THE RISE AND FALL OF H. G.-S. AND A. M. C. 157 



ing one part or another of the year. There was endless labour in paring 

 the hoofs of the limping brutes, in running the lame drafts through the 

 arsenic,,troughs. 



Everywhere there was wastage and leakage ; the old sheep died, the 

 young sheep refused to live. The lambings were affected by the poor 

 condition of the rams, by the age of the ewes, to a lesser extent by pig. 



Every one of these adverse factors admitted of a cure, a cure, how- 

 ever, only to be discovered by experience. Lacking that empirical 

 knowledge, A. M. C. and myself stood amazed at the ills meted out to us. 

 Our efforts at originality, such as purchase of young rams from the South 

 Island, had failed. As I have pointed out, we were aware that 9000 sheep 

 had in the shearing of 1881 passed through the shed. We did not know, 

 we could not know, of the contraction in grazing area. We did not 

 know of the importance of fires and clean feed. If the station had carried 

 thus we argued 9000 sheep, it could be made to carry them again. 

 Of course it could ; it must be made to do so. Every year, therefore, 

 sheep were purchased to replace those fallen in the fight. 



It does not require demonstration that farming on these lines cannot 

 be continued for an indefinite period. The gross income derived from 

 the place was a poor few hundred pounds' worth of wool. A considerable 

 proportion of our flock appeared on the shearing-board with bellies, some- 

 times with sides too, bare of wool, " Pareperries " bare bellies joy- 

 fully the shearers hailed them in the catching-pens. Their fleeces had 

 been worn off by wandering through fern and scrub or peeled off through 

 fever and poverty. The wool of the wethers especially, stock that lived 

 almost entirely on tutu and scrub, was often not more than a couple of 

 inches in length, and black with the sand and dust that stuck in the 

 dense merino fleeces. It was no rare sight, during a spell of hot, wet, 

 autumn weather, to see sheep come into the draftings distinctly green on 

 the back with sprouting grass, their wet fleeces, plus the animals' natural 

 warmth, forcing the seeds as children grow mustard and cress on wet 

 flannel in a nursery. I blush when I think of our flock of the 'eighties. 



The return from surplus stock was likewise pitiable. The younger 

 generation, who nowadays grumblingly receive a pound and twenty-five 

 and thirty shillings for sheep sold, will hardly credit the prices in the 

 'eighties. Sometimes sixpence and sometimes ninepence per head was 

 the price obtained by Tutira for its first, second, third, and fourth 

 draft of old ewes and hoggets. They were purchased by George Merritt, 



