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The New Zealand Railways Magazine, Volume 7, Issue 1 (May 1, 1932.)

The Big Estates

The Big Estates.

The contour and soil character of the Wairarapa largely determined the system of settlement. The greater part of the region between the Tararua Range and the East Coast is not suitable for farming in small areas. It was naturally adapted for stock-raising on a large scale; a run-holder needed a large extent of the country, so broken up into ranges and valleys and gullies, to make it pay. So it fell into the hands of a comparatively few sheepowners, whose estates were of great area, and although the process of closer settlement has somewhat reduced a number of the holdings the Wairarapa remains, to a considerable extent, the domain of the large graziers, whose flocks roam the hills from the central basin eastward to the sea.

Then there is the region of the moderately-sized farm, where the soil is good and where the conditions are most favourable for the production of fat stock and of butter fat. Fruitgrowing, too, is an industry that has become of great importance to the small holders of the great alluvial centre of the district, and, in fact, all along the main routes of traffic that have been made where once the dense forests clothed the land. A great and wealthy country, redeemed from the comparative isolation that once was its lot, and contributing millions of pounds worth of produce to fill the holds of the great English liners at the Wellington wharves.