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The Cyclopedia of New Zealand [Auckland Provincial District]

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As the cradle of colonisation, the north has historic and romantic associations which are peculiarly its own, and also characteristics in climate and scenery which differentiate it from the southern districts, but these, too, have strikingly distinctive features. The southern portion of the province is much more extensive than that which lies northward from the city of Auckland. It has a greater number of actively busy towns, and a far larger area of settled land, and of land yet to be settled, all fit for the heavier crops and more enduring demands of agriculture. The great valley of the Waikato river, which is navigable for seventy-five miles by small steamers, is noted for the extent and quality of its land, its coal, its pastures, its crops, its cattle, its creameries, and kindred industries. This rich region is within forty-three miles of Auckland, with which it is connected by railway, and with adjacent districts by numerous sideroads. Prior to 1864, when the struggle between the Maoris and Europeans was brought to a close with the capture of Orakau, the Waikato was closed against settlement, but since then it has made such advances that it is now one of the chief agriculture areas in New Zealand. It is especially noted for dairying and for fattening stock, but as the soils include clay, deep swamp, alluvial, sandy and limestone, and the level of the land itself varies from flat to undulating, the Waikato affords ample scope for diversified farming. Flaxmills flourish in the district; even the pumice of the grassless areas is utilised for the manufacture of insulating material, and also of soap, and the coalmines of Huntly have a colonial reputation.

Other southern districts are also remarkable for their fertility. The alluvial flats of Opotiki and Whakatane grow magnificent and Whakatane grow magnificent crops of maize, and about Tauranga, and in other Bay of Plenty districts, wheat grows excellently, with yields that average from twenty-two to twenty-five bushels per acre. The maize crops average from forty-five to sixty bushels per acre, and oats run at about thirty bushels an acre. In the neighbourhood of Tauranga, oranges, lemons, figs, grapes, and other subtropical fruits all grow in the open air. Cattle and sheep thrive in almost all the settlements, and the Poverty Bay, or Gisborne district, is one of the finest and wealthiest pastoral areas of the colony.

It is the southern districts, too, which contain the celebrated goldmining areas. Thames, Coromandel, Waihi, Karangahake, Paeroa, Waitekauri, and other places in the Hauraki Peninsula have added millions upon millions to the wealth of the colony, and have been ample contributors to the prosperity of the provincial district of Auckland. As an industry goldmining is, no doubt, subject to serious fluctuations, but it has, nevertheless, the effect of contributing to the permanent prosperity of the country through the impetus it gives to the cultivation of the land, and the markets it creates for the products of the farmer and the pastoralist in the earlier stages of settlement. Hence, though the mining industry were to collapse utterly, the good it has done would long survive it; but it is still full of life, and of promise that it will continue to add to the prosperity of Auckland for many a long day. An examination of the mining section of this work—placed for convenience within the limits of the city of Auckland—will show that faith is justified by works in this matter.

Auckland's crowning claim to fame with the world at large lies in its southern districts, in the hot springs region and geyserland between the lakes of Rotorua and Taupo. There are thermal and volcanic areas outside of these limits, but the district mentioned is the heart of wonderland. The Aroha, with its mineral baths, its public domain, and romantic forest-clad mountain—the name means Mountain of Love—the hot springs at Waiwera, Okoroire, Waingaro, and the Waitomo caves, are all in the southern districts, and would make them famous independently of the Rotoura-Taupo country; but this is such a region of marvels, that, to it, they are as the stars to the sun. Unrivalled forest scenery, great mountains, romantic gorges and gullies, lakes of unsurpassed loveliness, active geysers, and extinct and unextinct volcanoes, steam vents and boiling pools—these are the prevailing features of the Hot Lakes districts, which have, besides, mineral springs and baths capable of curing well nigh all the physical ailments of humankind. These benefits, too, are made available under the advanced conditions of science and civilisation, so that invalids may regain health and tourists enjoy nature, in one of the weirdest regions of the earth, with as much personal convenience as they could at a German spa or in an English valley. With such sanatoria and such scenic wonders, and extensive forests, great areas of rich and still unsettled land, and other resources possessed by them, there is, beyond all doubt, a very exceptional future before the southern districts of the great province of Auckland.