The Farm.

Southern Cross, Volume 1, Issue 7, 13 May 1893, Page 3

The Farm.

SEAWARD BUSH

In this backward and hitherto inaccessible locality road-making is at length progressing Tery well, several works being now in the hands of the .contractors. The main road alongside the railway leads on through the township to Tisburyand thence to Waimatua, a distance of seven miles from town. From Tisbury to Waimatua —nearly three miles—is now in course of clearing and formation, and is being corduroyed by the contractor, Mr Whittington, who is pushing forward the work with considerable vigour. This road will be very useful to the residents of Waimatua, where there are two sawmills, one of which is working and turning out a great deal of timber ; the other has been shut down for years. It is more than likely this road will yet be Continued via Mokotua to Otcramika, the distance —nearly five miles —being for the greater part through Crown lauds. Within the Seaward Bush township the roads are also being opened up and made, and several families who have been settled in the bush for years have only quite lately been able to get a cart to their places, for which they duly appreciate their local M.P’s. and the Government.

Several additional men have lately been taken on at the co-operative works on the Seaward Bush railway, the earthwork and formation of which will soon be completed to the west bank of the Mataura river. Four or five miles eastward from the Mokotua station is ready for laying the rails. It is generally thought in the Oteramika and Fortrose districts that when completed to the eastern side of the Mataura, a daily train will be necessary to meet the increased traffic that will follow. If so it will mean business in Invercargill. Settlement is still going on in the Seaward Bush, as, during the last twelve months, several families have taken up bush-land, and are now building homesteads upon it. It is to be regretted that the bacon-curing establishment at Tisbury—a very large brickbuilding, with all the necessary addenda—is not in operation. Extensive premises, with railway siding accommodation on the spot, are not always so easily obtainable. It is therefore the more surprising that it is not made use of for some industrial pursuit. The Tisbury school lias, in little over two years, worked up from a very small beginning of something like fourteen or fifteen scholars to upwards of fifty, the number now attending, under the careful tuition of the Misses Hamilton and Bout.

In the schoolroom every third Sabbath in the month the Eev. A. H. Stobo conducts Divine Service at three in the afternoon. There are also several lay-readers who hold service on the intermediate Sundays. The splendid forest of Seaward Bush will very shortly be cut out, so far as buildingtimber goes, as the sawmills during the past twenty-five years have pretty well riddled it. The trees of this bush were tall, beyond the average of this part of New Zealand. The trees that have been left by the sawmills are being cut up into firewood, finding employment for a good many men. This, of course, only applies to those parts of the bush opened np by roads. Another mark of advancing civilsation and the receding forest is the establishment of a post office in the bush at Tisbury, which is placed in charge of Mr Thos. Middleton, one of the oldest of the old identities.