166 TUTIRA 



uprooted turf there had been no germination of any seed whatsoever. 

 The paddock had nevertheless then attained its zenith of food supply, 

 its maximum of expansion. Certainly there was no grass in it, but the 

 tutu groves sprouting again from their burnt stools were open. Sheep 

 running in the paddock could at least wander over every acre of it. 

 With the advance of the year the initial stage of contraction began ; by 

 November millions of brown circinate fronds had appeared ; they grew 

 tall and strong, their pinnse expanding until the ground was once again 

 overspread with fresh crops of bracken, which season after season lay 

 thicker on the ground. On this abomination of desolation some 300 

 merino wethers managed to survive, their fleeces black with dust from 

 bracken and tutu thickets, their wool stripped from belly and side 

 through constant contact with scrub and fern. 



In the autumn of '89 began the second period. By that date the 

 bracken, which had been until then carefully conserved from fire in 

 accordance with the general plan of fern-crushing was again fit to burn. 

 The paddock became for the second time in our story a wilderness of 

 charred stalks and stems. Now, however, on its surface for the first 

 time began to appear cotyledons of certain aliens. They were sprung 

 from plants which had by this time obtained a firm hold on the grassed 

 lands of eastern Tutira and had begun to move inland. Some like the 

 Prickly thistle (Cnicus lanceolatus) and the Cape- weed (Hypochceris 

 rddicata) had taken advantage of the wind to extend their range 

 and to increase their numbers ; others like Mouse-ear chickweed 

 (Cerastium glomeratum), Silene (Silene gallica), and the native Houta- 

 wai (Accena australis), had by different contrivances fastened their seeds 

 to the legs and fleeces of sheep. Seedlings were still, however, rare 

 compared with later germinations, the more so that winds blowing from 

 the south and east, from the sea, over the grassed lands damped the 

 feathery pappus of winged seeds. Their appearance was in any case of 

 relatively trifling import, for the hand of man was about to interfere on 

 a great scale with natural conditions. It had been, in fact, determined 

 that the block should be crushed, sown, and stocked. Instead, therefore, 

 of a few score of sheep running, as formerly, haphazard, many thousands 

 were decanted into the paddock. Many hundred bags of grass seed were 

 also sown. The first result of this stocking was the annihilation of every 

 tutu thicket throughout the block. The bracken also was severely 

 checked both by hoof and tooth, especially on the tops and along the 



