HOROHORO SETTLERS

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 229, 16 December 1927, Page 14

HOROHORO SETTLERS

SIX TAKE UP LAND WORK PROGRESSING (From Our Own Correspondent) HAMILTON, Thursday. Six settlers have taken up land under the homestead system at Horohoro, 12 miles west of Rotorua, on the Atiamuri Road. The block comprises 9,771 acres, and is subdivided into 13 sections, rang-* ing from 248 acres to 686 acres. Under this system the licensee is given the use of the land free, and is required “within six years after the date of selection, to have laid down in permanent cultivated grasses and clovers not less than one-half of the total area of the section, and to have placed upon the land substantial improvements to a total value of not less than 30s an acre.” The whole of the Horohoro block is of a light pumaceous nature, covered with a growth of scrub, manuka, rushes and flax, and some native tussock grass. Most of the land is undulating, with some flat terraces. The land, generally speakins. is fairly well watered by small running streams through marshy ground. Some of the sections are very broken with steep gullies and terraces. Overtow'ering the settlement to the north is Horohoro Mountain, a lofty tableland of extraordinary rocky formation. Access is given to the block by a good summer road. All the sections have frontages to formed or partlyformed roads. The 13 sections were offered for selection last June. Of the six settlers who took up areas, three are in occupation. These men have done a good deal of fencing and ploughing already, and a plot of oats has been sown. It is proposed to make a start with milking before long.