WHANGAMARINO.

Waikato Argus, Volume IV, Issue 301, 14 June 1898, Page 4

WHANGAMARINO.

Convalescent. —Those of your readers who are conversant with the circumstances attending the serious illness of Mr Harry Barker, son of one of our respected settlers, will be pleased to learn that be ia now fairly restored to health. The young gentleman, who is engaged in business at Onehunga, came home at Easter to spend the holidays, and also to celebrate his twenty-first birthday, a party being given in honour of the occasion. Immediately afterwards he was taken seriously ill, and at one time his life was despaired of ; but now, thanks to the skill of Dr. Brewis, of Hamilton, and careful home nursing, Mr Baker is, I am pleased to be able to state, in a fair way to complete recovery from the malady with which he was attacked. Local Rating Mattebs—A petition, asking the local Road Board to reduce the general rate during the ensuing year, has been eoiug the rounds of the district, and has been signed by the majority of the ratepayers. The principal reasons assigned for the request are : That the Waikato County Council contemplate increasing, or rather, doubling, the county rate ; and that the Government having put the Main South Road in a state of repair, there will be no demind on the Board for expenditure in that direction for some little time to come. Mr Johnsen, of Waerenga, although no longer a member of the Board, showed that he has the ratepayers' interests at heart, by conducting a house to house canvass for signatures to the petition, a matter involving the expenditure of no little time and trouble. The Main South Road.—Extensive works are still being carried out on the Main South Road, between Mercer and Rangiriri. A gang of men under charge of Mr Mclndoe, Government overseer, several of whom are settlers in the district, has been busy during the past few weeks converting what was simply a track over the hills into something more worthy the - name of a road. A number of contracts have also been carried out by the settlers on the cooperative principle, Mr Hawson, jun. and party still being occupied with one job, a deviation by which the road will enter Mr Hawson's property near the half-way bush, in order to avoid a steep hill on the existing road-line. The overseer speaks well of the manuer in which the co-operative works have been carried out, and the Road Board would do well to adopt this style of formation, when occasion arises in the letting of future contracts. At the present time the ground is pretty well as hard as it has been all summer, a most unusual thing for the time of the year, and travellers have thus far suffered little inconvenience by the breaking up of the surface of the road, but when the heavy rains come—Mid we may expect the customary winter downpours at any time—the new works will speedily be transformed into slush-ponds, the earth having had no time to consolidate, as yet. The grant for repairs to the Main South Road was voted by Parliament, I believe, quite six months ago, and one may reasonably ask why the work was not put iu hand earlier. It is a strange perversity, this carrying out of road works at the wrong time of the year, which appears to affect Government and local bodies alike. Farming Matters.—The weather continues exceptionally fine for the time of the yuar, and the glorious warm sunny days, the dry statu of the ground, and the chirp of the cricket continue to under it difficult to imagine that we are within a week of the shortest day. As a matter of fact, settlers who have ploughing to do are wishing for rain to soften the ground, a most unusual state of affairs for June. Recently-lifted crops of potatoes have turned out better than growers expected, considering the very dry summer, and I have seen several plots where the returns were really good, as regards both quantity and quality. On the State farm near Rangiriri a large area of ground is being broken up for wattle planting, and on that part of the property near the lake acorns have just been sown on a piece of land which it is intended to convert into a forest of oaks.—(Own Correspondent.)