134 TUTIRA 



With the influx of Europeans into New Zealand and the importation of 

 stock and of alien plants suitable for stock, the natural spread of grasses 

 had begun in a small way on Tutira. It grew on pig-rootings, on 

 deserted native clearings and cultivation - grounds, on landslips and 

 along the bases of the marl and limestone outcrops. These patches and 

 spatters of grass were scattered over the 20,000 acres of the station. 

 They were sometimes hundreds of yards, sometimes miles apart, linked 

 with one another by narrow tracks or rather bores through high fern and 

 tutu. In addition to these self-sown alien and native grasses, sheep-feed 

 was obtainable, as has been already mentioned, during certain months of 

 the year by the burning of bracken. Of this plant the circinate fronds 

 are on good land fairly nutritious ; sheep can, during summer, be main- 

 tained on them in fair store order. These scattered patches of grass, 

 this fern growth, together with the leaves of the tutu, were the original 

 sum-total of sheep-feed on Tutira. The Children of Israel had to make 

 bricks without straw, the pioneers of Tutira had to produce wool with- 

 out grass. 



The first care of the settler was to increase his area of grass by the 

 operation known through Hawke's Bay as "fern-crushing" or "fern- 

 grinding," words ominous of the part played by the unfortunate sheep, 

 and which will be described later. It is sufficient now to state that after 

 fire had cleared the tangled bracken growth, the ground was surface- 

 sown and kept clear by browsing sheep. As the greatest growth of fern 

 took place during late spring, it was then impossible to have too many 

 sheep. Every squatter in Hawke's Bay was in the 'eighties " fern-grind- 

 ing," so that in those times sheep could not be bought at that season of 

 the year. The result was that every sheep likely to survive the winter 

 was kept, however old and however fleeced. It was at least a pair of 

 jaws, a beast that could bite bracken. 



Fern-grinding, however unavoidable in the progress towards crea- 

 tion of the large flock that distant goal upon which the eyes of the 

 run were fixed was nevertheless a process utterly incompatible with 

 the ownership of properly-fed stock. The early years of the run were, 

 in fact, a compromise between murdering the sheep and "making" the 

 country. The run was in the position of having to wrong its stock 

 because no other course of action was feasible. It had to transgress the 

 first and greatest of pastoral commandments : Thou shalt not over- 

 stock ; there was no remedy for the evil. 



