186 TUTIRA 



each of the edges or wings of the track survived and grew into tall 

 shrubs. 



There came a time at last when travelling mobs, driven to and fro 

 over the run, moved between hedges moulded exactly on the windings 

 and meanderings of the great stock-routes. It must not, however, be 

 supposed that these hedges were anywhere continuous for more than 

 a chain or two at a stretch. Fires, though less frequent and less sweep- 

 ing, did sometimes manage to reach one wall of hedge, even on occasion 

 to cross the trail, destroying the tall growth on either side. The main 

 stock-route of Tutira could nevertheless at one time be traced for 

 miles by hedges of manuka and by great individual bushes, one of 

 which has for long gone by the name of Harry Young's shaving-brush. 

 They are survivors of heavier fires that here and there had managed 

 to cross the hedge-lines. 



Conditions essentially similar, though less interesting because less 

 naturally reached, tend to produce scrub-hedges along the modern 

 highway bisecting the run. As its width of twenty-two yards is fenced 

 on either side, there is no room for mobs to spread. On either side 

 of the crown of the road, therefore, bracken has been completely worn 

 away and manuka taken its place. Were it not for the requirements 

 of the local roadmen, who use the scrub for repairs, the Napier- Wairoa 

 road would throughout the length of Tutira pass between solid hedges 

 of manuka. 



The initial stages of these single and double hedge-tracks have 

 been described as primarily worn in the thick vegetation of olden days 

 during a period when the range of sheep was circumscribed by surround- 

 ing fern and scrub. On the crests of certain spurs on eastern Tutira 

 down which sheep similarly confined by bracken-growth used to troop, 

 where manuka never grew and where the surface took grass readily, 

 there are tracks of another sort deeply fretted into the soil itself. 

 During forty seasons each twist and turn has been deepened by the 

 action of rain. They stand out as relief work and promise to last for 

 an indefinite period, too narrow and deep for present traffic, but scooped 

 afresh each year by flood- water. 



Nearly all shepherds' riding-tracks have begun life as sheep-paths ; 

 only an insignificant minority have been deliberately made mostly 

 cut by myself on wet Sunday afternoons when it had become impossible 

 to refrain longer from exercise. During the early years of the run, as the 



