CHILDREN OF THE CHURCH 267 



were not the type of men that in trim gardens take their pleasure, 

 not the type to encourage the native in paths of peace and plenty. 

 Neither, moreover, was muru an institution likely in either race to 

 foster foresight or assist in the accumulation of private wealth. 

 Although, therefore, it is possible that a few seeds may have been 

 carried short distances inland, away from trade centres, it is to the 

 Mission Station that places at the back of beyond, such as the inland 

 east coast, owe even the peach and the tobacco plant. 



Except the potato, the former was probably the earliest alien to 

 reach the station. Peach-groves, indeed, like the two native grasses 

 already named, everywhere marked the sites of native villages, native 

 cultivation-grounds, even the smallest homes of outlying Maoris. 



The peach-trees of Tutira in the 'eighties appeared to be about forty 

 or fifty years old, though after a certain time their boles increase but 

 little in girth, making determination of their age difficult. Growth is 

 rapid at first fruit may be gathered from seedlings in their third or 

 fourth season, but the very few survivors now on the run seem to have 

 hardly altered in girth during my residence. The trees composing the 

 little groves dotted about Tutira, Puterino, and Maungaharuru varied in 

 numbers from several dozen downwards. They were of two distinct 

 types, the more common variety akin perhaps to the wild progenitors 

 of the race, its fruit ovoid rather than round, smaller than garden 

 varieties, slightly though pleasantly bitter, its stone easily detached, the 

 skin downy, and when fully ripe, yellow, not red ; the other type in all 

 ways similar to the peach of commerce, except that I have never seen 

 yellow-flesh varieties growing wild. 



Beneath the laden branches of these old orchards, pigs could be 

 stalked during moonlight nights ; to sheep camped in hot weather in 

 their shade the thud of a dropping peach was a signal to rise and feed ; 

 horses, too, were fond of the fruit and could neatly manipulate and eject 

 the stone. 



About '83 or '84 the groves and outlying trees on Tutira became 

 diseased with die-back and curl-leaf, so that ten years later but few 

 remained, even those, like the emblem of the stranger knight in Pericles, 

 only " green on top." 



The cherry too (Prunus cerasus), although it had never been estab- 

 lished locally as was the peach on old native workings, has also, in all 

 probability, sprung from the mission garden. Comparatively speaking, 



