FARMERS EN MASSE

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 370, 2 June 1928, Page 13

FARMERS EN MASSE

EXCURSION TO WAIKATO HEAVIEST TRAIN FROM NORTH The heaviest train which has ever come through from the North, 19 vehicles and 800 passengers, arrived in Auckland two hours late last evening, the “farmers’ excursion” to the Waikato Show having exceded all estimates of its probable size. When It left Whangarei the train was full and though three extra carriages were attached en route about 100 people had to stand for most of the journey. . . . There were 250 excursionists, the bulk of the passengers being racegoers coming to town for the winter meeting. Unfortunately, the special carnage arranged by the Department of Agriculture as a lecture room for farmers was swamped by the passengers. This car had a bench along one side, upon which exhibits of grasses, seeds, and roots were displayed. In it, groups of 30 or 40 were to have been gathered to hear lecturettes as the train travelled, but its long seat was filled at Whangarei by people who could not find seats elsewhere, and with a growing number of standing people inside and about it, there was not the slightest chance of the scheme being carried out. LECTURE UNDER DIFFICULTIES Nevertheless. Mr. J. C. Hamblyn overcame the difficulty and gave one brief talk, in which he drew attention to the kind of rubbish cheap grassseed mixtures often contained, to pasture management and the value of topdressing and surface cultivation, to the establishment of grass on peat soils, to the importance of pumpkins as cow-feed, and the necessity for cultivation as illustrated by exhibits of mangels. The express was due at b.l- p.m., but it did not arrive until after 8 o’clock. The chief cause of the delay was the collapse of some of the boiler-tubes of the second engine, making it necessary for one engine to pull the train up the two steep grades to Tahekeroa, where another engine was obtained. The departure of the second express from Auckland was delayed slightly to enable the passengers from the North, bound for Hamilton, to change at Newmarket. SETTLER’S MEMORIES One of the oldest settlers in the Hokianga district, Mr. J. H. Wellsford, who “went North” in 1875 as a boy of 17 was a passenger to Hamilton. He has never been to the Waikato before. “When I first went North I travelled with a bullock team over the road from Riverhead to Helensville,” said Mr. Wellsford. •■ln those early days we used the water and travelled in cutters over the Kaipara. The Hokianga district was then timber onlv, we had no launches to tow the rafts, but only arms and oars The bush was a hard, but a o-ood life We took in a barrel of salt •junk ’ and it we wanted fresh meat we had to shoot pigeons or catch eels at night At Rawene I had the only patch of grass within 20 miles. I sowed it on the site of an old pa on my place.”