16 Transactions. — Miscellaneous. 



pleted in regular sequence — i.e., that the entire patch was 

 cleared before the digging commenced, as would have to be 

 done in preparing a piece of land for the plough. As a matter 

 of fact, the several processes would often be going on simul- 

 taneously on different parts of the field, the smaller stumps 

 and roots being taken out in the action of digging, while 

 special gangs were dealing with the larger pieces, and the 

 general crowd keeping the fires going all over the place. 

 Allowing for the difference in the implements, practically the 

 same system is pursued on a Maori waerenga at the present 

 time. 



The only object for the deep digging was to get rid of the 

 roots and clear the land from the fern, which would otherwise 

 shoot up and injure the growing crop. On a patch that had 

 been previously cultivated it was sufficient to clean oft the 

 weeds and stir the surface for a couple of inches. In fact, it 

 was an advantage to have a hard bottom, as where the 

 tillage was too loose the roots of the kumara were inclined to 

 run and the tubers to be small and of poor quality. 



"When the soil was worked up fine and made perfectly 

 clean it was formed up into little round hills, called 

 " tiipuke," about 9 in. high and 20in. to 24 in. in diameter, 

 set quite close together. The party who undertook this 

 operation commenced in one corner and worked back dia- 

 gonally across the patch, each man having a row to himself ; 

 and as every hill was made to touch the two hills in the 

 next row the whole plantation presented a fairly accurate 

 quincunx pattern. Mr. Colenso, apparently, though per- 

 haps unconsciously, quoting from Captain Cook's Journal, 

 states that a line or cord was used to insure regularity.* No 

 one, however, seems to have actually seen the line employed, 

 and any old Maoris I have consulted are positive that it was 

 never the custom to do so. The appearance of regularity 

 arose from the uniformity of the size and shape of the 

 hillocks and from the orderly manner in which the work was 

 carried on, as well as from the neatness and finish which 

 characterized it. This neat appearance is borne witness to 

 by many old writers. Mr. J. L. Nicholas, who visited the 

 country in 1814, describing a plantation in the Bay of Islands, 

 says, " The nice precision that was observed in setting the 

 plants and the careful exactness in clearing out the weeds, 

 the neatness of the fences, with the convenience of the stiles 

 and pathways, might all have done credit to the most careful 

 cultivator in England."! 



No manure, in the sense in which we understand the term, 



* Trans. N.Z. Inst., xiii., art. i. 



t " Voyage to New Zealand," vol. i., p. 252. 



