What has become or the Forty-acre Men?

What has become of the "forty-acre" men? Where do they go to? are questions which we have frequently heard asked, some few days after the arrival of two or three large vessels from home. For a time we notice, in our streets and elsewhere, strange faces, with their unmistakeably English complexion, and observe a more than usual intermixture of well dressed loungers about the town. A few days more and they are gone. For a solution of these questions we must wend our way to the back settlements of the North, to the valleys and hills which stretch away from the many navigable rivers and harbours which intersect the country: and there, with bearded face and in plain blue shirt, we may recognise our quondam acquaintances, busy in the great work of colonization, subduing the land, that they may enjoy and possess it. Back at the head of the Wangarei—on the furthest boundaries of the Kaurihohore—nine, ten, twelve miles back from the Parahaki—at the foot of the Maungakaramea itself, and up and along every tributary, creek and stream of the Wangarei, houses are springing up, of all shapes and kinds, from the humble Nikau whare, to the substantially built wooden dwelling with its promising honeysuckle or rose just shewing itself about the verandah; the plough is busily putting a new face upon old things, and ever and anon, as we pass through the heavy forest, we come upon the open clearing of some more adventurous backwoodsman.

Experience, in the same manner that science and knowledge have dispelled the mists of superstition, is rapidly proving the character of those bugbears which have so long been held up to terrify the credulous and damp the energies of the less determined amongst us. Lands which have been cried down as worthless are found to be amongst the most productive.

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Grass sown upon the ashes in forest land, kauri or otherwise, which had been previously simply cleared and burned, still maintains, in its second and third year, high luxuriance, proving the ignorance of those who so loudly asserted that, sown on these lands and with this preparation only, it would after one or two years die away altogether.

The kauri forest land, with its fabled sterility, is found often to be of the richest quality, and the heaviest crops of wheat and potatoes have, to our own knowledge, been taken from ground, on which little else than this species of timber had recently grown.

It has ever been our object to set before those of our readers who seek for information as to the process of settlement, or the methods and systems of colonial farming, a true but unvarnished account of the expectations which new settlers might reasonably entertain,—of the privations and the difficulties to be encountered, and the profits and advantages to be reaped,—neither concealing nor exaggerating anything, and we have the satisfaction of knowing that our labour has not been without useful results. On a recent visit to one of these out-settlements, we were not a little pleased to find that those reasonable expectations, which we had encouraged, were not only fully realised, but realised with less trouble and in a shorter period than that which our new friends had been led to look for. One great drawback usually described as existing to farming in this Province, is the time that, it is asserted must eiapse before any return can be looked for. At Maungakaramea the other day, in the house of Mr. Donaldson, a settler by whom we were hospitably entertained, everything upon the table, potatoes, bread, meat, milk, butter, and vegetables, were the produce of his farm, and that too within fifteen months of his locating upon his land. So much, then, for what can be done by those who put their shoulders resolutely to the wheel. This is no solitary example. But what may be said of these individually, may be applied collectively to a whole settlement—that which lies next upon the coast—Waipu. True these Waipu men have been located there a longer time, but this fact only shows more strongly the stability of the position which industry and perseverance will always attain. We believe, of all those who settled in this district not one has left on account of being unable to weather it out. Of 150 families, there are none who have not succeeded in comfortably establishing themselves, but then they came to work, not to grumble. In Waipu, this present year, when the yield of wheat has been scarcely more than half the usual average, 3000 bushels have been grown.

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We have before remarked on one pleasing feature exhibited in all these settlements which owe their present vitality to the new life infused into them by the existing Land Regulations, namely, the desire for places of worship and school accommodation. In the settlement of Mangawai, which has sprung up into vigour under the forty-acre system, two schools are already being established, and the inhabitants are combining for the very necessary purpose of bringing the district within the provisions of the "Roads and Works Ordinance," and thus entitling themselves to Government asisistance in the construction of branch roads, and of the necessary bridges to connect the back settlements of the Hakaru and the recent selections in Te Arai with the harbour. Much of the soil immediately around the harbour at Mangawai is of the same description to which we some time back alluded in an article on the soils of New Zealand, a deep, black, porous soil of a somewhat peaty nature. This soil has been, and very unjustly so, condemned as useless. We have ourselves attempted to raise wheat on this same description of soil, after having thoroughly underdrained and worked it, and failed. Our success however in the growth of potatoes, turnips and grass, with the aid of artificial manure, proved eminently gratifying, where wheat and oats were a complete failure.

At Matakana and Mahurangi the same appearances of advancement and prosperity are observable. A new mill at the head of Matakana is being erected for the sawing of timber and for grinding wheat; it would have been completed ere this but for the delay occasioned by the breaking of a part of the machinery, which can be replaced only from home.

Back in the bush, by the fresh water stream, a band of adventurous settlers have taken possession of a tract of excellent land, and at their own unaided expense have opened a dray road between two and three miles in length into the heart of the forest. Along this line some scores of acres have been already cleared and brought into cultivation.

Finally then, the experience of a tour which embraced the settlements lying between Auckland and the Mongonui district, the present limit of settlement northward, and which was undertaken purposely with the view of ascertaining personally the practical operation of the Auckland Land Regulations, has satisfied us that as a whole the system has proved completely successful; the community has gained a large accession of capital and labour of the right sort, both of which are being turned to good account. In the course of our journeying, we have encountered but a minute per-centage of grumblers, the great majority of the forty-acre men who have settled on their lands appear hopeful, thriving, and contented.