Out on the Stations.

There is very much to interest the traveller anywhere in town and country; in Napier, where the people are making heroic efforts to restore their pretty town after the destruction and ruin of the earthquake; in the wide province of sheep stations and dairy-farms and orchards. Most of all the visitor should tour the back country and see something of life on the large stock-raising estates. Some of these stations, notably Maraekakaho—now sub-divided into numerous farms—were famous for the generous scale on which they were run and for the semi-patriarchal rule of the pioneer chiefs. The process of breaking-up into small or moderately-sized farms gives scope for more population; but there are many reasons to regret the passing of the old stations, with their expert management, their reputation for high-grade stock, and their liberal-handed treatment of the many workers they permanently employed as well as of the casual swagger who tramped the roads.

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