268 TUTIRA 



the plant is a new-comer. The grove planted by Craig from roots 

 carried from Havelock North in the late 'sixties, and flourishing near 

 the present homestead until overrun by honeysuckle, has been the 

 source from which suckers have been taken to other spots on the run. 

 The cherry on Tutira, unlike the peach and almond, which germinate 

 readily, even if but partially covered with soil or rotting grasses, has 

 never sprung up from seed. Of all the stones that have been scattered 

 about the homestead, men's quarters, and Maori camps, thrown from 

 verandahs on to dug soils, emptied on rubbish - heaps, dropped in 

 the orchards, basketed for picnics, riding and rowing expeditions, or, 

 lastly, fallen from the trees themselves, never a stone has germinated. 

 Nor has the cherry been given only by man an excellent chance of 

 spreading by means of seed. The fruit of the fine plantation near 

 George Bee's old homestead at Maungaharuru has for fifty years 

 been chiefly gathered by native pigeons, yet there too no seedlings have 

 appeared either in the open bush or about its edges. 1 



One wretched gnarled specimen of an apple-tree grew in '82 on the 

 site of a deserted clearing on Pera's Flat. It was literally fleeced with 

 American blight, which throughout the province was then threatening 

 the existence of the wattle (Acacia dealbata). 



Whatever may be the degree of relationship of these aliens to 

 mission gardens, the tie between the missionary and the pot-herb tribe 

 is very close and very intimate. 



Catmint (Nepeta cataria), spearmint (Mentha viridis), thyme 

 (Thymus vulgaris), horehound (Marrubium vulgare), were in very 

 truth born of the church. Doubtless all of them first reached New 

 Zealand with drupes of stone fruit, pips of apple and pear, with grain, 

 with grasses, with seeds of trees ; they were imported of set purpose to 

 multiply and replenish the earth, for the policy of the Church Missionary 

 Society was from the beginning practical ; the earliest laymen sent forth 

 were persons " trained to useful arts." It was to this system, indeed, 

 that years later Archdeacon Henry Williams attributed in great degree 

 the lasting effect of the work done. 



1 True uutil after 1914. Since then seedling cherries have appeared not infrequently in the 

 manuka-clothed ravines near the homestead. I am inclined to believe these seedlings now for 

 the first time germinating on the station have been taken by birds from the so-called barren 

 double-blossomed Japanese varieties, many of which mature a tiny fruit, or from the great 

 cherry-trees of several garden varieties in Harry Young's garden, the whole of whose fruit has 

 for years been stolen by birds. 



