THE PARTNERSHIP OF H. G.-S. AND T. J. S. 231 



nearly a couple of thousand failed to come in at shearing-time, and 

 as nothing succeeds like success, especially success after preliminary 

 failure, the result was a stimulus to further effort. We worked end- 

 lessly long hours ; we had our reward in ewes that produced a big per- 

 centage of lambs, in weaners that survived the winter. 



The station was still, however, selling only wool ; our surplus stock 

 was still an abomination. Once or twice we slew and skinned the 

 brutes ourselves, once they were boiled down for soap, once again 

 Merritt took them for his long-suffering swine. Dispose of them as 

 we might, the surplus stock of Tutira for four or five years realised 

 but Is. or so per head. 



A change was now, however, about to take place. During the 

 tupping season of '88 six thousand ewes were put to Lincoln rams. 

 From them five months later we got a lambing of over ninety-five per 

 cent ; of these we reared and sheared over five thousand. We had for 

 sale, therefore, in '89, some two thousand five hundred half-bred wether 

 two-tooths. Would anybody buy them ? The station had so bad a 

 name we were by no means sure. One day, however, a red-letter day 

 for the station, amongst the monthly correspondence tipped on to the 

 verandah out of the canvas mail-bag, arrived an offer of 4s. four shining 

 silver shillings for the two-tooth wethers. My partner's countenance 

 of solemn joy rises before me as I write. Lord ! how delighted 

 we were ! 



This first sale of sound and young stock marked a stage in the 

 annals of the run, it had definitely turned the corner : sheep were no 

 longer bought, imported to Tutira ; they were sold, exported from Tutira. 



We now clipped 10,000 sheep. This increase from '82, when rather 

 more than 7000 half-starved brutes, 3000 of whom, moreover, lived 

 entirely on tutu, had passed through the shed, was due to natural 

 expansion of feeding-grounds caused by dry weather and fire, to fencing, 

 and to the ploughing of lands round the edge of the lake. 



These swamps or flats to this day they pass under the former 

 designation had been drained in the days of Kiernan and Stuart. Prior 

 to the operation they had supported a stunted growth of water-sodden 

 flax and starved spindly raupo ; as the land dried and hardened, as its 

 superfluous water disappeared, these native plants shot up in enormous 

 luxuriance, so that the work had not proved immediately remunerative. 

 The benefit of the draining was now, however, to make itself felt. 



