The Waikato Times AND THAMES VALLEY GAZETTE.

Waikato Times, Volume XXVIII, Issue 2331, 18 June 1887, Page 2

The Waikato Times AND THAMES VALLEY GAZETTE.

Equal and exact justice to all men, Of whatsoever state oi persuasion, religious or political.

SATURDAY, JUNE IS, 1887.

What shall we do to be saved ? is the riiost important question the Waikato settlers can ask themselves at the present moment. Farming in this district, if we may be excused for applying the term to such a system of using the land as is generally practised, is steadily drifting them from bad to worse. Each year finds-the farmer poorer than he was in the preceediug one. Now this can only end in one way, and the result is simply a question of time. A lee shore is under their bows, they are labouring heavily in the trough of the sea, and surely though slowiy setting in upon the breakers ahead. A wise captain in such a ease, instead of waiting for a favourable wind to spring up, would throw his heavy guns overboard, bout or wear ship, and get as quickly as he could upon another tack. The farmer must do likewise. His chief encumbrance is the quantity of land he holds. In nine cases out of ten, earth hunger, that desire to possess as large a freehold as possible, has been the cause of the settler's embarrassment, and it still remains so. At the onset its purchase absorbed the capital which should have gone to the cultivation of the farm, or if bought on mortgage, rent in the shape of interest has handicapped him. It is there now, perpetually before him in its half-cultivated state, "poor grass or worn out, illconditioned arable land, demanding 'further yearly expenditure on stock to 'graie it or to crop it. i This' tyas 'all very well in the days

when beef, was thirty shillings the 10011%; but with beef nominally at sixteen and eighteen shillings, but really at ten and twelve, it is quite a different matter. Farmers could rub through then, let their farms be never'so slovenly tilled. Now, it is only the man who thoroughly tills the soil, and makes the most of everything, who manages to keep his head? well above; water. is, the" surplus land; nius\ gof lik<v the' ship's gnns, overboard. - M If it v can be sold or leased, well and good —if the mortgagee will take it off the holders hands, well; but even if this cannot be done, the" settler must treat it as though he had it not, spend not a farthing upon it, but turn his entire strength of capital and labour on farming such a portion of his whole estate as he can do well and thoroughly, : . holds two hundred acres of land, and has only means to properly cultivate qne hundred, he must cprifine his 'efforts solely ,to the smaller quantity ; and this applies to each one, whether he hold one hundred or ohe thousand acres,

Having then got rid of, ; or set aside his surplus land he must run on very'different lines to' What th'e farmer, not in Waikato only but throughout the colony, has hithert.o done. How is it that the pionedr settlers in. the Western qf ! America establish themselves,,'thrive andigrow, if.not rich, comfortably What.makes settlement in Canada so much more prosperousan occupation than here!? Not. better markets nor .a more favourable soil or climate have done this, but that the work of settlement is carried on under entirely different conditions. The' class of men who take up land there look to.'the. farm as the means of affording'themselves and their families a comfortable homestead and living., ,They do not haste, to be rich. The land is their bank, their store, ...their only field of speculation, but they push it to the utmost. From the'homespuh clothes they wear, to the very soap they use, nearly everything they consume is raised and produced upon the. farm, till, by-and-bye, thrift, and saving and hard work have raised them to a higher pecuniary and social platform. We.do not,say that every settler should be of this class. Those who have the means to take a higher flight' are quite justified in"doing so, and it is well that there should be many of these, from the thousand acre man downwards. But without the means no one is justified, in his own interests, or in the welfare of the community in doing so. The class of ,settler we havo pointed out is the one we need in New Zealand, one which is the most scarce ; and until farming draws towards these lines we shall never have a truly prosperous and progressive rural population. Such a class of settlers is the backbone of colonisation.

The surplus land then must go, and with it that tendency to lean upon cattle as the beginning and ending of the farmer's occupation. Beef has proved a broken reed which has pierced the farmers hand. It's production must take its place as one only of the subsidiary aids to legitimate farming, and no more. The curse of Waikato, we don't hesitate to say, has been our numerous cattle sales, which have grown out of this state of things, and which now tend to keep it still alive. Legitimate cattle raising has given place to cattle jobbing, which like cards, or the turf, or any other kind of gambling, for one it enriches leaves a score grovelling in the gutter. The time which should be employed in the active work of the farm is spent uselessly and often worse than uselessly in running from one sale to another. Tillage as a system is neglected, and with the exception of the speculation to take a crop that promises to pay in the next season but more often than not misses the mark, little is done in the way of farming. There are, -ri'.e are glad to say, notable instances, in every district of Waikato, of an opposite course, and these stand as beacons which, one would think, the majority would take warning by. In their case the land is farmed and the cry of bad times is never heard in those quarters. We. have not space at present to further pursue this subject, which is a large one, but we may lay down as the cardinal points of reform in our agricultural operations —the holding of no more land than, a settler can properly and thoroughly utilise either with hired labour or witli that of himself and sons; the abandonment of the growth of meat as the mainstay and chief article of produce in Waikato j the introduction of a sound system of rotation in the cropping of his land, which will give the farmer a variety of both white and green crops on which to depend, and, lastly, a return to the more primitive mode of living which characterised New Zealand in its earlier days—less show, less extravagance, more work, more thrift;