The Taihape Daily Times AND WAIMARINO ADVOCATE. MONDAY, MARCH 29, 1920. SETTLEMENT AROUND TAIHAPE.

Taihape Daily Times, Volume XI, Issue 3447, 29 March 1920, Page 4

The Taihape Daily Times AND WAIMARINO ADVOCATE.

MONDAY, MARCH 29, 1920. SETTLEMENT AROUND TAIHAPE.

With which is inccorporated “The Taihape Post and Waimarino News.”

; It may not yet be generally recogi nised that on last Saturday afternoon another milestone was passed in the progress of settlement in the Taihapc district. That fact willpliowcver, become obvious as each purchaser of land at the sale of the Oruamatua Estate gets down ‘to work on his new holding. No one can now close their eyes to the strong probability that a sub-centre of population ispcomniencr ing to gather between Taihape and Mangaohane, and that indications at ‘present are that Moawhango is fast drifting on to a state when it will rank with other town districts. With closer settlement of the Oruamatua land there will come more intensive work, the land will be thoroughly cleaned up, and its value will rapidly increase, The smaller holdings are all on the main road from Taihape to Napier. therefore they Will come much more “under public. notice, and, let it be understood that publicity is going to make a notable difference to that land, whether for good or ill. If attractive homesteads are erected, and the land decently farmed, the advertising alone it will get from the main highway will in a Very few slfort years double the value of most of it. Messrs Lowry and Watt have quitted Oruamatua at a price satisfactory to themselves, ‘but what have they done for adjoining‘ property—owners and for the Taihape district If increase of settlement results in unearned increment, then somebody is going to reap the result of the half-dozen settlers taking the place of one on the Oruamatua. Saturday was a red letter day for Taihape, as thereon the first great burstup of a large estate took place. That estate had been ofl'ered to the (lovemment at a much lower figure than it realised, but while the Land Department evidently could not see value in it, the men who had worked on it, or that own land in the locality were anxious to secure a. portion of it. and so some two hundred interested people, prospective buyers, attended the sale. The owners of these large estates have no desire to block settlement. if the action of Messrs Lowry and Watt, and the determination of Mr VV. J. Birch, of Erewhon, are evidence on that subject. A t.went_v-three thousand acre block, one farm, is going to be worked as six separate farms in future, and now the successful sale of Oruamatua has made it clear that there is a demand for closer settlement in this district Mr W. J‘. Birch is subdividing his Erewhon estate, and will ofiier it for sale in Taihape at an early date. This sale will probably furnish the lasit. oppor-t tunity for acquiring low-priced land; it 5 is, therefore, -as well that all thosel desiring‘ to particip'ate in the advan-I tazes that rapid settlement. results in should realise that pioneer land is disappearing in this neighbourhood. Sett!ement has moved up to it, until there can be no question, about it going still closer, in fact, ‘there are large r-~c+~‘os nem'er Tnihape that have become so surrounded _‘Wfi.'l.l settlement. and so enmeshed within a network of public roads that they have quite pass-

cd out. of the low-priced land category, and when they are ‘sold it will he in much smaller areas, and at immensely higher prices. What we wish to urge upon farmers who are looking for land that has a value other than for what it will produce is, that the live-pounds-an-acre land of "the old pioneers is just about. all gone hereabout, and after the Erewhon sale there will virtually be no land with a good‘ speculative value left. Sting of our ‘readers will not agree with our "views in this connection. but let .us remind them that around Taihape farmers are now asking fifty pounds an acre for land they purchased £o‘? five pounds an acre, or thereabouts. Around settlement at 'Raetihi, tstiill ul~earé?‘lhe mountktins, land is being sold and bought at forty pounds an acre, then is it "reasonable to think that Erewhon, Oruamatua, and other good land in between Tai-

hape and Raetihi will reinain long on the five-pound-an-acre list? The indicafions are that land near Taihape must rapidgly increase in value; the littfle centre uf settlement at Moawhango will prpbab'ly‘become the centre of supply for this closer settled country on the Taihape-Napier Road, on the Oruamatua, Erewhon, and

ilvfangaohane estates, and every acre of land between those settlements and i'.l‘aihnpe will have an increased value. ‘ls it not the same dld experience over again? Are there not too many feather-bed farmers amongst us ~"tdday, men who lack the pluck and grit of the old pioneers; men who must have a. farm ready-made and producing at the zenith of its possibilities, no matter what the price? If men will have whatever increment. results from doing :1 bit of pioneering, comiing after and continuing the work of the original pioneers, they must act quickly, for, as we have said, lowpriced land is rapidly being taken up, and already there is only a very limited area left in sight. All experience of land settlement compels us to real- ! ise that as surely a’s land around Tai-

hape has increased from two pounds, or less, an acre, paid by the old special settlers, to forty'f)'oil“nds"él.n acre asked for it, and paid for it by farmers today, so surely will the land’ on the Taihape-Napier Read, now being sold, or offered for sale, increase in value. The young farmer who purchases such land will enjoy all the advantages arising‘ from still further sub(.l;-ivid-ing his purchases as settlement rapidly increases. If that does not eventuate something will have gone wrong with the teachings of experience, but every old settler will realise to the full the truth of our contentions. When the land sold on Saturday is thoroughly cleaned up. and put. into good producing condition, much of it will be again sub-divided, for progress of settlement is moving more rapidly onward. not by Government assistance, but by the enterprise of men who have (liftieulty in acquiring‘ the good land they are in search of.