Early Matamata.

Waikato Times, Volume 121, Issue 20264, 5 August 1937, Page 29 (Supplement)

Early Matamata.

A visitor to the Matamata Estate in the year 1889 wrote “Matamata at the time of visit, including Waharoa, comprised about 100,000 acres, a part of which had just been leased in small areas to dairy-farmers, totalling 50,000 acres. No less than 22,000 acres were in grass, 2,000 acres in root crops, Chiefly swedes and soft turnips, and 500 acres were oats for threshing and chaffing; the balance was in scrub, fern and undrained swamps. It carried 31,000 sheep, 2,600 cattle and 184 horses. Scrub was cut with a mower, the land ploughed, sown in temporary grass, mainly red clover, left down two to three years, then swedes, then pasture for six years, and then swedes, and down to grass for nine years. I saw 20,000 sheep in one mob on 100 acres of turnips. Between 13.000 and 14,000 sheep were driven during the season to Te Aroha and shipped on barges which held 700 to 1,000. Then they were towed down the river, through the Waiheke Channel, up the Tamaki River to Buckland’s Farm. Matamata was sold to the state a few l years after my visit, the price paid being just under £3 per acre.”