Taupo

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 868, 11 January 1930, Page 25

Taupo

A tour of the Taupo and adjacent districts gives evidence both for and against the contention that the countrjr can be easily brought into profltaMc occupation. Many farms can be seen where the pasture lands are in a comparatively high state of fertility, with the occupier taking finite a satisfactory income otf his holding. On the other hand, the roads run through miles of harren. hungry-looking country, in many instances supporting rotting fences which indicate blighted hopes and fortunes lost In previous attempts to bring the country in. In the case of the improved countryfew records are available as to the cost of working up the land. In some instances on the Putaruru-Taupo Road, there are farms which sent five and six owners to financial ruin before proving worthwhile as farming propositions. These farms cannot he used reasonably by advocates of speeding up settlement as examples of what can be done by the use of fertilisers and modern farming methods. They are much in the some position as the Government farms such as Ruakura and Puwera, where the main object has been t« bring the soil to a state where profitable occupation is possible, and where little or no account has been kept of the actual cost. Better roads and the use of fertilisers will undoubtedly do much to help along settlement In the Taupo area; undoubtedly, if much of the money lost in farming propositions there in the past had been spent in the judicious use of fertilisers, there would have been fewer losses. Nevertheless, any attempt to rush settlement on a big scale will result in failure and heavy financial losses. Any success there will depend on individual efforts in respect to individual: holdings, aided by the State, perhaps, in respect to finance and the

A LAND OF PROMISE MUCH idle talk has been heard in recent years about the waste lands of the Taupo. Many are prone to contend that only lack of vision on the part of “the powers that be” has prevented the whole area from being turned into a second Waikato. There can be little doubt that the day is not far distant when much of the land in the area concerned will be brought into profitable occupation—the trend is already that way. The bringing of this satisfactory state of affairs about, however, will not be nearly the easy job the more idealistic believe.

opening up of the way toward cheaper fertilisers. It may be argued that much of the country there is little worse than some of the Waikato prior to its occupation by farmers prepared to tackle if with modern methods. It Is, but there is the additional disadvantage of climate. Long cold winters prove a big handicap to profitable farming even when the best methods are used. That there are big possibilities in the pumice lands of Taupo is strikingly indicated in the Tokoroa district, situated on the Taupo-Putaruru road. The farmers there boast that they have a second Taranaki in the making; that within the next decade they will be producing as much butterfat to the acre as the best dairying districts of the Dominion. There is much to show that they are right tn their contention. On a wide area of country, seemingly ideally laid out for dairying, big developments have taken place over the past decade, and already there are many pastures which would not look out of place in some of the best parts of the Waikato or Taranaki; it must be remembered, however, that many of these represent the labour of five or six farmers, all but the last of whom have retired financially crippled for the time being. There are many other parts of the Taupo area which offer the same opportunities for development as Tokoroa. and under better management will no doubt be brought in at considerably smaller cost. There seems little reason. In fact, why the biggest part of the ploughable country cannot be brought in profitably, provided always that there is easy access to cheap fertilisers. It must be remembered, however, that the settlement of Taupo does not. depend merely on Government legislation; it will always be a question of individual farming methods.