164 TUTIRA 



become uneatable ; on ground too heavily stocked, sheep fall away in 

 condition. At the end of the second season, if all has gone well, if the 

 sown grasses have sprung up dense enough to cover every bit of open 

 ground where otherwise there might have been germination of undesir- 

 able weeds, if the land has been rich enough to support a heavy head of 

 stock which will have trampled down unwanted plants, or devoured 

 them unnoticed in mouthfuls of grass, then the work has been per- 

 manently done, grass has taken the place of fern. On first-rate land 

 these results are obtainable without injury to stock ; on first-rate land 

 the work is permanent. 



The soils of Tutira, except for a few hundred acres, were, however, 

 not first-class ; they were not, except perhaps for a couple of thousand 

 acres, even second-class. The great trough of the run the vast bulk 

 of the station was third-class. 



Fern-crushing on Tutira was accomplished on its few acres of first- 

 class land as described that is, with a minimum of trouble to man and 

 beast ; on the few hundred acres of second-class land, with rather less 

 good results and a considerably greater output of labour to shepherds 

 and injury to stock. On eighteen out of its twenty thousand acres, it 

 is no exaggeration to say that the surface had to be stamped, jammed, 

 hauled, murdered into grass. It was only the low price of sheep that 

 made such procedure possible, for the stars in their courses fought 

 against the station. The rainfall, double that of southern Hawke's 

 Bay, stimulated this terrible growth of fern against which we warred. 

 Weather conditions militated against the station in another way too 

 they immensely prolonged our shearings. Not infrequently a break in 

 the weather would occur immediately after the gathering in of sheep 

 from a block in process of crushing. These sheep, having once been 

 mustered, could not be put back ; in the first place, because the weather 

 might have cleared at any time, and the fleeces become dry and fit for 

 shearing; in the second place, because sheep dogged overmuch grow 

 callous and sulky ; they will not run well and give a second clean 

 muster. I have known stock in this way kept for a fortnight or three 

 weeks away from, a paddock, where every day the fern -stems were 

 lengthening, where every day the fronds were uncurling. 



The soil of the trough of the run has been described. It was spongy, 

 porous, and relatively unfertile, as well fitted to the requirements of 

 bracken as unsuitable for grass. The alien fodder plants sown, nowhere 



