HARD TIMES 135 



Another difficulty, also insuperable and unavoidable, lay in the 

 violation of the golden rule of stock purchase, the base of all sound 

 buying. It is, never to move stock from richer on to poorer ground, 

 never to move stock from a drier into a wetter climate. In these times, 

 however, there was no worse or wetter country from which sheep were 

 obtainable. Drafts purchased for Tutira had to be drawn from the drier 

 climate and warmer soils of southern Hawke's Bay. Furthermore, these 

 bought sheep had been done at any rate comparatively well on the runs 

 where they had been bred. 



On Tutira they were expected to act as fern-scythes and mowing- 

 machines. Even stock removed from bad to good conditions requires 

 time to settle down ; purchased stock on Tutira changed contrariwise 

 from good to bad, loathed their new environment, the grass contained 

 less nutriment, there was less of it, their fleeces were oftener wet on 

 their backs. They had to be acclimatised to wet country after dry, to 

 bad land after good, to semi-starvation after a sufficiency of grass. 



There is always a tendency for purchased stock to stray. On 

 Tutira it 'was made easy by an unlucky geological condition, it was 

 aggravated by the nature of the breed merino then on the run. The 



OO J 



natural boundary to the south to the quarter, that is, from which 

 the purchased stock had been brought and to which they wished to 

 return was the only river stretch on the station not contained by cliffs. 

 The Waikoau, though blocked and barred with vast limestone quadri- 

 laterals, between and around which rushed and swirled the rapid stream, 

 offered passable though highly dangerous fords. Swimming, distasteful 

 to sheep, and especially to merino sheep, was, however, the comparative 

 of dislike ; the superlative of distaste was habitation of Tutira. 



Each newly-purchased mob had therefore to be watched, until, after 

 weeks of dogging and checking, the bulk of the newcomers accepted the 

 inevitable and began to settle on their new abode. During the period of 

 most marked restlessness the shepherd in charge watched his boundary- 

 line day and night. Every dawn, as certain as clockwork, sections of the 

 newly-bought sheep would trail in long lines down leading spurs to be 

 as regularly checked and "barked" up again. A proportion, however, 

 out of every mob would beat the best man. Trouble at one end of the 

 line might give a chance to sheep at the other extreme ; bright moon- 

 light was a curse ; a native pig-hunting might drive the sheep down the 

 whole length of the line, making it impossible to check simultaneously 



