The sections are about a mile and a-half on the Dunedin side of the railway station, and the areas are from 21 to 123 acres in extent.
At the conclusion of the meeting a representative of this paper had a short interview with the Commissioner of Crown Lands (Mr Sadd), in respect to his recent trip to Central Otago.
Mr Sadd said that a survey was being made of an area acquired by the Cromwell Flat Development Company about two miles beyond the township.
The area is being divided into 32 farms, ranging in area from 11 to 21 acres.
These are already irrigated, so that as soon as the survey has been completed the sections can be disposed of and the settlers commence work at once. The lessee of the Earnscleugh run (Mr Spain) has agreed to allow the Government to resume about 7000 or 8000 acres of that run.
It contains a considerable amount of land that is suitable for fruit-growing, and a good deal of it is either irrigated or could be irrigated at comparatively low cost.
Part of the commissioner's work was to inspect the old Alexandra and Dunstan racecourses.
The Alexandra course contains 97 acres, and it is proposed to cut it up into eight fruit farms.
It is commanded to a considerable extend by the existing water race, and so the scheme could be gone ahead with almost at once.
The Dunstan course will be cut up into nine farms, but these will be dependent upon water being brought in from the Manuherikia water race, upon the construction of which the Government will be starting almost immediately.
•''Sir, of late years poor old Dunedin has suffered terribly by dead losses.
Our Upper Harbour, with its dilapidated stone wall, reclamation, its lengthy wharves, to say nothing of its state of idleness, despite the attentions and activities of the dredges 222 and Vulcan, and despite the 400,000 of yearly expenditure, is to be relegated to the position of a ditch for small vessels.
Port Chalmers, where 40 years ago the immigrant ships landed their passengers, is now to be the port of Otago.
How we have grown commercially!
'Commercial Dunedin', dour, Conservative Otago, will you never wake up?
The open sea is within a mile of your wharves.
When will you realise that a canal to the sea will mean an open port for all time, transhipments, docks, foundries for repairs, exports of grain, wool, etc., from Dunedin wharves, and ships of the largest size at your wharves?
Is the prospect not worth considering? Or are you willing and preparing to drift commercially to let this become a second rate port, and in time be called in history 'Elephantus Albinus', 'The City of White Elephants.' - I am, etc., Dunedinite.''
•The Waitaki Acclimatisation Society proposed to liberate 30 pairs of Californian quail almost immediately, some on Mr Milligan's Kauroo Hill property, and the remainder in the society's ground for breeding purposes, the Ground Committee having suggested that as the breeding of imported ducks has not been very successful some attention should now be given to quail and pheasants.
It is the aim of the council to liberate quail all through the district.
All the employees, men and women, on a large dairy farm at Vermont, New Jersey, have received orders to refrain from using harsh language when in proximity to the cows, it having been discovered that rough speech tends to diminish the milk supply. - ODT, 10.7.1914.
