SOLDIER SETTLEMENT.

Taranaki Daily News, 25 October 1919, Page 12

SOLDIER SETTLEMENT.

PROGRESS IN WELLINGTON PROVINCE. A 810 YEAR'S WORK, The report of the Commissioner of Crown Lands (Mr. 0. H. M. McClure), embodied in the report of the Repatriation Department, gives some particulars of the progress made in the provision .of land for soldiers in the Wellington district during the year 1918-19. "During the year," states the Commission, "two estates, aggregating 702 acres, were acquired, sub-divided into dairy farms, and all were selected. Four allotments in estates purchased during the previous years, aggregating 457 acres, were also allotted. In addition, nineteen sections of bush lands, comprising 12,401 acres, were re-allotted. Eighteen estates, aggregating 5752 acres, were purchased under the provisions of section 3 of the Discharged Soldiers' Settlement Act, 1917, at a cost of £90,885. Three of these were divided into eleven farms, making twenty-six selectors, of whom fifteen are dairying and the remainder using their holdings for sheep and mixed farming. The total selections were thus seventy-seven, comprising 22,151 acres. Six selectors surrendered an area of 341 acres, and these had not been re-selected at the close of the year, being principally dairying and cropping land. The other areas available for selection were thirteen sections of bush country, comprising 12,323 acres.

"Of the 250 settlers shown as holding at the close of the year, 125 are, or will be, using their their farms for grazing—about eighty-five sections comprising bush areas being gradually brought into pasture—and 110 are dairying, the remainder being small allotments in isolated localities, where the holder will run a cow and keep poultry as an addition to providing himself with a home. On seventy-live sections of bush country the selectors have to date felled and grassed 7748 acres, 1720 acres of which have been felled, burned, and grass-seed sown this season. The value of improvements is £22,362, and the stock on these holding comprise 1306 cattle, 75 calves, 6318 sheep, 10!) horses, and 63 pigs, valued at £18,269.

"The reports of the fangers on the various settlements are, generally speaking, very satisfactory, and the success o£ the settlers on the whole of these settlements, with the exceptions of perhaps two, is practically assured. In some cases the settlers are doing particularly well, as for example the Wainuioru Block, which is grazing country, and the Kopane Settlement, which is purely dairying. On this settlement one of the settlers took a gross sum of £SOO for the season off a thirty-one acre section, which emphasises the fact that high-class dairy land is the most suitable.

"There were twenty-three surrenders and forfeitures, and only thirteen of these may be considered as failures. In my report of the previous year, I anticipated that about 13 per cerft, would not succeed, but the percentage of this year's failures is only 5.2, which indicates that as those who were not fitted for farming relinquished their holdings they were replaced by a better class of man, and emphasising what I have always contended, that if men are found who will work their farms to the fullest capacity there will be no doubt of their ultimate success on the land.

"The sum of ,C23,2.'>0 was advanced under Section of 2 of the Discharged Soldiers' Settlement Amendment Act, 1917, for the purchase and discharge of mortgages of sixteen properties, comprising an area of 3677 acres, of which six are dairy farms, seven are used for grazing, and three for poultry and chases were Crown leaseholds. The sum of £08,659 was advanced for the purmarket gardening. Eight of these purchase or erection of 140 dwellings on other than rural land." \ j