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

Waikato Times, Volume XVII, Issue 1426, 23 August 1881, Page 3

ABOUT THE WAIPA. [By our Travelling Reporter.] No. 111.

A little further on the road Mr Parsons owns a remarkably picturesque and splendidly rich little estate of 736 acres, named Trevartha. I say a little estate speaking in comparison with the 300,000acre properties of some of the landowners of New Zealand, though 700 acres of good land anywhere are enough to provide competence and enjoyment of all the comforts and refinements of life to an owner who is not desirous of speculating for profits to be spent elsewhere, and 700 acres cover a large extent of ground. This property, for instance, has over n mile of frontage on the Puniu river, a pleasantly winding stieam that bounds the lands of the King natives, and the gentle slopes and flats surround the owner's house as for as the eye can carry. The quality of the land is superb for all crops. Some of the surrounding estates have grown 50 bushels of wheat to the acre over and over again. Turnips of 42 and even 58 inches in circumference have been produced here, as well ub gigantic mangolds which I had not an opportunity of measuring or weighing. From Bto 10 tons of potatoes per acre is no unusual crop, and at from £3 10s to £4 a ton would not bo a bad return for a farmer, though 14 tons were grown on some land of the same quality near here last season. All the property is in grass, and 50 acres have been broken up this year for a crop of White Tuscan Wheat, and 50 more far turnips. There are about 200 head of cattle, including a fine young Hereford bull of Maclean and Co. 'a breed ; and 10<39 sheep, including some fine Lincoln ram", on the place, and the livo stock all seemed in capital condition. Some 300 ewes are just lambing and aB the season is a particularly favorable one they all looked healthy and thriving, the lambs being par!iculdily promising ones', and skipping about the soft green slopes and warm sheltered bottoms in a style to make their owner feel remaikably good tempered. Mr Paisons is a man who believes in his garden and orchard as great addition to the beauty and comioit as well as the mere profit of a farm in such a climate a.s this and the pineß and cypresses and yews surrounding the lawn are grandly flourishing and the flower beds with the roses, the camellias, rhododendrons and azaleas must be chaiming in their season. Some of the camellias have borne flowers all the winter and lovely blossoms that a London beauty would pay a guinea each for for the decoration of her hair, are mere things of nought in this favoured clime. One part of the garden grounds was formerly the site of an old Maori settlement, known by the delightful name, to a family man, of Papapapa, and here {■oino of the old peach trees have grown to a great size and are still bearing large crops of good fruit. The orchard is perhaps the finest I have seen in New Zealand both for the quality and variety of the fruit trees it contains and the thorough knowledge of the management of them displayed by their owner. Mulberries, apples, pea»s, peaches, nectarines, plums of all kinds, chenies, goosebeiries, currants, and raspberries, and vires, all abound and look delightfully healthy withouut a sign of the blight so much complained of in this country in some districts Some of the young peaches and apples were coining into leaf, and the different varieties of apples will ripen from DecembeL till May. All the 1000 apple trees in the orchard are seedlings from Georgia iv the Southern States of America, and 650 young strangers from Yankee laud had jubt been introduced to the New Zealand soil at the time of my visit. The Chatoocha and lie yellow and red June, and the Red Astracan are apples that orchard giowers should enquire for, and among the peaches the Alexandra and Chinese Freestone are two varities that weie strongly recommended to my notice. That the growth of fruits will become a profitable undertaking to all Auckland landowners and should be followed energetically, I have always maintained, and it bears out my view that the proceeds of this laj-ge orchard last season realised from 4idto 6d a pound. However this is not enough to satisfy the energetic owner, and he goes in for bee farming as well, his hives numbering 83 being all fitted with the new patent slides, that save so much trouble to the owner and so much destruction to the bees. Last year the return of honey wns nearly five tons, and at the price of Is per lb would make a very pretty addition to the income of a man who had not a soul above suiting himself to the state of things in which his fate may happen to place him. Such branches of produce as these, fruit, honey, butter, and cheese, or even vines and olives, or tobacco will be found to bo much more profitable and more suited to the country than the old wheat and barley and oats, though how an old English farmer of the true old bull • headed furriner-hatine type would try to turn up bis fat pug nose at such outlandish ideas can be better imagined than described. Here above all thjngs beetroot would flourish, for the land is exactly suited to root crops of , all kinds, which attain a wonderful weight' per acre and size per root in this part of the country. There is something absurd and even pitiable, in the way in which all new comerktles'pigp, such' payable branches and' stick to their old ideas, to the brink of starvation very 'often ' Of course^ there mitstjibe whedt and'oatft, tod pdtatbes, agft, muiton, but'somb little 'coyner J tff J

five or si# acres j tur»e<i m#»viiieyattV

or fruit' garden, and a few dozen old candle boxes turned into beehives will be found to bring in a better balance at the end of the year than all the rest together maybe. Let any body who knows how to make cheese try it. I knew a labouring man who followed the trade of a bricklayer for a living in one part of thia island, and by degrees he got together a small trade for cheese, and succeeded so well that ho was turning in several hundreds a year at it, and was patting up large dairies and store-rooms to go in extensively for the business that he expected to realise £600 or £700 a year. Good cheese would b6 highly appreciated in these parts, and there could not be a finer spot for dairy farms. Did it ever strike anyone to try cream cheese, or in the fruit season when the butter is rather soft, to try the Devonshire clouted cream, one of the greatest delicacies in the world with fruit ? Mr Parsons, who is a Cornishman, will, I am sure, back my good opinion of Devonshire cream »3 he does my preference for the old red Devon breed of cattle above all others, and if Providence will only kindly regard my 'strong desire to partake of a pound or two of ripe plums or peaches in conjunction with a quart of this delicious cream in the Trevartha orchard next autumn, I will promise to be good for the rest of my days, and ask no more. Mr Rutherford owns the adjoining farm of 450 acres, the pretty t lopes and the rich fertile soiJ of Avhich are of an exactly similar character. Tho pretty cottage, surrounded by the magnificent pines and cypresses, that though ouly ten or twelve years old, are sixty feet high in this wonderful climate, forms the centre of the picture here, as with all the farms round and nothing could be more chaiming. But Mr Rutherfo'd's distinguishing weakness I know to be some choice specimens of horbefleßh that I have heard of long before I came here, and many miles away. He is the owner of Spoitsman, by Rattan, a celebrated and splendid steeplechaser, who ran berohd in 1 1 races last year, and has won the Autumn Steeplechase in Auck-, land, and the hurdle race in Cambridge, besides many other achievements that I need not detail to sporting leaders, who doubtless all know him well. He is a noble looking, big boued fellow, standing 16 jhands, and what tho ladies call "a' dear old thing 1 ," with a temper like an angel, and able to go over his hurdle like a stag. Then there was another notable old hcic of the course, Tommy Dodd, a wondeiful old winner of prizes at Ngaruawahia, Cambridge, and Ohaupo. The poor old gentleman ia getting on towards the sear and yellow leaf, but he seemed as fresh as paint, to use an idiom of the hoisey minded, and would make a tough customer to beat even now. I know they breed good horses where he came from, namely, Wanganui. There are about 25 horses of all kinds in Mr Rutherford's paddocks, and amongst them is a sort ot old Sarah, mother of nations, the mother of Sportsman especially, who, though 16 years of age, is about to increase her family again. A Merrylegs pony was pointed out as a remarkable trotter, and two di aught colts by Lord Derby, out of a mare of the celebrated "Nuggett," Suffolk punch breed, were worthy of all admhation. There are about 100 head of cattle of mixed breeds on the estate, and 260 sheep. About 16 acres were laid down in turnips last season, but they did not succeed altogether, though where they had any chance the fine soil has turned out magnificent specimens of the white Aberdeen and purple top. There will be 20 acres sown with the same sorts again this year ; but though the land is equal to any in the neighbourhood, there will not be any devoted to grain crops this season. Near the house is a nice orchard of thriving young fruit trees of all kinds, and Mr Rutherford intends to devote one gently-sloping sheltered little paddock of five acres to a fruit garden. The land is all excellent for gram or roots, and the view, bounded by the Maungatautari Range on one side, and the gentle, soft purple and green Pirongia, with stern dark abrupt Kakapuke behind, with far away Te Aroha, and fiuther away snowy and shadowy Ruapehu is something worth looking at, and worthy to be represented by the brush of some great artist. If artists in Europe only knew what a wealth of lovely and strange and grand scenery is to be found here, they would take the place by storm, and views from New Zealand would drive the English connoisseurs into a fashionable, sham, energetic state of enthusiasm. Add a score of graces to Italy, the classic land of picturesque beauty, and she could not approach New Zealand in any one of her manitold charms lavished on every part of her. Italian forests or Italian gardens are humble in their beauties by the side of those of New Zealand. Versuvius cannot compete with Mount Egmont or Ruapehu. Even the ranges and passes of the Alps are not grander or more beautiful than the mountains of the Southern Island, and Taupo or Wakatipu far surpass Geneva, while Rotorua, and dozens of other smaller lakes, would eclipse Corno and the celebrated tourists' lakes of Italy. Mr Westney leases a very fine farm of 862 acres in this neighbourhood, of the same slopes and flats, and the same quality of toil as those I have already described. Three-fourths of this proare m grass, and a few acres were devoted to potatoes last season,- and M)me to turnips, though that crop partially failed tlnough the want of rain in the sowinjr season. About 20 acres will be tried with White Tuscan wheat this year, and will add further proof of the grand capability of the soil for wheat bearing. I noticed some very fine young draught colts about, and the farm seemed stocked with a good useful herd ot cuttle. The Rangiaohia Road Board, I am told, intends to bring a road through the Mission property, and across to the native country at this point. Abiidgethat would cost something less thin £1000 would he required, but the traffic thus opened up with the King country, through to Kopua and Kawhia, would be a wonderful assistance to this district, and it is to be hoped that advantage will be taken of the present conciliatory spirit of the natives to push forwaid such a good work without delay.