DISTRICT NEWS

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIII, Issue 224, 16 January 1911, Page 6

DISTRICT NEWS

TOKO. (From Our Own Correspondent.) If there is anything upon this earth that takes more killing than the average, bushman, it's his wife. The experience of one iip this way would find a ■weak spot in the constitution of most people. A while hack her husband died, leaving her with three young children, i Xcxt day she was thrown from a gig, I resulting in a broken arm and a much j damaged conveyance. Later, a newly in- | stalled milking machine and cowshed were destroyed by fire, while such minor calamities as pigs destroying the potato crop, and cows getting logged up, have ceased to cause comment. Jn conversation with a friend, she remarked cheerfully that when her arm knit again she would soon have things in going order. How does this fit in with the croak of Foster Fraser that the native-born is lacking in pluck and energy? There is an all-round seasonable decline in the milk returns, though one of our local farmers is increasing his milk supply by an intelligent process of crop rotation. Evidently brains are a valuable commodity on a farm. The railway re-laying gang have pushed the heavy metals past Toko, and they will soon be shifting camp further along the line. Since they have been with us the boys, by their manner of conducting themselves, have won the respect of Toko-ites, and we will be very sorry to lose them. Toko is suffering from a calamity, the said calamity covering an area of six thousand acres. It appears that away back, at the time when the provincial councils were abolished, a sop in the form of this block was given to Xew Plymouth. It consists of some of the best land on the East road, and there is not an acre of freehold between Strutford and Toko, greatly to the detriment of both places. Probably the people of Xew Plymouth view the position with the utmost satisfaction, but if the Government were to give to Stratford a six-acre block near New Plymouth there would be a yell that would split the welkin in tliree places.