditions responsible for the opinion have passed away.—Matamata Record.