THE PIAKO SWAMP.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LII, Issue 316, 16 February 1910, Page 5

THE PIAKO SWAMP.

A recent visitor to the Piako Swamp , country, where the Government is carrying on an extensive drainage scheme, speaks enthusiastically of the value of the land that is being reclaimed for cultivation. On land that had been drained mid partly drained he saw red clover growing three feet high, turnips (grown without manure) seven and eight inches thick, and grass as' high as a man's head. Where a motor launch took shooting parties only a few years ago, one can now drive a horse and dray. A canal, wmcn will be 10 y 8 nines iong> L 40ft wide, and 20ft deep, is part of the drainage project. Stores are taken to the contractors across the swamp lands in canoes drawn by horses. One of the canoe-drivers is' an old Maori, who told our informant some quaint stories ot his unsophisticated .fellow natives in the early days. When the first flour was taken to the district, the Maoris ate large quantities of it dry, indulging afterwards in copious draughts of water. The results' were even more j disastrous when the same experiment I was tried with lime. On another ocea- \ si on the Maoris made themselves very ill hy smoking rathline rope, which thev had stolen from a ship, mistaking it for twist tobacco. A native who secured a tin of kerosene whom that also was' a novelty was very anxious to eclipse a European lamp which he had seen. After a consultation with' his follows, it was decided to pour the unfamiliar liquid into a tin dish and *et light to it. The result was unexpected a.,ul calamitous: the flames could not he confined to the tin dish, and soon the whole pa was ablaze, and several ' of the natives wore lmvn»d to denlh. ' Oiii- informant -fates that there are hundred* of wild horses at the head of the swamp district. The horses, which are accustomed to the swamp eonntrv. develop an exceptional width of hoof, and are almost useless on hard ground. —Dominion.