Waikato District.

Now let us take a little trip and see a sample of this country, and starting from the substantial city and port of Auckland in the North Island, take the train on this 13th day of September, 1892, for the Waikato country. We will make a few [unclear: noes] on the way, and take a photographer with is for company. We start at 9.30 a.m., passing through a well grassed and well settled country until we get to Ngaruawahia, 70 miles distant in four hours. Plenty of homesteads, green jaddocks well fenced, with lots of sheep in them, [unclear: lespeaking] comfort and prosperity. The willow: are well in leaf, and the peaches and plum tees breaking into blossom. As a floral display we don't think much of peach trees, for we have our camellia bushes growing in the open air—gnat bushes 8 or 10 feet high and wide, with booms blood red and white as virgin snow—but or any one thinking of emigrating to America it might be as well to inquire if at the corresponding time of the year, say March 13th, the St. Lawrence is clear of ice, and whether navigation is open to Quebec.

Away with idle dreams, we have work to do. Atlas took the world on his shoulders, we have to carry a piece of New Zealand to England.

We leave our traps at a comfortable hotel, and take a stroll through the little township to see the dairy factory, the Ngaruawahia Central Creamery and Butter Factory, belonging to Messrs. Reynolds and Co. (Limited), whose head office is at 30 Borough, London. This firm has been established six years, and at first had all the difficulties to contend with which those who establish a new enterprise generally have to face, and the benefit of which the successors of the bold men who first attempt to subdue difficulties so often get. However, that is not the case here. The firm have triumphed over all difficulties, and the industry of butter and cheese making in New Zealand for the English market has now passed through the experimental and is in the thoroughly practical stage, with ample room for extension.

The camera is ready, the milk carts won't wait much longer. We see the milk put into a large swinging can at the back of the building, and by the time they can drive round to the front the cream is taken off, and the skim milk ready for delivery. Inside is the separator, making its 7,000 revolutions per minute, the cream coming out in a thin and the skim milk in a thick stream. We look at the revolving churns—just great square wooden boxes swinging on a pivot, they are—and then go into the room where the butter is worked up, salted, and put into casks ready for shipment to England. It lies on the floor in hundredweights, with a golden hue as of sunshine on it, and a fragrance as of many flowers. It is just our sunshine they are exporting in casks; there will be plenty left, that is a comfort.

Eight creameries, scattered over the district some fifty miles away, gather the cream from neighbouring settlers, and send it into this central factory; so if you multiply the string of carts standing at the door by eight, you will get an idea what a benefit this butter factory is to the district, and what a convenience to the settlers. Dairying, instead of being the heartbreaking work it used to be, is turned into little more than pastime and healthy exercise. The settlers milk twice a day, but bring their milk only once a day to the creamery. Calves are healthily reared on the skim milk, and pigs, it is hardly necessary to say, revel in it.

There are other dairy factories in the district, cue at Newstead, Mr. Reynolds' own farm, where he milks 300 cows, and there is a cheese factory

Mr. J. Wallace's Farm House and Barns at Papatoitoi.

at Tauwhare, on the Waikato Land Association's land. Altogether there are eleven butter and cheese actories in the district. Messrs. Reynolds aid Co.'s eight factories have turned out 200 ton; butter for the season just ended, from one and a quarter million gallons milk; the Tauwhare factory turned out 7 tons butter and 45 tons cheese; the Waharoa factory, 23 tons; the Cambridge factory, some 50 or 60 tons cheese. These igures show that the industry is well established, and Messrs. Reynolds and Co. report the only hindrance to its further development is the wait of settlers to take up land and supply them with the necessary milk. Messrs. Reynotds and Co. exhibited at the Islington Show, held in the Agricultural Hall, and "The Dairy," a London paper published in the interest of dairy farmers has the following in its issue of October 12, 1892:—"The exhibits of Messrs. Reynolds and Co, Limited, are interesting from the fact that they have been produced far away at the other side of the world, but more especially because after their long journey of 14,000 miles, both limey and butter are as fresh as any English exhibits. Messrs, Reynolds and Co. have [unclear: fifeen] creameries in New Zealand, and are the largest manufacturers of high-class butter in that cobny. With some of their ordinary stock they took 1st prize gold medal at the Melbourne Centenrial Exhibition of 1888. The strictest supervision is exercised during every process, from the pasturage and food of the cows, until the final sale from the London depot. The honey is gathered from the white clover and various honey blossoms of the Antipodes, and pronounced by epicures the finest in the world."

The average yield of milk from a cow is found to be for such cow's as are supplying the district, 500 gallons, and £7 is put down as a low average yield fun a cow for the season, including the value of the skim milk for rearing pigs.

Fiveniles from a creamery is about as far as it is considered profitable or convenient to cart the milk, but as settlement advances, there is no fear but that this or some other enterprising firm will establish plenty of creameries to meet the requirements of the settlers, and if any one is desirous of and can afford to erect a creamery and butter factory of his own, the cost is not very great, as they can be had of all sizes and classes of power—hand, dog, horse, and steam, so no one ever need be afraid of the firm that owns the factories monopolising all the profits of the industry. Live and let live is, in the nature of things, the rule in the dairying business in New Zealand.

To the market, with England's enormous consumption at the door, there is practically no limit, and with New Zealand's grass lands to work on, we think we have fairly shown that in this industry there is an enormous field for investment by small men and a good field for large men.

The labour required for dairying is not of an exhausting nature. A boy of fourteen can milk a dozen cows, a man fifteen, drive the cart, and then have no more to do than will keep him out of mischief. Women and old or weakly men can milk, and the latter can drive a steady old horse; and if a man has no labour in his family, contracts can be made with men with families for Id. per gallon, or one-third of total proceeds, to take all the trouble off the owner's hands, milk the cows, drive the cart, and attend to the rearing of the pigs and the calves, while the owner of the property can himself be at the plough, or attend to other matters on the farm, as looking after his orchard or poultry, or financial matters requiring his attention in town.

Mr. Runciman, of Marsh meadows, has published the return he obtained from his herd of dairy cattle, and Messrs. Reynolds & Co.'s books corroborate it.

The following is the return he received for milking for the year 1890, showing the number of cows milked, the yield of milk, percentage of cream, and price received from the dairy factory.

Dairy Carts Bringing Milk at Ngaruawahia, Province of Auckland.

It will be seen that the average number of cows milked was for the year 39½ the yield is 624 gallons; but as the cows were drafted out of a herd as they came into milk, and nine months is about the average milking time for a cow we must add one-third to the number of cows required to give the yield, and we then find approximately: 52 cows yielded 25,000 gallons milk, and £370 in money, being an average of 470 gallons of milk per cow, and a return of £7 2s. per cow. At the present time the prices of milk are higher than those shown by about per gallon, which would give about 10s. more per cow, bringing the proceeds up to £7 12s. But we wish to be rather under than over the mark in presenting our calculations; increase of foreign competition may lower the price, and one might have to work with a lower grade of cows, although one might also use better bred ones; we therefore fix on £7 per cow as a safe and reasonable basis to work on. We take off one-third for labour and have no hesitation in saying any three acres of fair grass land in New Zealand will yield a profit by dairying of £3 13s. 6d., equal to an annual return of £1 4s. 6d. per acre. Of course there are different soils; some farmers laugh at not being able to keep a cow to every two acres. The Government expert says one acre in the Napier district is enough, but we want our figures to stand investigating, so give the larger area as being that required to feed a cow.

From Ngaruawahia we take the train to Hamilton, which may be said to be the centre of the Waikato district, and is a nice little town on the banks of the Waikato, with two or three good hotels, banks, an ample supply of shops, and plenty of churches and schools. The domain and its lake are well worth a visit.

From Hamilton, we trusted ourselves on the back of a horse and rode the fourteen miles to Cambridge, where there was a horse show on. A prettier drive on good roads, with good hedges, and comfortable homesteads adorned with plantations, one would not wish to see. That of Mr. page 6 Day, of Tamahere, with its avenue of pampas and pines, is fit for a duke, although his house is not so [unclear: retentions] as he shortly hopes to make it. He makes his own cheese and his own bacon, and has a very fine herd of Jersey pedigree stock. A man with a family of seven lives on his place; they have a good cottage and half-an-acre of land and run for a horse and cow. Of the family, the man and three boys milk, the rest are too young or are engaged in domestic work. Last year they received over £100 in cash and lived rent free for their labour. Many a city clerk, methinks, would be glad to change places with this rural paterfamilias. Mr. Day farms 1,000 acres. Last year he killed 300 pigs and averaged 7½d. per lb. for his bacon; for his cheese he averages 4½d., but he has a good name and sells all his produce locally, and gets more than an exporter can expect. He values the proceeds of an acre of good grass in the Waikato at 25s., and will be disappointed if he does not clear £1,000 off his farm per year, after allowing 6 per cent, on the capital value for rent. Of course, he says, there is a variety of soil in the Waikato, much good, much comparatively poor, but even from the poorer land the climate is so favourable for the growth of grass, that with work and manure, a good return should be obtained.

We spent some time with Mr. Day, and he was good enough to give us the benefit of his lengthy experience in the district, and the sum and sub-stance of it amounts to this: That 300 acres is a fair-sized farm for a man to cultivate, and he had far better do 300 acres well than 1,000 acres ill; and his estimate of the capital required to work such a farm, and a reasonable way of working it, would be about as follows; and we note it tallies as nearly as may be with our own estimate of £1 4s. 6d. per acre, being £15s., or just 6d. above it.

Capital required to work 300-acre farm, fenced, with house and outbuildings:—

(Being equal to £1 5s. per acre.)

If interest were allowed for at the rate of 6 per cent. on 300 acres at £8 per acre—namely, £144—the net profit on the 300 acres would be £226.

The old stock being drafted out and the young ones kept, provides for depreciation in ewes and cows. If the family can do their own milking, a further sum of £100 per annum can be added; but if this is not done, or allowing that the labourers are worthy of their hire, and are entitled to be paid for their labour, there is a net profit of 15s. per acre over and above 6 per cent, interest, which, going to pay off the purchase price, would, with the annual reduction in interest, clear it off in nine and a half years if the fluctuations in prices of produce balanced one another.

It is no exaggeration to say that this return may be confidently reckoned on by fair farming on any 300 acres of fair to good grass land in New Zealand. In some places more land may be adapted to wheat and oats and less to grazing, but if the farmer uses his brains, profits by his experience, and does not put all his eggs in one basket, he may look for a return approximate to the one shown for all time, as far as we can see.

From Cambridge to Fen court, one of the properties of the Auckland Agricultural Co., and from there the next day through land cleared and uncleared, swamp and drained, in grass and fenced, flat, rolling downs and rough hillsides, behind a spanking team, past the Tauwhare Cheese Factory, for many a mile through paddocks well-stocked with cattle (Herefords, Jerseys, and non descripts) and sheep (Lincoln, pure and cross-bred), leaving the Lockerbie homestead, one of the Bank of New Zealand Estates Co.'s properties, on the left, we bring up at Waitoa, another of the A.A. Co.'s properties, for the night.

The homestead of Waitoa stands on a small hill overlooking the Thames Valley. On one side are the steep bluffs of the Coromandel hills, at the foot of which nestles the little village of Te Aroha, famous for its warm springs and sulphur baths. We sat down to a breakfast of which everything was produced on the estate but the tea and sugar. Ham and eggs, cold brawn, cream and butter, formed a fare which, added to a bunch of violets on a spotless cloth, and the attendance of a neat maid with cheeks like roses washed in milk, also a production of the district, showed that the people in the valley. [unclear: lad] advanced beyond the stage of civilization when the

Dairy Carts Taking away Skim Milk, Ngaruawahia.

pioneer glutted his savage appetite on mutton and damper, and slaked his thirst with post and rail tea. Camellias were in flower, but the prime of their bloom was past. Lemons and gooseberries flourish side by side in the garden; pear, peach, and plum trees are in profusion; while the juicy shoots of the young rhubarb just pushing through the soil, furnished a pleasant piquancy to the custard which followed the chickens at the evening meal. A spacious lawn, with its surrounding hedge of dwarfed macrocarpa, and a belt of well-grown Californian pines, set off the orchard and homestead. Around the porch twines the fragrant jasmine, while the song of the lark, heard through the open windows, tells of the coming spring. The heavy Lincoln sheep with lambs at foot barely get out of our way as we walk through the paddocks, and the hum of bees beginning their summer toil, all tell of the spring that will soon cause rose and rhododendron, lilac and hawthorn, to burst into a blaze of summer beauty.

A large portion of the Waikato formerly consisted to a considerable extent, and a considerable portion still consists, of swamp land. The profit derivable from grass lands in this mild climate, has induced many capitalists to undertake extensive and expensive drainage works. Much has been done, and when it is considered that the Waikato district, commencing at Mercer, 40 miles south of Auckland, extending to Lichfield and Te Kuiti, some 90 miles further south, runs from the Pacific Ocean, on the west, to the Te Aroha range, on the east, a distance of over 70 miles, giving an area of between 6,000 and 7,000 square miles of country, and that these lands were only taken from the natives in 1864, it may well be believed that much remains to be done. Miles upon miles of drains have been cut, the fern and ti-tree cleared off, and grass sown by tens of thousands of acres. The result of the draining and clearing operations is clearly shown in the increase of sheep in the district. In 1887 there were 97,000, in 1891 there were 313,000.

There have been no excessive droughts, and only one extensive flood during the 25 years the district has been settled. The air is bracing, and the heat in summer has been known to rise to 90 page 18 degrees in the shade; but this is exceptional. Frosts occur during the winter at intervals, but seldom last more than three days. Ten or twelve degrees of frost is about the maximum, and the general opinion is that if there were a little more it might be better. Root crops do wel, also wheat and oats. Oranges and lemons can be grown, with plenty of shelter, and vines also. For the sportsman hares abound all over the country, and a good deal of coursing is done. Pheasants are plentiful. The streams are well stocked with trout. Californian quail have been tuned out, and are increasing rapidly, as have also the deer, which were liberated some few years ago, and deerstalking may now be looked for. Horse-racing flourishes—perhaps a little too much.

The principal feature of the country that strikes one is the great extent of level land, inter-seced by numerous drains, although there are large areas that require no draining. This alone would give a bleak and desolate appearance to the country, but its monotony is broken by numerous ridges and tracts of rolling downs, and by he very numerous plantations of trees, mainly Californian pines, which have been most extensively planted out for ornament and shelter. These features, combined with the high ranges of the Thames Peninsula, which are never lost sight of, give the landscape a pleasing appearance, which wants but a number of flourishing honest [unclear: eads] to make as attractive a picture as the eye could wish to rest upon.

The great wealth of the Waikato district lies in its grass lands. With ample warmth and moisture these give a promise of wealth and comfort that one may travel far to see surpassed.

In all there are on these properties alone 71,000 acres of grass land fit for immediate occupation, which are for sale on reasonable terms and at a reasonable price.

Over a hundred square miles of country in as fine a climate as the world can show, with all conveniences of roads and railroads, and close to a port; no timber to fell, as in the back woods of Canada; no vermin to kill off; and your returns would come in within three months from putting your foot on board ship in London docks, and be as regular as the best of Bank dividends.

On the same estates are 82,000 acres of unimproved land, in light bush, fern, or swamp, which has yet to be brought into subjection by cutting down and burning off the bush and fern, draining the swamps, and laying down in grass.

For the capitalist who wishes to take hold of rough land, be it hill, covered with bush, fern or ti-tree, or undrained swamp, and expend his energies and resources in breaking in the wilderness and making it a home for hundreds—for the gentleman who aims to be a lord of acres, and under whose mild rule a contented yeomanry may flourish; for the frugal and industrious farmer, content with the acres he can till, his sheep, his herd of fattening bullocks or dairy cattle, his orchard, his bees, his poultry—there is ample room.

As stated three acres of this grass land will support a dairy cow, fatten a beast, or keep six sheep with the aid of a few turnips in winter, and the produce of them can be sent to the dairy, factory, or put in the train, which takes them in a few hours to Auckland, where there is a ready market, either for local consumption or shipment in cool or frozen chambers to England. Land can be rented or bought as the investor's means or inclination may point. There is no need nowadays to go into a wilderness unless one desires to face the toils, privation, and isolation of the life of, the pioneer. There is ample land right here in this Waikato district fit for immediate occupation by a civilized people, and a return, as the Americans say, straight from the word "Go!"

Trade is bad in the old countries. Manufacturing and shipping must take a rest until some of England's colonies supply new customers, and the process is a slow one. Those who have need of an income from investments should face the facts. Some of the wisest of them will, and cast their lot in with us.

The New Zealand Dairy Association have a central butter factory at Pukekohe, some 30 miles from Auckland, with 9 branch creameries sending their cream into this factory. They gather their milk from the Frankton district, over an area of a circle of 30 miles diameter, which is all good dairying country. They report that they supply every place with a creamery as soon as there are sufficient settlers to warrant it being done, and that there is room for three or four times the number of creameries in this district, as land is brought into grass, and that they want more milk. Average grass land within 5 miles of a creamery is worth from £7 I0s. to, £10 per acre; bush land is worth about £5.

Albert Park, Auckland.