202 TUTIRA 



the quality of the turf. There is no question but that the best 

 fattening grasses are disappearing, or have disappeared. Though it 

 is true that the constituents necessary for rye and clover are, after 

 a couple of seasons, exhausted on the hungry pumiceous lands of which 

 the trough of the run is largely composed, such is not the case in 

 regard to the best marl surfaces of parts of eastern Tutira. Far less 

 does it hold of the magnificent soils of Poverty Bay and of great 

 parts of southern Hawke's Bay. In those districts, certainly, the grad- 

 ual displacement of ryegrass and clover cannot be ascribed to ex- 

 haustion of the land. It is due to changes of the surface whereby 

 certain natives are benefited at the expense of their alien rivals. 



On an iron surface, however rich, germination is less easy ; a 

 sufficiency of moisture, moreover, in drought is unobtainable. I have 

 described elsewhere how the sites of old Maori workings were in early 

 days marked by grasses such as Micrcelena stipoides and Danthonia 

 semiannularis. They grew where the surface had been stamped hard 

 by man ; now they grow where the surface has been pounded and 

 trodden by sheep that is, over nine -tenths of the province. A 

 general deterioration in the turf has begun, entailing in its turn 

 readjustment of the type of animals bred thereon. I do not say this 

 is the sole reason responsible for the general change throughout 

 Hawke's Bay from the Lincoln to the hardier Komney Marsh sheep ; 

 undoubtedly it is one, I believe the chief, reason. Fodder-plants 

 such as rye, white clover, even cock's-foot, die out or flourish with 

 less exuberance, inferior aliens ?nd comparatively valueless natives 

 taking their place ; the flockmaster, adapting himself to the changed 

 environment, breeds a hardier race of sheep. 



It would be easy to stretch the links of cause and effect : the hills 

 become like stone ; the settler growls as, tipping his correspondence 

 from mail-bag on to verandah floor, he opens an epistle demanding 

 an increase in rates owing to the destruction of bridges. Stock 

 trample hard a countryside 12,000 miles from the great cities of 

 Europe ; carpets are softer to the tread, the coarser Lincoln fleece 

 has been supplanted by the finer wool of the Romney Marsh. 



