400 TUTIRA 



children reared inland on green fields or along its coasts on clean sands 

 washed by enormous breadths of sea, in its lowest death-rate in the 

 world. The writer cannot but exclaim, when he thinks of what he could 

 have found in his heart to say in praise of his dear adopted land 

 throughout every page of ' Tutira,' that, like Olive before the wealth of 

 India, he marvels at his moderation. 



One last word : he hopes that his readers have played the 

 game, that they have not indulged in the practice of skipping. If 

 this has not been done, if every chapter has been read, they can 

 rest assured that in examination, as it were under the microscope, of 

 one station, they have discovered what is to be found in all. The 

 writer cannot too strongly emphasise the fact that there is nothing 

 exceptional in the little bit of land about which he has written. Taking 

 chapter by chapter, every station in New Zealand has been moulded by 

 a great rainfall, possesses legends and relics of a splendid aboriginal 

 race ; has been clothed with forest, flax, and fern ; has been subdued by 

 pioneers in desperate straits for credit and cash ; has been overrun by 

 an alien vegetation and alien beasts ; has righted its equilibrium ; has had 

 its surface mapped by stock, its rivers affected by scour ; has seen its 

 original breeds of domesticated stock supplanted by others better fitted 

 to meet changed conditions ; and lastly, has been, or is in process of 

 being, subdivided into smaller holdings. It has been the good fortune 

 of the author to have witnessed these changes ; they have been of 

 enduring interest to himself; in bidding his readers farewell he hopes 

 he may have been able to pass on that interest. 



PRINTED BY WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AND SONS. 



