Three miles' ride along the Mangaone saddle, starting from a vantage point overlooking Makino village, immediately under foot to the south, brings the wayfarer down to Halcombe, the tenth station on the Longburn-Wanganui Railway Line. It is distant from the former place twenty-four miles, and from Wanganui forty-three miles, the latitude being 40° 10' south, and the longitude 175° 19' east. Its population of 376 live at an altitude of 386 feet above sea-level, on the produce of the farming, pastoral, and timber country which surrounds. The trade in sawn timber is falling off owing to scarcity, the adjacent forest having nearly all been hewn down when saw-milling was at its briskest. The pastoral and agricultural lands in and around Halcombe are rich, and farmers and graziers seem well-to-do, and their flocks and herds thrive on the rich grasses which grow hereabout luxuriantly. Situate in the Waituna Riding of the Oroua County, and being a portion of the Rangitikei Electoral District, Halcombe has its local school committee, which watches over the educational requirements of the neighbourhood, page 1267 under the Education Board of Wanganui. With the railway station is combined the post and telegraph office, the money-order, postal-note, and the post-office savings bank, mails being daily received and despatched three times to and from the north, and twice to and from the south. The locality is supplied with four churches—English, Presbyterian, Catholic, and Lutheran. The township, which is situated in the Manchester Block, was named after Mr. A. Follett Halcombe, who represented the Emigrants and Colonists' Aid Corporation during the early history of the settlement, and who is referred to below.