292 IOWA STUDIES IN NATURAL HISTORY 
seen from the train, the whole country is one pasture, and why 
not? Recalling that the winters are mild and that the fields can 
be grazed twelve months in the year, why put up hay at great 
expense of time and labor when the cattle can better eat fresh 
grass in the fields?) Or why struggle through the summer season 
producing corn or grain when the animals can do their own har- 
vesting in the pasture any day or night in the year? In other 
words the grazing lands are the chief agricultural asset of North 
Island, and this explains why the meat and tallow, butter, hides, 
and mutton from New Zealand are pushing into every market in 
the world. It would seem as if these products could be produced 
much cheaper here than in any competitive land where the climate 
compels the feeding of live stock during the winter months with 
hay or grain produced at so great expense. 
This relation has been an important factor in the destruction 
of forests and the conversion of ‘‘bush’’ into pasture. In Ohakune 
one sees the process now being carried out. Here to-day is a 
magnificent forest; the lumbermen go through and cut what they 
wish to take; the slash and forest detritus is burned, destroying 
the forest floor vegetation and all but the large logs of the fallen 
trees; then sheep and eattle are turned in and in a short time the 
forest has become pasture. No special harm is done if twenty 
years are required for a stump to decay, since this does not in- 
terfere with grazing and occupies a relatively small part of the 
ground. Here again you have a sharp contrast with our ways of 
clearing forest land, involving the grubbing or blasting of stumps 
at tremendous expense of labor and money. I was interested to 
learn that farm values in this part of New Zealand compare 
favorably with those of the upper Mississippi Valley, their land 
running up to as much as one hundred pounds per acre. 
While there we noted also that the blight which has fallen upon 
agriculture the world over in recent years had not spared New 
Zealand. There, as here, the farmers, who are after all the only 
real producers of material in the world, were suffering greatly in 
comparison with those engaged in other lines. New Zealand, how- 
ever, has been more helpful to her farmers than we have been in 
the United States. By fixing the price of wheat for example, the 
Government has stabilized the price of this important product 
and insured a minimum return to the farmer. Meanwhile the 
government protects itself by its tariff law which prevents other 
countries from dumping wheat into New Zealand. In other words 
