es to new industries. It has offered a bonus of L500 to
whomsoever produces the first fifty tons of beet-root sugar in New
Zealand. That is, over and above what the sugar may fetch in the market.
We say, why should not we go in for it? So many acres of beet, a
crushing mill, a few coppers and some tubs, and there you are! Wealth,
my boy! Wealth!

But O'Gaygun has misgivings. "This is not a whate-growin' counthry," he
declares. It is far too rough and hilly. There are too many difficulties
in the way. You can grow wheat to a certain extent, of course. The North
can produce enough for its own consumption, and more. It will pay as one
among other operations and productions. But we must not think of it as
our principal or staple industry.

And then as to sugar. You must have a couple of hundred acres of beet at
least, to begin with. A mill and appliances that are to be of real use
would cost L2000 or so. Your bonus would be but a small thing if you got
it. If all the farmers in the district were to combine to grow beet-root
on every acre they could plough, and nothing else, even then it would
hardly pay the sugar-mills, or possibly the farmers either. Stick to
cattle and sheep, to pigs and potatoes, "Ontil ye're able to give ye're
attintion to fruit. Fruit! Whativver ye can do wid it, that's what this
counthry's made for! Wine! an' ile! an' raisins! an'----"

"Oh, shut up, O'Gaygun! Get out, you miserable misanthrope!"

Nevertheless, I think our Irish chum was about right in what he said,
after all, especially in the last part of his remarks.

Dandy Jack had been training horses, and Old Colonial had been gentling
bullocks; so we had a choice of draggers for the plough. We ploughed in
those fifty acres, fenced them round, and put in potatoes for a cleaning
crop, to thoroughly break up the old turf. We hope to get two crops in
the year. The second will be maize and pumpkins. Then, next year, wheat.

The new-ploughed land is surveyed with rapture by us; but it is
something different from an English field, after all. The ground was so
irregular and rough; our beasts were not too easy to manage; and
then--but this is unimportant--it was our first essay at ploughing. The
furrows are not exactly straight, and there is a queer, shaggy look
about them. But the potatoes are in, and a crop we shall have, no doubt
about it. What more can possibly be needed?

I have mentioned that we have several enclosures that may be termed
ga