FERN-CRUSHING 163 



place amongst classes and individual members of the species homo 

 sapiens. Armageddon, in truth, has been raging as fiercely in the 

 Kocky Staircase as in the Old World. The ancient regime in both 

 has been overthrown. The good things of life have been opened to 

 all capable of taking them ; the selfish sway of capitalism and land- 

 lordism call them brackenism and tutuism has been broken. There 

 has occurred a revolution which, however personally distasteful to Pteris 

 aquilina and Coriaria ruscifolia, has proved quite delightful, I should 

 imagine, to humbler members of the community who had hitherto been 

 half-starved in breathless slums and barren crofts bog brims, arid tops, 

 and precipices and who now for the first time could breathe fresh air 

 and sate their appetites. The reader will see in Chapter XIX. the Rocky 

 Staircase " made safe for democracy." 



Allusions have been made from time to time to fern-crushing, to 

 the ebb and flow of sheep-feed, to the contraction and expansion of 

 feeding areas ; they will now be fully explained. Pteris aquilina, 

 var. esculenta, is a form or sub-species of the British bracken. Its 

 roots were in ancient times of a certain value to the Maoris for food ; at 

 a later date its circinate fronds were moderately palatable to stock. 

 The normal growth of the plant is that of its English relative, a single 

 even crop of fronds in spring-time. Unlike the bracken of England, 

 however, which rapidly withers and disappears, the fronds of the New 

 Zealand pteris endure for years. 



Briefly described, the science of fern-crushing on rich stiff land is 

 as follows. A section rough enough to carry a fire is selected propor- 

 tionate to the number of sheep forthcoming to crush it, the tangle of 

 fern is burnt off in autumn, whilst immediately afterwards the land is 

 surface -sown with grass and clover seed. A week or fortnight after 

 destruction of the old stalks and stems young fronds begin to appear. 

 Sheep are then poured into the paddock, the number required per 

 acre varying with the fertility of the land, and, equally important, 

 with the weather conditions. Drought means cessation of growth ; 

 sharp frost, temporary destruction ; heavy warm rain, stimulation of 

 the rhizomes. The stock used has also to be carefully shepherded. 

 Sheep "hanging" in corners, or against fence lines barring them from 

 the paddocks where they have been bred, have to be driven elsewhere 

 or skimmed off. Feed, and sheep to eat that feed, should be exactly 

 balanced. Without a big enough mob, the bracken fronds uncurl and 



