Wairarapa Daily Times. [ESTABLISHED 1878.] TUESDAY, JANUARY 23, 1894. A BIG LOCAL INDUSTRY.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume XV, Issue 4628, 23 January 1894, Page 2

Wairarapa Daily Times. [ESTABLISHED 1878.] TUESDAY, JANUARY 23, 1894. A BIG LOCAL INDUSTRY.

SECOND EDITION

The largest employee of labour in this district is the firm which owns Branoepeth. • The Wairarapa has some reason to be proud of its small settlers and it has also some reason to be proud of its l(irge settlers, the pioneers who, a generation back, took iip blocks of land which were then—and are to a great extent even now—unsuited for occupation in small holdings, and who by oapital, energy, and enterprise made their many acres produce a maximum of grass and stoiik. Last week we asked the olerk at Branoepeth to give ub the shearing returns of that station, He very kindly placed at our disposal full particulars of the wool output, From it we learn that 66,580 sheep and 24,061 lambs have passed through the phear-1 ing shed. The rate paid for the former, was 178 6d per hundred, and for the latter 16s 8d per hundred. The shearers drew cheques amounting to £782, but this does not represent anything like the total cost of shearing time. General hands drew £BSO, stores cost £260, wool paoke ran into £l6O, and wool classing absorbed £64, and some minor itoms made the total expense exceed £I7OO. The average weight of wool' from the sheep was a splendid return, viz,, Blbs 3|ozs, and of the lambs 21b lfozs, the number of bales 1377. The popular prejudice nowadays favours small properties, and no doubt the time will como, some time in the next century, when a large property like Brancepeth will be subdivided, We are trying an experiment with the Cheviot estate and the result uf that may encourage or discourage the breaking up of Ifttgr properties, but apart from this question it is satisfactory to find a great estate yielding such excellent returns and distributing so muoh money in labour, It is a mistake to suppose that the working men of this district' regard this great property with disfavour. We never meo a swagger yet who had not a good word for Brancepeth or a resident workman employed on the station who did not praise the management for the liberal treatment and consideration which was extended tp (p gnd all. The nest egg with whioh many hundred small eettlers have made a start on their own account has oome from Brancepeth and will probably for many years hence bo sought aiid found there,