OUR STAPLE INDUSTRIES.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIII, Issue 240, 16 February 1911, Page 3

OUR STAPLE INDUSTRIES.

RURAL NEW ZEALAND UNDER REVIEW t No. 17. [All Eights Reserved.] (By R. J. EAMES). HAWKE'S BAY: PROVINCE OF THE GOLDEN FLEECE. THE CONSERVATIVE SHEEP. vSomchow the sliecp always suggests itself as tile emblem of conservatism. It reminds one ever of s<)uatocracy: it seems to speak of big stations, of extensive holdings in the hands of the few; of the well-marked lines between the classes who own and the masses who work the properties. In the "land of the Golden Fleece one never expects to find intense, thriving populations. It is always the country of centred prosperity, which at intervals finds itself expressed in the splendid homesteads, in the mustering yards and shearing sheds. One seldom meets that yeomanry which lias been idealised in British verse, and which is so essential to the progress and development of the natural resources of a country. The cow and the plough are the natural destroyers of that polished company of farmers, who have done well for the country in taking up extensive areas of way-back land which smaller men could not or would not handle, but upon whose domains the growing population now presses increasingly. Of all the North Island Hawke's Bay, as jthe province of big properties, has offered the stoutest resistance to the fullest rural progress and to closer settlement. Not that the resistance is necessarily an active one. Circumstances and opportunity have established a landed aristocracy and the names of its members are spoken with respectful tongue. Sheep farming has been profitable and the sheep, especially where land has been procured at low prices, always lends itself to farming in big flocks. Still, the change inevitable is occurring. In Hawke's Bay, as elsewhere, the price of land is soaring upwards. Whenever a transfer in ownership takes place the purchaser is found casting his eyes about for means to make his land yield him a greater abundance. And this can be said at once for the sunny East Coast, that only a very small portion of the land suitable for agriculture has as yet been farmed for that purpose. This is partly due to sentiment, but chiefly to the fact that the fleece kings are farming on the basis of valuation at which they acquired their lands. With new men come altered conditions, but for a long time yet Hawke's Bay will be regarded as the Province Conservative.

THE LAND DISTRICT AREA. The land district area comprises s strip 360 miles long, with an average width of 45 miles. This covers 5,508,900 acres. A glance at the map will show that Hawke's Bay, from which the district takes its name, is situated just half way along the coast line. Roughly, that point represents the dividing line between the old and the new in rural affairs. To the north there are stretches of fine pastoral and bush country, which even now may be regarded as bits of old New Zealand. Poverty Bay, with the progressive town of (iisborno as its centre, represents the richness of Northern Hawke's Bay. It is here that the man who wants settlement in a smaller way will find his best opportunity. To the south the orehardi.st. the dairyman, the grower of grain, and husbandman in the smaller way give further indication of the rural destiny of the Dominion. NORTH OF NAPIER.

Here we have essentially a .sheep country. So far as the present generations are concerned, it will not be anything else. To this general statement, considering the huge area of country, the exceptions, although of high importance in themselves, are comparatively very smnll. Hills and hills and hills, with land ranging from the best to ordinary sheep country. It is not a territory adapted to closer settlement as the term is generally understood, although it ought to be occupied much more closely than it is. The only plain, really worth speaking about between Cape Runaway and Napier is at Poverty Bay. This splendid stretch has an area of some 65 square miles, and its productive capacity makes one marvel at the fates which fixed so forbidding a name upon so fertile a place. The Kia Ora co-operative butter factory there turned out 315 tons of butter in 1909-10, while the Okitu proprietary was responsible for 108 tons. Te Arai (proprietary) also made 48 tons of cheese. Coming down in a south-westerly direction we find another portion of the Hawke's Bay, province which is too rich in quality to rely for its returns upon the Golden Fleece. This is Wairoa. Quoting again from the oflicial figures for 1909-10, the Wairoa co-operative company made in that year 24 tons; of butter. Kia Ora Co-op. Co. (Gisborne) has the second biggest output of butter in Hawke's Bay, its 240 suppliers accounting, as already shown, for 315 tons of butter. The Hawke's Bay Co., Woodville, a proprietary concern, headed the list with 443 tons of butter, from 210 suppliers.

A LITTLE COMPARISON. If comparisons are odious they nevertheless furnish the most pointed instru ment for mentally seeing things in their true proportion. Thus it may be observed that over the whole of Hawke's Bay during the past year there was made: Butter , 1345 tons Cheese 570 tons In Taranaki, pre-eminently a land of butter-fat, some of the returns of cheese during the same year from individual companies were as follow: JolPs 2212 tons Kaupokoniii , 2210 tons Hawera Co 101,') tons Then, again, take the butter output: Eltham Co 542 tons Mangatoki Co. 475 tons Midhirst Co 505 tons So that one has but to take the product of a couple of factories of one district to overshadow the whole of the butter and cheese manufactured in another. To show still further the distinction between the two land districts, the butter and cheese production in UliHI-I'o, omitting dairies of under 50 cows (of which there are about 200 registered in Taranaki and none in Hawke's Day) was as follows: Area Butter Cheese acres tons tons Hawke's Bay 6,W>3,!K)ft 134.) 570 Taranaki 2,417,29!) 11280 10.853 Ji wo examine the sheep returns in the same way the point is emphasised that the cow reigns rurally supreme on the West Coast of the North Island, while the sheep claims easy pre-eminence on the East.