TONGAPORUTU.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume XXXXV, Issue 169, 21 July 1903, Page 4

TONGAPORUTU.

(Oar Own Correspondent.) Wikxer is now nearly over, and though there have been heavy floods and a tew hard frosts, on the whole it his been a good one. The roads suffered from the floods in tbe way of slips and to forth ; but bush tracks are easily damaged. Six feet roads means six feet of mud to drag through. There have been no serious accidents to report. T. Shoehy, one of Mr Land's (the sui-veyor) men, while cutting a tree, slipped, and the • axe came down on his head, almost severing one of his ears and partly j cutting his throat, but he is now iwell. Dr, Home made the journey, fifty miles in five hours, in tha night I time too, a feat worth chronicling. The [ school teach* r lost his horse. It fell ' down a blind hole and broke its back. i T. H. Taylor lost a horse down his well, a drop of fifteen feet and had to destroy it. Mr T. Herlihy has lost a number jof cattle. It is reported that nearly J half his stock have succumbed —he has | lost heavily several years; hard luck for a struggling " improved farm " set'.ler. I Oar neighbours on the TJruti suf- [ fered considerable loss from the floods, i and now their school is burnt to the ground. I New roads are being formed and 'cleared in various directions, and a | large area of laud is being put on the market. A few recent arrivals are gettine houses built. Very little bush is put down so far this winter. The clearings are rather j bare of feed, stcck having to depend largely on the green bush. No milking is going on now, and some of the chief milkers are working on the roads. No land is changing hands as yet, the wave of prosperity, so evident in New Plymouth, has not found its way over Mount Messenger.