THE LEVIN STATE FARM.

Waikato Argus, Volume VI, Issue 429, 2 May 1899, Page 2

THE LEVIN STATE FARM.

AN EXTRAORDINARY STORY. (BY TELEGRAPH—PRESS ASSOCIATION). Wellington, Saturday. Notwithstanding the trouble taken by the Department to prerent local reporters accompanying the Victorian Minister for Linds and Mr Trecwith, M.L.C., to the L via State farm, there is a trenchant account of the whole proceedings at Levin forwarded to the Christchurch Press by its " special correspondent." If this account is strictly correct, it is likely that the Levin State farm will, when Parliament meets, be severely criticised, considering that some £SOOO have been lost over this fancy piece of land and labour business, and that the lind continues to be no better after all these years than a wilderness. The story which the Press correspondent •tells is extraordinary. Here is the narrative :—What the Commissioners found was a tew old men doddering rouud in an 800-acre wilderness of stumps, thistles, and sorrel. The Commissioners were told that 50 acres were cultivated in the form of an orchard, but the s.-id cultivation turned out to be 100 rows of dejected-looking apple trees, struggling through a thick matting of sorrel- Asking about the product of this, they were iuformed that through the blight scarcely any fruit had been obtained last year, and none at all this." Mr Trenwith pointed out that that was hardly the way in which fruit was cultivated in Victoria. In that colony, he said, plenty of room was lef.t between the trees for cross ploughing both ways. At Levin the trees are planted together in rows, and if there were any ploughing to be doue, it could only be in one direction. An improvement would only be possible hy chopping down half the fruit trees on the place. However, Mr Tronwith't commentary waß perhaps superfluous, as the visitors eventually found that there was not one single up-to-date agricultural machine on the whole estate, which may or may not be accounted for by the fact that the manager is described "as a bootmaker from Wangauui, a friend of the late Mr John Ballance." A few cows

are milked on the farm, but the dairyiug arraugements are primitive and in keeping with the geueral surroundings. The manager proceeded to sample the potato crop, but root after root was examined without any better result than the production of a few *• bog apples/' no larger than marbles This induced the Hon. Mr Btst (the Victorian Minister for Lands) to remark that he should have thought such soil capable of something better than that. "It is stated, and will be probably printed and published, that the Australian Commissioners are dreadfully disappointed. They could not help admitting the fact. One old man on the farm said the place had become a recreation ground for some of the heads of Departments and their families in Wellington," and so the Commissioners and the whole party must have been sadder and wiser men when they went to lunch. Of course, the mouths ot the reporters of the great Australian dailies could not be closed, and it will probably be found that the result of this pilgrimage to the Levin State farm will furnish their readers with some very entertaining reading. Both the Commissioners made minute inquiries, and among other curious things was elicited the fact that what was reckoned profit was simply the increase of the value of the land. This so-called profit was stated ro be something between £I2OO aud £I4OO. The Press, in its Uader, shows the actual positiou, as follows :—"For some unexplained reason the labour report for this year contains no reference to the State farm. In that of 1897 there was a glowing account of it. Amoug other things it was stated that the orchard was in splendid condition, and from appearances would yield a large crop of the various sorts of fruit then growing. A balancesheet was furnished to the committee of the Labour Department, in which the profit was shown as £1405. This was arrived at by the ingenious process of not charging sny interest on the value of the land, or the money spent on its improvement, and then placing the preaent value at a sum far exceeding the unimproved value plus the cost of improvements. A balance-sheet was drawn up on ordinary business methods, in which 4 per cent interest was charged on the money voted at various times, and it was found that up to March 31st. 1898, there had been a loss of £4160. In last there were 15 men employed, thM ages ranging from 2S to 79 years of agj Since it was established 129 men hfl been pissed through the books, so that it has coat the colony £4OOO to give temporary shelter to 129 men."