686 



THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 



[February i, 1883. 



struck and the Oi'own grant made out and registered, the 

 pioneer is free to enter upon his estate. Ready money is 

 not always paid down; very frequently a portion is left 

 to a further date, or a part of the future farm is merely 

 leased in the first place, with a purchasing clause attached, 

 enabling the lessee to conclude the purchase at his pleas- 

 ure, witliin the term of the lease. The rent paid may be 

 either a stated sum, or so much per head on his cattle ; 

 for it gives him the right of running cattle free in the 

 bush, around and behind his own land. It is no uncom- 

 mon thing for a young settler to buy too much land in 

 the first place, from the fear, I suppose, that somebody 

 else might take up the adjacent acres before he was ready 

 to buy them himself. And land seems so absurdly cheap 

 to the " new chum," that he probably thinks he may as 

 well go in for a good slice while he is about it. But 

 in two or thrci; years' time the mistake of this becomes 

 apparent. All the remaining capital has become exhausted, 

 and the farm is just paying a bare livelihood. The farmer 

 has all his work cut out to keep up the everyday sup- 

 plies, and has nothing over to employ in the labom- of 

 making further improvements. His progress is' thus re- 

 tarded, and he has to raise money by mortgaging his land, 

 at a swingeing 10 or 12 jjer cent interest. Perhaps he 

 can afford to do this ; but, at any rate, the interest makes 

 a big hole in his yearly income, and must be felt as a drag. 



However, the land bought, ou whatever terms, and 

 whether it be forty acres or four hundred, or as many 

 thousands, does not matter, the pioneering must commence. 

 The begiuning of the dry season, say, August, is a favour- 

 able time of year ; though, really, the exact time matters 

 but little. The future farm is a rough section of hilly 

 country fronting the river or bay, or whatever the high 

 road may consist of, and it is covered with a dense thicket 

 of trees and shrubs, matted together with creepers and 

 undergrowth. * • # 



The settler goes up to his newly-acquired property in his 

 boat, bringing with him tools, provisions, blankets, and 

 other necessaries. Perhaps he may have a wife and little 

 ones to accompany him ; at any rate, it is scarcely probable 

 he will ■ start alone. Either two or three have bought the 

 land in partnership, or the farmer has hhed a little party 

 to clumi with and work for him. Some sort of encamp- 

 ment is formed for temporary purposes ; sometimes a tent is 

 used, more often a hut thatched with such materials as are 

 handiest is erected. Then a site is selected for the per- 

 manent abode, which must be conveniently situated near the 

 landing-place, and near also to some little creek or fresh- 

 water supply, if the river be in fact a tidal estuary, as indeed 

 the name of "river" usually implies in colonial parlance. 

 The place chosen, it is cleared of bush, the felled stuff being 

 dragged out of the way to be burnt when dry enough. 

 Then the house is at once proceeded with If economy be 

 studied, a native house {rui'2>o whare) will be thought good 

 enough. Maoris can be hired to build one for from ten to 

 thirty pounds. This kind of residence is a framework of 

 poles, upon which the ravpo, or swamp grass, is interlaced, 

 having an effect between that of thatch and wickerwork. 

 Such abodes are weather-proof, comfortable, tolerably clean, 

 and mil last good for ten years or longer. Many a now 

 thriving and well-to-do farmer has commenced his New 

 Zealand life in one of them. But, as a pioneer farmer should 

 be able to turn his hand to anything, carpentering in- 

 cluded, he will possibly turn up his nose at the tuliarr, and 

 prefer a more cinlized kind of bouse. Of course, if means 

 permit, a carpenter can be got at the nearest settlement, 

 who will boat up material and build a two-storeyed veran- 

 dahed wooden house in the latest style of colonial archi- 

 tecture. A small four-roomed house of that kind would 

 probably come to about a hundred pounds altogether, 

 and may cost anything over that, according to size, style, 

 and finish. If this be beyond the pioneer's means at first, 

 he must depend ou his own work. # * * 



A well-built frame hous-will last forty years, with care 

 and a few repairs ; andevun such rough workmanship as 

 most pioneers are capeable of is sufficient to house them 

 comfortably enough. 



The house once erected, and all immediately necessary 

 stores got in, probably the next thing done is to get up some 

 stock. Clood store cows can often be liought in the up- 

 country districts for .£2 or £3 a liead, but might come to 

 more in Auckland, ui it well-bred animals. The settler buys 



as many as he can afford, to form the nucleus of his herd — 

 probably a dozen or two— and brings them up to his place 

 by water, or drives them overland if there be any semblance 

 of a road near. Bells are slung round their necks, and they 

 are turned loose into the jungle. They have to be frequently 

 looked up and brought in to the stockyard or clearings, when 

 these are made, where they are fed with some favourite leaf 

 — boughs of the koiaka, for example. This keeps them tame 

 enough, and those in milk soon learn not to wander far, and 

 will generally come home of themselves. Then there is the 

 bull, who may cost a good round sum if he comes from one 

 of the pure-bred herds that are kept up in some of the more 

 advanced districts of the colony. Forty or fifty pounds 

 ought to furnish a fairly high-class beast. He is got up in 

 the same way as the cows, and turned liose along with them. 

 In the commencement of his settlement the farmer cannot 

 do mich with his stock beyond milking two or three cows 

 for his own household use ; but later on he will depend on 

 his herd as his main source of income, when he has con- 

 structed a stockyard and got some clearings under grass. 

 Besides the cattle, pigs are introduced, and those that are 

 intended for breeding must be kept enclosed, or they will 

 suffer deterioration from the wild pigs that infest the bush, 

 and are a great source of trouble to the pioneer farmer. 

 Poultry, too, are kept about the place ; and good well-trained 

 cattle dogs of the coUey kind will by-and-by have to be got. 

 But the chief work of the pioneer farmer in these early 

 days is clearing his land, the first in the series of battles he 

 has to wage with wild nature. Bush-felling is the order of 

 the day, and every hand is engaged at it all day and every 

 day. The season for it begins in August, and lasts till De- 

 cember, though it may be continued till the end of February. 

 This is a novel experience to the new chum, whatever class 

 he may have belonged to in the old country, for axe work 

 in England is a queer affair from a bushman's point of view. 

 * « # * 



And we do not seem able to produce a decent axe in England; 

 the American tool must be resorted to exclusively wherever 

 real work has to be done with it. 



One word about the workmen. Working hom-s are short 

 in New Zealand, and wages are high ; but whatever the work 

 is, it must be gone at \vith a will. The saying is, " Put your 

 back down to it," and that is really what is done. The 

 ordinary English agricultm*al labourer, workiug there as he 

 too often works here, would not do nmch more than earn his 

 " tucker," if he did as much. But the climate and the food 

 enable him to infuse the needful sustained energy into his 

 work, if he has the will to do so. The born labourer has not 

 much advantage over the man who would be called '' gentle- 

 man' beyond the bush, except in his being naturally more 

 accustomed to the various little hardships that make up 

 the term " roughing it," Both have to get " colonised" before 

 they are held to be worth their best, and their work will 

 afterwards average pretty equally, wliile the patrician la- 

 bourer is the most likely to have the pull. 



To revert to bush-felling. The light bush varies in the 

 size of the trees it contains, so that the work of clearing 

 must depend upon that, Sometimes the trees are small, 

 none being above a foot in gu'tli, often they are larger, up 

 to six or seven feet in girth. They are usually pretty thickly 

 set, and the undergrowth is as dense as a quickset hedge. 

 This kind of bush has sprung up over laud that was once 

 under native cultivation, or that had beeu desolated by soma 

 forest fire. Looking at the denser parts of Epping F'orcst, 

 or more particularly the New Forest, these present a fair 

 general resemblance to the light bush of northern New Zea- 

 land. In the heavy bush the trees are of enormous size, not 

 spreading and branching much, like our English trees, but 

 growing straight upwards to a great height. An aver;ig6 

 girth, taken at five feet from the ground, of fifteen to twenty 

 feet is common, and tlic size increases beyond that in many 

 trees. I have seen a kauri of fifty feet girth. The length of 

 the " stick" msy be anything between sixty feet and a 

 hundred and eighty. A7hen felling these large trees with 

 the axe, the bushmen have to erect scaffocding in order to 

 enable them to reach the enormous gashes they .are obliged 

 to cut. If any Englishman will imagine some score or 

 more of such trees upon a single acre, filling up the space 

 between with smaller trees and slirubs, he may get some 

 notion of the immense amount of labour required to knock 

 over all the standing timber, and the consequent reason 

 why the pioneer farmer does not care to meddle with it. 



