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The Pamphlet Collection of Sir Robert Stout: Volume 80a

Waiau Valley

Waiau Valley,

which comprises a large tract of agricultural and pastoral country, and which is capable of carrying a large population. About 50,000 acres on the west side of the valley is about to be thrown open for sale by the Crown. The eastern side is principally held in large blocks of freehold, interspersed by leaseholds from the Crown on the higher country. The Merivale Estate is one of the finest portions of the valley. It is about 40,000 acres in extent, and includes some of the richest agricultural and pastoral land in Southland, having a limestone bottom and being well adapted for wheat growing. There is probably about 200,000 acres of land in this valley fit for settlement in the hands of the Crown. There is a railroad to Otautau, within about twenty-five miles of the Waiau River, and another skirting the sea coast from Riverton to Orepuki.

From Dunedin north to the boundary of the province the railway runs through high wooded hills, up which it winds, looking down on the shipping at Port Chalmers, and rounding a precipitous bluff where there is a sheer drop of several hundred feet to the sea, it drops again to sea level at Blueskin, where you meet the first small patch of agricultural land. Mr. K. Fergusson's Ayrshire cattle bred here are famed throughout the colonies, and many a pedigree beast is shipped from here to Australia. The Waitati stream is a favourite resort for anglers. The line then again winds up wooded hills, past the Seacliff Asylum, and again drops to the sea at Waikouaiti, from where on to Palmerston, some eight miles, is good agricultural country; perhaps one of the oldest settlements in the colony, for here it was that the late John Jones landed in the forties, and laid the foundation of a splendid fortune.

Alighting from the train at Palmerston, and saddling shanks' pony, we footed it down the valley of the Shag, on roads as good as any turnpike road in England, through fields well fenced with gorse and hawthorn, now in bloom, and the apples and the elderberries just breaking out. Well-fed cattle are browsing in the rich pastures, and the lazy calves lying on the roadsides look at us with large, inquiring eyes, wondering whether it is worth the trouble to rise and get out of our way, and decide it is not. As we cross the Shag a big trout makes a jab at a fly, and we climb the hill to look at a property now in the market, Bushy Park, which is a fair sample of land in the Shag Valley and Palmerston districts.

There is a large wooden house, two-storied, with spacious hall, with tesselated tiled floor. Stained-glass windows lead up a wide staircase. Some twenty-five acres of pines, in double rows, flank the hill as you rise, the deep olive of the pines, the pale green of the young oaks, and the variegated greens of the New Zealand native bush, picked out with the star-like white clematis, contrasting well with one another. The property consists of 2,200 acres; perhaps 500 of it are flat, the rest rolling downs. It is subdivided into seventeen paddocks, and has this spring, month of November, 7,000 sheep on it, besides 250 acres wheat and 50 acres oats. With 300 acres of turnips it will easily winter 5,000 sheep. A gentleman who can afford to buy and pay for such a property, and would interest himself in the working of it, would derive a good income from his investment, and have all the conveniences of civilisation he could want, a railroad station at his door, good trout-fishing, and a hare and a rabbit once in a while to keep his hand in. A feature of the place is the deer park, where are some seventy red deer, which have thriven for many years past. The estate is bounded on three sides by water—by the sea on one, by the Shag River on two. Scarlet rhododendrons, lilac and banksia roses were in flower, and a camellia bush growing in the open air attests the mildness of the climate. There is the usual dairy factory in the district. A branch line of railroad runs up the valley to Dunback, some twenty miles from the sea, up to which place there is soil sufficiently level for agriculture. After that, as you go inland, the country gets too hilly for anything but sheep.

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Oat Harvesting in Southland.

Oat Harvesting in Southland.