CHATS WITH THE FARMERS. [By our Travelling Reporter.]

Waikato Times, Volume XVII, Issue 1434, 10 September 1881, Page 3

CHATS WITH THE FARMERS. [By our Travelling Reporter.]

No. I. The Messrs Toles Estate. About five miles from Kihikihi, along the road past Mr Hutchin son's place, past the grim old blockhouse and past Borne clumps of moss-grown dry old peach and almond trees that hang their branches over the footway and beseech the best consideration of the ptkeha for the former owners of these splendid undulating lands, who by too austere a fate, may be, have fallen from their high estate and had to give way to the ever-pressing, evercoveting pakeha, and on the right hand away on the bare hill stands an unpretending:, halt finished cottage. This is on the estate of Mr J. L. Tole, over which there has been, for the last two years or so, such an endless amount of nagging and talking, and threatenings of violence, and telegrams of imminent war, accompanied by wonderful displays of official blockbeadism and magnificent Bumbledom and stump oratory. There by the side, over a beautiful green grassy Blope, lies a little weatberbsard shanty, peacefully basking in the sun, and there dwells Te Puke, the truoulent disputer of pakeha rights, and the ferocious asserter of his own rights in the face of Her Gracious Sovereign Lady the Queen. He did his protest against what seemed to him injustice in a not unmanly sort of way poor, fellow, and, after all, he was perhaps only the simple instrument of a little underhand ''tiddlywinking" business, the iustigator of which might have been a pakeha, MrTolebought his land 14 or 15 years ago, and has never been able to occupy it till the present time, for the reason that other Europeans had made arrangements to occupy it, and had laid down the grasa to form a cattle run, and Te Puke in all his blustering was only the agent, and not the real principal, poor fellow ! In the same way every difficulty with the natives might, in the opinion of many, be traced to some underhand influence. Nobody can dispute that there is a class of men who live and grow rich in their way by promoting misunderstandings and disputes between the Maoris and the settlers in all transactions in which they can get a finger. Sometimes they pocket the proceeds of a successful swindle, and then they are exalted into the temple of the Elect, and worshipped by many i with tears of abject toadyism, but they are generally a contemptible loafing set, only able to do mischief by misleading the poor Maoris and hiding behind them. It has, I am told, been traced to the influence of such gentry, who had, in an underhand manner, brought the land reserves set aside tor the Maoris for a little rum, and a shilling an acre or so, that the disturbances at Parihaka occurred, and if every disturbance with the Maoris which has ever arisen, were to be thoroughly fathomed, it would not be too much to say there would be certainly found some underhand pakeha schemer playing the cards behind the I Maoris. The same class of men, and j bearing everywhere the same unmistakable stamp, are to be found in every town in New Zealand, and these are the fosterers, only too often, and promoters of disturbances, by which they hope to reap the benefit, as members of their fraternity get up a rush on a racecourse or in a theatre in order to get a chance of prigging a few watches. Messrs Tole own j '1, 240 acres of land, bounded for a length of about 3 miles by the Puniu river, and by the land of the Maoris in what is j known as the King country, and on one side by Messrs Kay, Corboy, Dixon and Martin's farms. Plenty of fencing, hedging and ditching work is being pushed on with activity, now that the dispute about the land is supposed to be finally settled, though Mr Tole has been terribly hindered in his operations for years past, and comparatively nothing has yet been done towards bringing the whole estate into cultivation. The native boundary will be now fenced forthwith, and 300 acres will be broken up this spring, besides the 300 already, in spite of all difficnlties, laid down in grass. About 22 acres are sown with oats in one paddock, and about 7 acres of the same crop in another, 9 acres are being planted with potatoes, and between 30 and 40 acres will be devoted to turnips in the season. Mr Tole owns about 200 head of cattle at the present time, though now that the question of the posession of the land may be considered as settled that number will soon be largely increased. The breed is the Hereford, with a slight cross of the Shorthorn, and two bulls of Maclean's breeding, one by an imported bull of considerable celebrity, are likely, to judge by appearances, to impart a capital strain ito the future herd. Some of the young stock looked well and in tolerable condition, and would fetch a good price if sold. There are about 24 good horses, 10 being particularly fine staunch brood maies of the draught class. Some of the land on the slopes is of the rich dark loamy quality that particularly characterises this district, and would be perfection of grass or root-growing land, while about 700 acres of that in the level, generally distinguished by a stiff clay subsoil, would be quite as good for cereal crops of all kinds, with a little draining to carry off the stagnant water that percolates, by a thousand tiny springs, through to the lowest level of all these wide tracts of splendidly fertile and always moist country. With all these flats in crops of wheat, barley, oats, or even maize, and the slopes covered in paddocks of deep rich grass and clover, or teeming with gigantic yields of turnips, mangold, or beet, this will make in a very few years j an estate that will not be rivalled by many in New Zealand, and its owner intends that all its good qualities shall be developed to their fullest extent without loss of time. From the summit of the high ground on which the house is built a wide view is obtained over Kihikihi, Te Awamutu, Rangiaohia, and Alexandra, and the sites of Hamilton, Ngaruawahia, and Cambridge can be distinguished by the light cloud of smoke hanging over them. Away in the distance, stately Te Aroha looks over the ranges and out, over the rising cities of the Thames and the coast, to sea, and on tiie other side the gentle slopes and forests of Pirongia overshadow the whares of Hikurangi and the wilderness that stretches away to Kawhia and away to Taupo, with the great white throne of Ruapehu in the distance.