224 TUTIRA 



not afford to treat our flock properly, ideally ; as long as our ewes were 

 sufficiently nourished to bear and rear a fair lamb, it was more important 

 to have numbers than condition ; as long as our hoggets lived to tread 

 the shearing-floor we hardly cared how many broken fleeces were thrown 

 on to the wool-table ; the carcase of every sheep that passed through the 

 shed was worth more to the run than its wool. For a quarter of a 

 century the choice before us every day of the year was the better treat- 

 ment of a smaller flock, resulting in a less efficient crushing of fern, and 

 therefore detrimental to the making of the run ; and, on the other hand, 

 an over-drastic grinding of fern with its accompanying future benefit to 

 the run, but with its accompanying present damage to stock. We 

 learnt to balance the rival claims of land and sheep to a nicety. It was 

 found possible in practice to combine a heavy lambing, a small mortality, 

 and a substantial increase in numbers, with a clip light enough to excite 

 surprise in the bosoms of our bankers. 1 



Compromise between an unwise parsimony in regard to feed and the 

 wintering of the largest possible number of sheep was in fact so evenly 

 balanced, that during a few weeks of each winter, for perhaps ten seasons, 

 eatable mutton was unknown. 



We lived on wild pig, wild beef shot on Kaiwaka, and the fat wild 

 sheep and double-fleecers that could be raked in from river clifls ; these 

 were shot, dressed on the spot, and packed into the homestead. There 

 was in those spartan days as little spare fat on the station as in Berlin 

 during the last winter of the great war. 



Well, then, with a certain amount of experience, a certain amount 

 of local knowledge, and a certain amount of caution jammed into our 

 heads, Stuart and I made a new start. Although no formal partnership 

 was made out until later, the fresh capital put into the run was used 

 from this time forward for the development of Tutira. 



In spite of previous failure we were eager to be again engrossed 

 in the most fascinating pastime in the world land reclamation. The 

 small sum now available would have been scarcely noted by a soulless 

 company which knew not Tutira except by name, which would have 

 swallowed this precious fund prededicated to improvement without 



1 I recollect an inquiry from the National Mortgage and Agency Company, about 1888 or 

 1889, asking if the number of wool pockets, so far shipped, was the whole clip. The average 

 weight of fleece, including locks and pieces, had barely reached 5 lb., yet that year we had in- 

 creased our flock by over 1000, and had docked nearly 95 per cent, of lambs, which were after- 

 wards successfully reared. 



