CORRESPONDENCE

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIII, Issue 302, 16 May 1911, Page 7

CORRESPONDENCE

THE GARDEN OF NEW ZEALAND. To the Editor. Sir, —The news that a recent arrival has advertised for a practical market gardener and got, I think, fourteen replies, and is about to start on a large scale, is encouraging. Why Taranaki should be called "The Garden of New Zealand," except on the "lucius a non lucendo" principle, it is a puzzle. Hawke's Bay deserves the name fat more. It is a reproach to hear it always said in New Zealand that fruit and vegetables are luxuries. Very few, of these milking farms grow a flower or j vegetable; all rushing after the "filthy I lucre." The aborigines returning to the towns, and leaving it so difficult | to successors to make rent that there I is no time. Then if anyone tries to sell vegetables to them, like the more-' pork brand, "he has his eyes opened." j Yet these people get sale for every I item they deal in; cheques arc paid! regularly, and they have raised the price j of living in the towns 20 per cent,, and I even the only the worst class of stuff is retained in New Zealand. Selfishness' is undoubtedly growing on the farmer,! and the gas engine has in every way I favored the growth of selfishness. The '' new name, "the road hog," is getting' its analogue among farmers when we hear that "Mr. - has just installed milking machines," and that "Mr. j does all his shearing by ipchiries." It I means that some of tl>c lab.or party, Ms' fallen, and. fres'h laws will be needed, to meet this development, and so it | goes on. Is the object of the producer | benevolent or selfish? Or is Nature' fighting for her favored ones who are! to make a paradise on earth and run less chance of the promised place than a camel has of going through the eye of a needle? Socialism increases, as do luxuries, and the price of living, for the gap between poor and rich widens. In fact, it is very questionable if the general prosperity is not at the bottom! of the slump in religion. We read that church bells are objected to on Sabbath! morning. It reminds one of something that should be buried—"the two witnesses. Well, it is decidedly refreshing to hear an arrival from England has decided to vary cow-spanking with vegetable growing about Oakura. The climate of Taranaki is not perfect for vegetables, most of the rain comjw-ifi-r----•fune in -xovember, but it should be infinitely better lhan Hawke's Bay in this respect. All the summer I noted the seasonable l vegetables'in-Auckland, and I must say, I the grapes ■ and strawberries were abundant and cheap—4d, 6d, and 8d were the prices—but such a year was' never known' before. I am told that wo mo of the-choice vegetables—asparagus and tomatoes—will receive especial attention. I made a number of experiments myself this year on drying French beans and, broad beans, when extra young, and it seems strange the article is not ,4ft common use. String them with a needle and thread and hang them/ on clothes lines. Potatoes I have gotl at 5s a bag and' oats at Is per bushel fifteen years ago in Southland before the' advent of the gas engine, for land' l gambling was then scarcely known. Now | it eclipses bookies and horse-racin«.' Sixty per cent, of the New Zealand farmers are professional gamblers. These every day stock and farm sales are a lesson.—l am, etc., PAN