172 TUTIRA 



destroyed, so weakened were they by shade that only sparse spindly 

 blades showed life was not quite extinct. 



The threatened seizure of the whole paddock by Leptospermum 

 scoparium now modified our policy in regard to the bracken. For the 

 first time we were careful in our stocking not to overweaken it. Our 

 ancient foe, now humbled and subdued, had become an ally in the war 

 to be waged with the rising power manuka. Sheep, therefore, were run 

 more lightly on the land. The Rocky Staircase was allowed almost without 

 let or hindrance to clothe itself once more in fern ; its growth hastened the 

 date when fire could again be run over the ground, when the manuka could 

 be destroyed once more. The small amount of sheep carried augmented 

 another change : it allowed other invading weeds to sow themselves more 

 freely. This was the more important, because one of them, Suckling 

 (Trifolium dttbiiim), had become a fodder-plant of prime importance. Its 

 spread had more than compensated for the loss of ryegrass, cock's-foot, 

 and white clover, grasses which had been sown and failed. Weeds of 

 low growth, foreign or native, were indeed during this period rather 

 hidden than obliterated by the bracken growth. On the ridge-tops it had 

 almost disappeared, on the uppermost portions of steep slopes, especially 

 on the warm west and north aspects, it had retreated far down the hill- 

 sides. All these spots, nearly bare or sparsely covered with dwarfed, 

 depauperated fronds, were now at the end of the fourth period of the 

 paddock heavily sprinkled, some of them packed, with manuka bushes. 

 Even in parts where the fern-growth still retained something of its 

 pristine vigour, scattered plants of manuka topped the fronds. The 

 reign of bracken a sovereignty of centuries was in truth passing 

 away ; the day of manuka had dawned. Alien grasses, except on the 

 camps, had completely disappeared ; native grasses, light and air denied 

 to them, barely evaded death ; on the other hand, an enormous spread of 

 suckling clover had compensated for their loss. The maximum head of 

 stock carried during the maximum expansion of the paddock was again 

 about 1700 sheep ; the minimum again about 200. 



The fifth chapter in the history of the Rocky Staircase included the 

 years between 1907 and 1913. As related, our paddock had been swept 

 bare by fires of the first, second, and third periods ; after the fourth fire 

 small portions only of top remained unburnt. Now, after the fifth fire, the 

 Rocky Staircase was parti-coloured, striped and patched like Joseph's coat. 

 Where fern had predominated it was as of yore, black ; in other areas the 



