Taranaki, Wanganui, & Wellington Districts.

We stayed some time in Auckland, a city of 51,000 inhabitants, founded some fifty years ago. It has all the clubs, banks, hotels, and public buildings that could be desired. The freezing works at the harbour side is a very substantial building. Besides freezing for export to England, they tin a large quantity of meats for export to the South Pacific Islands, as Fiji, Samoa, and Friendly Islands.

The public library, with Sir George Grey's collection is a treasure. If you are given that way you can hunt up old tomes of Chaucer, Spenser, and rare Ben Jonson, Bacon and Humphrey Clinker, Roman jurisprudence and the constitutions of all the nations on earth, Montesquieu's Spirit of the Laws, and the travels of old German friars, written in their own words 300 years ago. Rare old missals there are; steady hands had the old monks, firm as an engraver's steel—not they the ones that tarried too long at Lite flagon and venison pasty—and the embroidered capitals are as rich in gold and vermillion and delicate as any Indian lacquer work. If you want anything a trifle lighter you can go to hear the Mikado and see the skirt dancing. The Domain and the footballers, the Ellerslie racecourse and the totalisator may attract you, but they should not; or you can sit in the Albert Park and overlook the busy town from the midst of sheets of azaleas, ichsias, and all the parti-coloured fancies of the ribbon gardener or, if you are horsey, you can take a run with the Pakuranga hounds.

Away across the Manukau bar, on the 27th October, the place where the gallant Orpheus was wrecked some thirty years ago. When they could keep the decks on longer, the sailor lads manned the yards as if on holiday parade, and when the masts went over the side, they went to their watery bed with a ringing cheer that startled the pale and helpless pilots restlessly pacing the shore.

Toll for the brave,
The brave that are no more,
All sunk beneath the wave,
Far from their native shore.

A twelve hours' run brings us to Taranaki. No one can understand Taranaki that does not understand her mountain—Mount Egmont. Æons ago, long before Moses' mother put her babe into the bulrushes and trusted him to the crocodiles of the Nile rather than to the tender merces of the reigning Pharaoh; long before Rameses built his little Pyramids, old Mother Earth began to cough and spit out of a little hole [unclear: ust] by Taranaki and blew up a fine black earth gently, a little at a time, and when the south-west wind blew it fell across the laud, and where it was calm it just settled down where she [unclear: bew] it out and made a little pyramid that grew bigger and bigger, and the sides slid out wide as it grew higher and higher—a perfect cone—and when she had made a pyramid 8,200 feet high she left off blowing, and the rain clouds came up from the sea and crowned it with snow like any bride-cake, and when the sun shone out on its hoary old head it wept crystal tears, and they scarred its sides with a hundred rivulets which run down, talking, babbling, gossiping for ever on their road to the sea. You meet them everywhere. Some run on the sides of the hills as if they were water races. You cross them on bridges in the streets—they run down the gutters and flush the sewers of Taranaki.

Such a country for streams there never was, and you can get them of all powers, from a sewing-machine upwards, and all with a fall from the top of the mountain. They never overflow their banks, for they have all cut deep down through the loam to the bed-rock long ago, and their banks are too high and their hurry to get to the sea is too great to have time to overflow.

And so the Taranaki and Hawera districts are all rich volcanic loam, 8 or 10 feet deep, and there is not a pebble for miles. The streams never fail to be fed from the everlasting reservoir of snow. The Taranaki people almost worship their mountain, for by it they live and move and have their being.

The streets of the town of New Plymouth are laid out at right angles, and are as clean and tidy as a man-of-war's quarter-deck. There are about 4,000 inhabitants and every convenience that can be desired. The recreation ground on a hill within a few minutes' walk of the centre of the town is a place for poets to dream in. An old raupo swamp has been dug out, and the streams that fed it dammed into a lake whereon float boats and water lilies. The banks are terraced tier upon tier, and shady walks and neat pavilions invite lovers to breathe all the sighs they want to utter.

If any gentleman has any cash to spare for landscape gardening, there are a hundred places near New Plymouth that can be had at the price of grazing lands, that in a few years could be made into as lovely a place as the New Plymouth Recreation Ground.

One of the numerous streams has been utilised for supplying power to drive a factory.

Auckland Freezing Works.

"Mr. J. C. George, of New Plymouth, has erected a butter factory (Oaonui Dairy Factory) on the banks of the Oaoita stream, here in Mr. Lawrence Gilmer's paddock. It is driven by water power. The water-race was dug by an Aucklander, by name Mr. Robert Munroe, reflecting the greatest credit on his ability. The building was constructed under the supervision of Mr. Hall, of Lepperton, while the fixing up of the machinery was done by Mr. Turner. The race is about 16 chains in length, with a wheel 12 feet 6 inches by 5 feet 8 inches. The main building is 36 by 20 feet, 13 feet studs. The boiler house is 12 by 10 feet, and the platform 14 by 5 feet. There are two separators, two churns, two sets of cream coolers. The building has a wooden floor. The skim milk is carried up into a trough by a pipe, which is a very great convenience, as vehicles draw alongside, where there is a pipe which is put into the milk cans, thereby saving any lifting for filling the return milk. Butter is made every day, Sundays included. Although only fourteen settlers are supplying at present, there are hundreds of gallons of milk supplied daily. Mr. G. W. Geary is manager in charge. He has Mr. William Johnson, one of your Auckland-Mangere young men, as assistant. They are both very popular with the suppliers, and I have no doubt Mr. George is proud of them, in the efficient manner they keep everything, and as also they turn out a first-class butter."

The climate is moist and warm, but not enervating. There is very little frost, as may be imagined when it is said potatoes grow all the year round. From New Plymouth the railway skirts the base of the mountain, cutting off the peninsula on which it stands, strikes near the coast Hawera, a few miles from the sea, and skirts the coast a few miles inland, through Patea and Waitotara counties, until you arrive at Wanganui, a distance of 107 miles, all of which is tolerably well settled within twenty miles of the railway. After that you get into bush country, of which there is a very large area in Government hands for sale at low rates, and wants but bush-felling, burning-off, and mere surface sowing-down in grass to make fine pasture land. Speaking of the district as a whole, extending from New Plymouth on the west to Foxton on the East, it may be said to contain about 10,000 square miles of country which for all purposes of pasture, dairying and stock-raising may be equalled, but on this earth cannot be excelled. Right here where we now write is a country that will carry a population thick as Denmark, and has all the roads and railroads, bridges and young townships ready to do it, and every industry that is there carried on can be carried on here to as great advantage, and with no winter at all.

Towards the sea, at Foxton, commences the Manawatu-Rangitiki block, which was purchased from the natives in 1865. It contains a large area of fertile land, most of which is admirably adapted for agricultural and pastoral purposes. Settlement in the block extends north-west to the Rangitiki River and back inland to the Rua- page 22 hine Ranges, and has gone on rapidly during the past twenty years, and several important towns have been established in the district. Foxton, the shipping port of the Manawatu River, has a population of about 800. It has a well-built wharf, which is in communication with the railway.

As we pass in the train we hear the farmers bragging as they will how many sheep to the acre their grass lands will carry. We know they blow considerably, and won't repeat their nonsense; but we see the sheep as thick as bees, and we begin to wonder. Sheep to the acre! It is men to the acre we want, to tend the sheep and cattle, and double the return. There are townships too numerous to mention, and fresh ones constantly starting up, and from each of them, as Oliver Wendell Holmes said about some American villages, the axis of the earth sticks out visibly; and right here we may put in a little word of instruction as to the pronunciation of some of the native names. Ng is pronounced as 11; ai as i; and the final e is always sounded; but newcomers do not all know it, and Ngaire mourns. We quote from a local paper (not a township but has a newspaper) in its issue of October 24, 1892. It seems this important centre is not progressing fast enough to satisfy the restless spirit that wields the editorial pen, and he gives his reasons in verse why her splendour pales before the rising sun of Stratford. The solemn fact, says he, is intending settlers don't know how to say the name, and consequently ask for a ticket to Stratford.

The stranger's met with vacant stare
If he asks his way to Gare;
And should he then his query vary,
He's told there's no such place as Gary.
He next demands, with rising ire,
Which is the nearest road to Gire?
Baffled, He makes one last enquiry,
Where on earth's this blessed Giry?
The yokel at the stranger's blunders
Laughs loud and long, and says he wonders
Why th' eternal fire he
Don't talk plain English and ask for Niry.

Wanganui is a pretty town of 6,000 inhabitants. Its [unclear: rver] is navigable about seventy miles up for [unclear: vessds] of not more than two feet draught, and up to the town, which is about three miles from the leads, for vessels of ten feet draught. Its iron cylinder bridge is a very substantial structure. There are extensive freezing works at the [unclear: mouh] of the river.

From Wanganui, we went right along to the far end of the South Island, preferring to take our [unclear: eisure] on our journey northward, but we will arrange our subject matter according to [unclear: localty], instead of chronologically, as we think we hall make ourselves more intelligible that way so will start from Wellington, where we landed on December 1st, and work back from there to Wanganui, and thus exhaust our stock of information as regards that district before we go South.

Wellington is the seat of Government, and was the first European settlement founded in New Zealand, the New Zealand Company having landed the first body of settlers there on the 1st January, 1840. Auckland used to be the seat of Government, but lost that honour in 1865, since which time Wellington has staggered under the burden.

It has, of course, very extensive Government buildings. All the banks and the most prominent merchants are represented there. It has hospitals, gaols, lunatic asylums, churches, schools, and all sorts of things. In the industrial line there are three meat export companies, a large iron foundry, woollen factory, soap and candle, sash and door factories and others, also opera house, cricket ground, and all the requirements of commerce, education and entertainment of a city of 33,000 inhabitants.

The harbour is all that could be desired. It could accommodate all the European navies and the North and South American ones to boot, without in the least interfering with its ordinary traffic, and there is deep water right up to the wharves.

It rained very hard on Sunday, but we went to church all the same in the morning, and in the afternoon we entertained ourselves at the Museum. The Maori house with its quaintly carved war canoes and the grotesque figures which support the house, the ancestors of the builder, are, if not beautiful, certainly strange, and have a certain artistic taste about them. It may not be art of a very high order, but art it certainly is. There are huge skeletons of moas and whales, one of the latter caught near Wellington, about 60 feet long. We could not help thinking, if we were as large as that and possessed with one idea, we could make things move a bit, but the whale is not enterprising. The pterodactyl was there, and the ichthyosaurus, the megatherium, and the mastodon, at least bits of them. No one landing in New Zealand but will joy fully recognise these friends of his early childhood. The human skulls, skeletons, and other ossifications, the contemplation of which has such a cheering effect upon the jaded man of business, the sprightly clerk, and the toil-worn artizan, and which presents a counter attraction to the wine cup, when it moveth itself aright, were not wanting.

Two lines of railway run out of Wellington. One is a government line and runs through the central part of the island over the Rimutaka range, crossing the Wairarapa Valley, then north

Wanganui River and Bridge.

towards the Forty Mile Bush, ending at Eketahuna. The other is a private line, skirts the west coast, and taps the grassy country of the Wanganui and Taranaki districts, meets the main line coming east from the sea at New Plymouth at Palmerston, which then strikes east to Woodville through a gorge between the Ruahine and Tararua ranges, and then on to Napier, on the sea, on the east coast; complete railroad communication being thus established between the east and west coasts of the North Island.

Wellington to Napier, by rail, is 200 miles; to New Plymouth, is 258 miles. Altogether, there are about 500 miles of railroads in the Taranaki and Wellington provinces.

After a rainy night, we started on the private line, the Wellington-Manawatu line, skirting the coast (the time being December 5th, the equivalent of June 5th in England) and running up from the sea level at Wellington harbour, through grassy and wooded hills, stumped and unstumped, the stumps of trees still left standing with nibbling sheep scattered among them, rising some 500 feet we drop again to the sea level at Porirua, in Cook's Straits, then skirting the water's edge and rising again some 250 feet at Pukerau, we pass through some four tunnels in quick succession, for the hills here run close down to the sea and the waves are breaking at our feet; the island of Kapiti in full view, only some five or six miles distant, everything green as grass, and every gully with its rushing stream after last night's rain.

The hills are still abrupt to Paikakariki, some 27 miles from our start. Here there is a good hotel, and our eyes being always upon the vegetation, we note strawberries are being sold on the railway platform, and decide to have some shortly with cream. The sun comes out warm after the rain, and then through grass and swamp we run through sandhills close to the sea. Otai-kanga, 35 miles, then through steep, heavily-wooded hills, the nikau palms and the cabbage trees standing out prominently, with here and there a cottage with many-coloured geraniums and nasturtiums in bloom. Then over a rushing stream to Waikanae, 37 miles, a little open patch with pretty, fresh-looking cottages with their bright striped verandahs embowered in green. Then over the Otaki, muddy, brawling with last night's rain, the clouds still lying heavy on the hills a few miles up the valley; another dozen miles bring us to Levin, where there are a couple of sawmills (61 miles). Over the Mana- page 24 watu River to Longburn Junction, where the line goes towards the sea at Foxton. Here the hills recede, and we enter upon the rich, grassy, undulating lands which stretch along the coast right away to New Plymouth, on the West Coast, a distance of 200 miles, than which, for all purposes of pasture and convenience to the sea, there are no richer anywhere. We are now in the famed Manawatu district, of which Palmerston, some five miles further on, is the chief town. Palmerston has made most rapid strides in population, which now amounts to about 4,000, having doubled itself in five years. In the centre of the town is a fine square planted with trees, and surmounted by most substantial looking buildings. It boasts of a gasworks and every comfort of civilization.

A few miles more bring us to Feilding, which has a population of 1,500. It is in the centre of a block of 106,000 acres, which were bought by an Association formed in London in 1872.

At Halcombe, 24 miles from Longburn Junction, the train stops a few minutes. It is prettily situated amongst rolling hills, and we noticed a church and school-house peeping through the trees. Then over a fine bridge across the Rangitikei, the train rising the bank at the other side of the river, running through grass waving in the breeze, looking down on the valley with the river winding through clumps of trees, we come to Marton, which is the prettiest town in the Rangitikei district. It is the terminus of the Main Trunk north line to Auckland, which will some day be built, and of which some 26 miles to Huntersville has already been built. Roads lead from Marton eastward, crossing the Rangitikei River by a bridge. There is also a road from Bulls to Marton, and one northward to Turakina and Wanganui. Another road running north opens out some splendid agricultural country.

Crossing the Turakina, a sharp rise of 500 feet gives a view for many miles of well grassed land, hills with patches of bush, and here and there homesteads and clumps of trees. The top is reached at Fordell, where there is a flour and oatmeal mill. A down grade of one in fifty for four miles brings us pretty well down to the sea level, and we run through rich pastures full of fat sheep and lambs. Then through a lovely valley with pretty homes on the one side, and on the other wooded hills to Okoia. Then past running brooks, tall poplars, and waving willows over the Wanganui River, which is here some 200 yards wide, into Wanganui, where the train from New Plymouth, on the west, meets ours from the east.

The especial peculiarity of the west and central parts of the North Island of New Zealand is that they have no very large extent of open grassy country, although there are some plains, but with a poor quality of soil, much of it being composed of pumice ejected from the volcanic mountains. Most of the land, as might be expected where a climate is moist and mild, and the soil good, being encumbered by forest or bush, more or less heavy and more or less useful for building purposes and fencing.

This bush once cleared off, most of the land becomes, when the bush is burnt and grass seed sown in the ashes, admirable pasture, which is the form of preparation that the most of the country in the Wanganui and Taranaki districts has had to undergo before it arrived at its present stage of development.

The Government Crown Lands Guide gives the area of agricultural land in the North Island of New Zealand at thirteen million acres, that of pastoral land at fourteen million acres, and we suppose they have a right to do so, for wherever a tree will grow in this climate such are the conditions of warmth and moisture that if it be cut down and burnt, grass will grow in its place by merely strewing the seed on the surface; no ploughing is necessary. The stumps are not usually entirely destroyed by burning the bush, but what is left of them gradually rots away.

Large areas of this bush land are still in the hands of the Crown. Of course, as settlement extends, block after block is thrown open to the public at a very low price, and on very easy terms, and as these bush lands extend right up to the highest spurs of the Ruahine and Tararua Ranges (which are not very high, the highest point being only some 4,000 feet), and up the slopes of the active volcanoes, Tongariro and Ruapehu, and the extinct one, Mount Egmont, there is a large area still available for settlement of this class. The most convenient blocks are always taken up first, and a large quantity of this bush land is now in private hands for sale, and a very good investment it should be, even with that most primitive method of utilising the soil of this planet—pasturage alone.

For those strong enough to stand the isolated life of a pioneer, the acquisition of Government bush lands certainly offers very great advantages, and we doubt if such opportunities can be found anywhere else.

If land is taken up from the Government on either of the two latter methods, residence on it for a period of 6 years is essential. Not so if paid for right out. Besides these methods there

Up the Wanganui River.

are the Homestead and Small Farm Homestead Association systems.

Of course the bush land near the centres has long ago been cleared and turned into pasture, and is in private hands. Bush land in private hands, say within 25 to 30 miles of the railway line, is for sale at about 30s. per acre.

The cost of felling and burning the bush is from 25s. to 35s. per acre. The cost of grass seed and sowing brings the total cost of bringing such land into pasture up to £2 to £2 5s. per acre.

At these rates, a man felling his own bush can make very good wages, as on an average a man should be able to fell two acres a week; and for strong men, of limited means, with families, the reduction of this bush into pasture offers an employment, and since the introduction of the dairy factory system an immediate return for their produce such as cannot be excelled anywhere. But for those with young families, and those to whom the refinements of life are essential, the acquisition of private lauds of a smaller area, closer to roads, schools, churches, and society with a more intense cultivation, may have a greater attraction.

As an instance of what bush land cleared will produce, we will mention the following:—

Mr. P. Krull, son of Mr. F. A. Krull, the Imperial German Consul at Wanganui, burnt 800 acres bush land last February (autumn here). He had it sown in grass, and in the following July put on it 3,000 ewe lambs, after weaning, costing 7s. 6d. each. He sold them on the 20th November for 12s. 3d. nett. He took 61bs. of wool off their backs, which netted, after the expense of shearing, 6d. per lb.

The return for each lamb was, therefore, 15s. 3d.; the cost was 7s. 6d.; profit was, therefore, 3,000 at 7s. 9d., or £1,162 I0s. The expenses were three men at 20s. per week; provisions and sundries another 20s. per week for six months, 26 weeks at £6, £156; the deaths and those used for rations were 105 at 7s. 9d., £40 14s. 3d., in all £196 14s. 3d.; leaving a nett profit of £965 14s. 9d. on 800 acres, being a return for the season of 24s. per acre, after paying for all labour.

This land was situated about twenty miles from Stratford. It is within the mark to say that on the average every acre of land in these large districts will carry three and a half sheep, and give a return, at present prices, of 25s. to 28s. per acre, and that every two acres will keep a cow, and give a still higher return.

In the Taranaki district dairying has made considerable strides and there are now many page 26 dairy factories established, but there is room for many more as settlement extends.

The people in Wanganui, although nowhere is better climate and soil to be found, have done nothing in the way of dairying as yet.

Dairying requires work, and so long as men can command an income from tending sheep and cattle, they do what costs the least trouble. This state of affairs is, however, likely to be remedied soon, as negotiations for the erection of factories are now pending.

The seasons being uncertain, and rain being liable to fall at harvest time, the good people of Wanganui have permitted the people in the south to grow their cereals for them, they preferring to sit on a rail while the sheep and cattle cropped the rich grasses for them, and turned them into wool and beef and mutton. If anyone is energetic enough to grow these things, and look a little lively at harvest time, there is no reason why he should not get his crops in between the showers; the grain will grow right enough.

Cleared land, fenced, sub-divided, and with buildings, within about twenty miles of the railway line, can be bought at from £6 to £10 per acre, and easy terms of payment can always be arranged. A very fine property, the Eden skill estate, is being placed in the market just now. It consists of 13,000 acres, and is divided into 115 farms, of sizes to suit all purses, from 20 acres up to 1,000.

The Wanganui district used to supply the city of Auckland with the bulk of its cattle, and Napier used to send nearly all the sheep used by its population of 51,000 people; but now the Waikato country, south of Auckland, has been to a large extent brought into permanent pasture, that city is independent of other sources for its meat supply, and has a surplus for export. The large freezing works at Wanganui and the Waitara now furnish a convenient outlet for export of the produce of these districts, in a frozen state, to the English market.

The Government line of railway, starting from Wellington, passes through Kaiwarra, and at Petone, seven miles out, there is a large meat preserving establishment belonging to the Gear Meat Preserving Company, a brewery, a woollen factory, and large railway workshops. Nine miles from Wellington is the Lower Hutt, on the Hutt River, which is bridged both for rail and road. At the Lower Hutt is a racecourse, and close to it are the beautiful gardens called McNab's. The land in the Lower Hutt is rich agricultural soil, and the hills are good pasture.

The Upper Hutt is twenty miles from Wellington, and some eight miles further on at Kaitoke, the line rises up the Rimutaka Range to the summit, seven miles further, an elevation of 1,144 feet. Here a tunnel 630 yards long is reached, through which the train is propelled by a Fell locomotive, the engine being provided with a centre wheel, which grips a centre rail rising some ten inches above the level of the other rails. Passing through four tunnels, the train reaches Cross Creek, and drops into the Wairarapa side of the range. The line then runs on to Feather-stone, ending at Eketahuna, a distance of ninety-three miles from Wellington, over pastoral country which forms the beginning of the Wairarapa Valley, which extends from the mouth of the Wairarapa Lake, in Palliser Bay, to the head of the Pairau Plain, where the Paimahanga River emerges from the Tararua Range, a distance of eighty miles, the average breadth of the valley being ten miles. The principal town in the valley is Masterton, which has a population of 3,500. Carterton has 1,500; Featherstone and Grey town have smaller populations. In this valley there is a very large quantity of first-class agricultural land. The valley as a whole is well adapted for mixed farming and dairying, which latter industry has there made considerable progress.

The railway ending at Eketahuna, the Forty Mile Bush is reached by coach. A drive through magnificent bush country leads to the settlement of Pahiatua and the upper Manawatu Ferry, thence in an hour or so to Woodville, twenty-six miles from Ekatahuna, the whole drive occupying some five hours.

The main road runs through a block of valuable bush country containing about 45,000 acres. The northern portion is level, rich soil, and well adapted for small farm settlements, for which purpose nearly the whole of it is now taken up. The eastern side consists of undulating land, suitable for a mixed system of pastoral and agricultural settlement.

Further to the north there is a valley of about eight miles in breadth, which consists of excellent soil, and is fine open bush land.

The east coast of the Wellington province consists mainly of high pastoral land, and is not yet sufficiently supplied with roads or railroads to make it suitable for the accommodation of a dense population.

In the Wellington district are now seven dairy factories, namely, the Dale field Dairy Factory Company, Featherstone Dairy Factory Company, Grey town Dairy Factory Company, Mauriceville Dairy Factory Company, Okoia Dairy Factory Company, Taratahi and Wairarapa Farmers' Association. It is hardly necessary to say that the number can be indefinitely extended.

(North Island) New Zealand Bush Before Felling

And in Process of Being Felled.