SETTLING GUM LANDS

Sun (Auckland), Volume IV, Issue 990, 5 June 1930, Page 1

SETTLING GUM LANDS

MAY BE MADE PRODUCTIVE AT SMALL COST “GOVERNMENT IS WRONG” “We take exception to the rather loose and sweeping statement made by the Minister of Lands, that it would cost from £25 to £4O an acre to break in the gum lands. It is this sort of thing which poisons the minds of would-be settlers against going North, and consequently they will have nothing to do with it.” This protest was made to a Sun man this morning by Mr. W. H. Evans, a prominent settler of Houhora, who is at present visiting Auckland. Mr. Evans, in fact, has many interests in the far northern settlement and, being the owner of the hotel, store, various farms, and a few well-known racehorses, he is regarded as a sort of uncrowned king of the district. Mr. Evans said that there were many varieties of grades of gum lands in the north suitable for agriculture. There were hundreds of acres which would only take £ 8 an acre to prepare, while there was some which would take perhaps £IOO, and consequently, as yet were of little value. This more expensive land was thickly timbered and would take a great deal of clearing, but there were unlimited areas of land with no timber, which could b cultivated from about £lO to £l2 an acre. These could all be cut up into excellent farms. £l5O FOR GUM “I have 100 acres of the average type of land in Houhora, which I hold up as an example,” said Mr. Evans. “It cost me £l2 10s an acre to develop it, and it will now run at least 400 sheep or about 35 to 40 cows. Four acres of the swamp area cost me

as much as £lO6 an acre to cultivate, but on that piece of ground I received back £l5O ar acre for the gum which was down about two feet. On the completion of the clearing I top-dressed, and I maintain that if a man was put on that land today he would do welL” About 1,000 acres of the swamp land at Motutangi had been cut up and settled, and the people there were asking the Government to cut up more, said Mr. Evans. Some years ago a cut was put in and the land drained, but the Government had done nothing further in this direction. A kauri forest had been buried there, but the gum was about 50ft. down and would be impossible to try and dig it up. At Te Kau there was a Maori settlement of about 500 acres. It was a sort of community concern run entirely by the natives. It was all dairying, and the cream was taken to the Kaitaia factory at Awanui. This land was producing well and was an indication of what could be done with the thousands of acres of other waste land nearby. “I really cannot understand why the Government insists on purchasing expensive land, and by doing so keeps the price of land at an exorbitant figure,” continued Mr. Evans. “It would oe better to make a gift of the northern land to settlers and pay for development by contract, for it is quite impossible to take land over on the relief work system. And it would be some encouragement if settlers were paid on results. It is in every sense of the word waste land. It is not producing, and consequently there are no rates collected. There are, of course, areas which are quite impossible to do anything with, but there is so much good land merely awaiting development. It looks rather hopeless when you first tackle it —a lot of it is only white sand and teatree, but it is good and will produce. So much of it only requires burning off, ploughing, and then manuring.”