CHAP, xiii.] MR. SOUTHEE'S FARM. 215 



with amongst the numerous settlers of all classes 

 who for several years have had almost the whole of 

 the land partitioned amongst themselves, as the 

 generality of them have bought the land for the 

 purpose of speculation, instead of cultivation." 



Mr. Southee has about 300 natives around him 

 in his immediate neighbourhood, who cultivate bits 

 of land interspersed with his own, and who, for 

 cheap wages, work for him in various branches of 

 husbandry, and thus procure for themselves those 

 European commodities for which they have acquired 

 a taste. He gives them articles to the value of 21. 

 for every acre they clear. The mode which he 

 adopts in clearing the land is to cut down all brush- 

 wood and vegetation in summer, and to burn it 

 when it has become dry. Immediately after this 

 he sows the ground with turnips, and when these 

 have been gathered, with potatoes, which require 

 only a little hoeing. The roots and stumps are 

 then sufficiently rotten, and the ground can be 

 easily tilled and prepared for grain. 



From Mr. Southee's house the river turns, with 

 many windings, towards the western coast. Higher 

 up its course it acquires greater fall, and in many 

 places is obstructed by snags. Its banks are of the 

 same good description, and are here and there 

 clothed with groves of kahikatea, rimu, and totara 

 pines, or of tarairi (Laurus tarairi) and puriri, until 

 it arrives at Kaitaia. A mission-station and native 

 settlement is situated about eight miles from the 



