ABOUT THE WAIPA. [By our Travelling Reporter.] No. II.

Waikato Times, Volume XVII, Issue 1424, 18 August 1881, Page 3

ABOUT THE WAIPA. [By our Travelling Reporter.] No. 11.

" To-might the winds begin to rise, and roar from yonder dropping day," and in the peaceful ehelter of a comfortable little hamlet, where not 10 years ago was a dreary solitude, I feel inclined to speculate upon the problem of where perf ection could be found to suit all tastes. Some respectable ancients sought it in a land flowing with milk and honey and abounding with corn and oil, and in the name and with the approval of their God robbed their neighbors of it accordingly, as a pleasing commencement of the gratification of their taste* Others find it in a land of flowers and fruits, every man under his own vine and fig-tree, indulging in roses of Sharon to a considerable extent, and probably the tea-scented roses of modern times might suit them as well as those of the highly respeotable old Sharon. Others again can only find perfection in a land of stupendous peaks and toppling crags, overhanging rushing streams and glassy lakes. Some prefer the solemn shades of wooded dells, and some the broad and free expanse of ocean, while some are foolish enough or wise enough' to see nothing so perfect as a stroll along a Parisian boulevard, or the interior of an opera house, or the drawingroom of a fashionable duchess during the season, ,and some again prefer nothing beyond unlimited gin and 'baccy in a " kviet ken down Vitechapel way,"' and a crib in Tittiball's Alley,' " vere they does a little cock-fitin' a Sunday mornins." It will be hard to find everlasting bliss for all tastes : one man's paradise is another mau'g hell. Fancy an old Mahpmmedan who has worked and (suffered" and died for Ms' reward of v everlasting unlimited harems having fo -jog along" 1 for eS&r side by side witli a prim Snjjlwh old. maid.

who has done her best to obtain the Reward of a never-ending goody-goody tea-party with seed cake and stale buna, relievedby everlasting dissertations upon the wonderful works of nature by an aged and' extremely benevolent gentleman, at such times as he is not otherwise engaged in the management of his extensive establishment! Fancy an old monk who hab died '%ppy in total abstinence from 'soap\ and water, whose only idea of enjoyment is selfflagellation and the burning of everybody in everlasting fire who doean't get through as many thousand paternosters a day as himself, who has never nourished his own dirty carcase on anything but a few parched peas, and would not therefore give so mnoh as a drop of cold water to cool the tongue of his neighbour ; fancy suoh a pleasing idea of a Christian all of the o)den time being introduced into a paradise of modern seekers for happiness in the beauties and wonders and enjoyability of the universe. Why even Msssa Sambo "de preacher ob de trut" would decline the honour of his company and indignantly ask for another billet. It is a great question, but I had no idea of going so far. When I began with it, I only meant to say that almost everybody who desires perfection in a reasonable way however much tastes may differ may find it for a mere mortal span of life in one part or the other of New Zealand. He may- not find perfection of brotherly love in the large towns, or perfection of wisdom in the House of Representatives. However, that is going into another large question, and I will only say that anybody who desires his milk and honey, will find it to perfection if he looks after it in some such a spot as the Waipa district, for instance. If anybody requires his vine and his fig tree accomponied by his orange and lemon trees, apples, pears, or any other trees he likef, accompanied by roses of Sharon or the tea-scented variaties, let him try the little sunny valleys of the North. If he wants hi* mountains and his lake?, his crags and precipices, let him go to the Southern Alp*, where he can be supplied with he articles in every conceivable pattern up to 13,000 feet in height; lakes etc., 70 miles in length or smaller as required, equal to bespoke, or let him go to Taupo and watch the sun rise on the snowy peaks of Tongariro and Rviapehu ; or send him to Rotomahana to pee the white and pink terraces, or to Rotorua with its sweet lake and its boiling geysers. I shall be very happy to find him waterfalls from 300 or 400 feet in height down to little six footers who will frighten any nervous old lady just as effectually as their big brothers. Forests of all sizes constantly on hand, with little woodiand lakes in blue or green as required. If he yearns for his flocks and herds as the height of bliss, let him go to Matdmata and Co. or up the glorious deep and dark blue Waikato, or to Canterbury ; but if he pants for connubial bliss in a small way and a dovecot on his own 500 acres or so, let him go to the gentle slopes and deep clover nooks of the Waipa. If he is a stony hearted man and longs for minerals, and sees nothing so perfect as gold, he can have his gold by all means in any quantity, though I wouldn't offer to be his guide ; he may find iron to supply all the world and coal enough 'to smelt it, copper, silver, platinum, plumbago, and any other go, [only let him roll up. New Zealand is perfect in beauty, perfect as a field for man s quiet rustic labour, and perfect as a wealthy mine of industries for the coming millions who will one day possess it. In the feverish rush to grasp at such treasures all at once there may be complaints that enough is not done to satisfy everyone at once, but how much has been done ? let the work of the last twenty years speak for itself, and how very short a space twenty years form in the life of such a country as New Zealand. What has been done is a sufficient guarantee that the work of the next twenty years will begin to develope all the resources that we have not yet even precisely ascertained. It is useless quarrelling with the necessity for being infants before we can be men. There is a certain time necessary for the growth of a country as of a man, and New Zealand has not disappointed the expectations of its parents so far, and we may be certain now that whatever little passing sickness of childhood it may have to go through, it will grow up to flourishing vigorous manhood in as few years as any other nation. America is in the cheeky age of nice wealthy successful young manhood now, but has America never known the rod of affliction administered by fate, and the bitter humiliation of too cheeky boyhood in being birched before his fellows in the world ? How about repudiation Mr Yankee Doodle, did you never have to go about asking in vain for the loan of a shilling ? Well you are a rich fellow now in spite of your great fine for fighting with your brother, so we won't say anything about that, but even you have had to go through boyhood and did not come into your fortune before you cut your teeth ; did you now Mr Yankee Doodle 1 And New Zealand is quite as healthy a boy as you were, and is not doing so badly considering, is he now? Young boys sometimes blubber loudly for sympathy with their little troubles and ailings, but old men of the world learn that adversity is only a tonic for energetic men to spur them on to overcome their own laziness, New Zealand is in the blubbering age now, and mistakes shadows for real enemies, but let him bide, as old grandmothers say, and in a hundred years he will make as good a man as his father, and will only be in his nice young cheeky manhood when his big elder brother, Y. Doodle, Esq. , is beginning to pay up his reckoning for too rapid an early career, and finding the meaning of the internal complaints, the desperate attacks of thieves, the duels with jealous compeers and all the other evils that national fiesh is heir to with bloated prosperity. But revenons a nos moutoua, we have got a long way too far ahead of the right little tight little spot of earth we have to deal with to-day, "taihoa, mon brave, taihoa,! having unbosomed yourself of these truly remarkable reflections upon things in general perhaps you will condescend to allow your too solid flesh to transport your most valuable inner spirit along the road from Te Awamutu to the rising little township of Kihikihi." Gut Zo, but still there is a connection between the wide question of New Zealand's future, and the immediate position of Such little settlements as these and their surrounding lands', that may excuse a little departure from the straight narrow road to look over the fence and see what lies beyond. Some say that these settlements, scattered about every few miles, interspersed with flourishing small estates as these appear to be about this district, each one of which is to be worked up to its full bparingr power, are to be the back bone of New Zealand, and to support the thriving agricultural ' population ,-ihat such a mode of settlement will induce to come here, far better than hirge .estates and woalthy owners. If so,* thererjjould ■not be a finer distript t Jo show, the, capa* bilities'of such a ,'syetem'thaVthis, for 'every , foot of "ground 'appears JriolTand easily worked, and 'ttie^dtetjanoejjTJProm' town to town are trifling.', Th*r6i8 t ' the railway to take the extra produce ojfthese smiling little farm -to 'the market, The return? rr w^ ,sujppqrt;«;fchs population oh .th^ese little towns who in turn will eonsamptioa<fprtthe growth of the fArms j agaiji, atfd^Q the 1 prosperifcy'l's to tieJcejpfe |%y? "Tw'iwo eoiue Qbjeotions fo?tfee

system that I have heard of and remarked for myself in other directions, but they do not appear so marked here ; the farmers are not too small, the owners are not of the poverty stricken order, and the land could not veil be surpassed. Kihikihi is not more than three miles from Te Awamutu and is quite as flourishing-looking a town, with its two hotels, a nice roomy Roman Catholic church, and a large building for the Church of England just being completed, its schools, a public hall, police station, several stores containing goods of the best description, and kept by active and energetic men of business, and a considerable number of Maori tribes about that do a good business in the town. There is a good road between the two towns, and in spite of the trying season and the constant traffic along it there is no great reason to complain of its condition. It rejoices in a name that is rather trying to the uninitiated. Try to suppress an attack of choking with your mouth full at a polite tea-tatjle and you will arrive more nearly at the correct twang than by any other means that I can suggest to a novice. " Kee ! kee ! ! " Very good. I met an outraged new chum on the road who in the old county of Somerset had never been tried in this way, and he expressed himself hurt after this fashion : " Keekee they calls this 'ere place dv they ? Now I jest arsk you, as a Christian man, whether yon never 'eerd sech jolly rot as givin' a place where a man has to live such a name as that ere. Why my misses t'other day seed a feller as sed he come from Kiddykiddyroar. I'm blest if he didn't make the old woman roar any'ow, and' set all her kiddys on the roar too. Why not call places by some good starnshul Hinglish sort o' names at once. If they wants a name let 'em come to me, and I'll give 'em one, such as 'The Puddens," or 'Bill Jackson's Willa.' or ' Tommy Town. ' There 'ud be some jolly sense in the likes of them ere ; but Kiddykiddyroar, or Keekee, oh my golly 1 Ugh ! ugh ! ugh ! This ere is a rummy place." I don't agree with my friend as to the superiority of "good starnshull Hinglish names" over the Maori ones, and some already given by such advocates of their own ideas of the fitness of things to many parts of New Zealand, will ODly add to the general preference for the far more musical and oftentimes deep meaning old titles of tho Maoris. Not half a mile from Te Awamutu lies the first of the trim well worked farms, the sloping green meadows, and rich ploughed lands of which stretching right and left of the road to Kihikihi behind the tall whitehorn hedges lsnd to the district its particular beauty. This one consisting of 370 acres belongs to Mr Mandeno, one of the oldest settlers in the locality. Like most of the landowners, large or small, of this island he has placed hia trust in grass growing exclusively hitherto, and has found now that there is much more to be done with such land as that he owns and is beginning to extend his operations. The soil consist- ; ing mostly of a dark loam of great depth , easily worked, and of wonderful fertility, bears crops of grass, roots and grain that ought to gladden the heart of a farmer, and the site so near a township, that certainly will not remain within its present boundaries for many years longer, must render it a most valuable investment. Most of the lrnd has been broken up and sown, or surface sown with grass, and some of the latter would rival the most carefully farmed paddocks in the district. Mr Mandeno is a practical illustrator of what I have often preached, that surface sowing on fern lands of good quality where time is no particular object, and turning the cattle on at the time when the young 1 fern is springing so that they may cat it with the grass, destroys the fern root as effectually and far more cheaply than elaborate ploughing and harrowing 1 . These paddocks prove this to be no mere empty theory, and the hay crop off some of them last season was particularly fine. A piece of 15 acres in purple and white Aberdeen turnips showed some wonderful specimens of weighty sound roots, though the crop was not altogether a favorable one, through the want of ram at the time of sowing and the depredations of the small birds. What the land here will do under favorable circumstances was quite sufficiently proved by the. roots I saw here and elsewhere. A small crop of potatoes yielded 7| tons to the acre this seabon, and last year's wheat crop returned about 30 bushels to the acre. A very nice paddock has been just sown with the Avhite Tuscan spring wheat and may be expected, from the genial season and the quality of the land, to speak more forcibly than I can in favour of the wheat-bearing capacity of the Waipa district. There are about 60 head of fine cross-bred cattle and 200 sheep of the longwooi breed on the farm, and they looked in capital condition at the time of my visit. On ona of the beautiful grassy slopes, a pretty white cottage surrounded by a plantation of tall dark pines and gum trees that in any country but this would be supposed to be at least of fifty years growth, and a shubbery of gigantic laurels, hollies, loquats, wattles covered with golden and sweet - scented blossoms, and young oaks in their rich brown winter garb, furnished h. picture of home qomfoit and beauty that could only be matohed in old England, and preaohed strongly of the charms of a thriving farmer's life in New Zealand. (To be continued).