CHAPTER XXXIX. 

 FERN LAND. 



There is a more or less fair share of fern and 

 bracken land right throughout New Zealand, very pro- 

 nounced in some provinces. The high prices for all 

 kinds of stock should help to remove doubts as to the 

 payableness of displacing such growths with a valuable 

 sole of grass. The rewards to be met with in improving 

 this kind of country are : First, the direct benefit of 

 better returns ; second, the enjoyment of rising stock and 

 wool prices in a world-wide growing scarcity of such 

 products ; third, the setting up of increased value to the 

 land by virtue of the additional output from the farm 

 helping to augment the country's prosperity and popula- 

 tion. 



In the past many settlers have concluded that fenc- 

 ing this class of country is such an expensive item 

 timber generally in the locality being unavailable as 

 not to warrant the erection and care of much and satis- 

 factory fencing, and they therefore not only suffer from 

 being the possessors of low-valued unimproved proper- 

 ties, but the consequences of costly mustering and shep- 

 herding and losses through the straying of stock. A 

 good scheme of subdivisional fencing and judicious 

 stocking with cattle and sheep will in itself bring about 

 ultimate fern eradication. A pastoral property, of fern 

 country even, can never be regarded as worthy of much 

 entertainment except it is skirted by a secure fence, and, 

 indeed, reasonably subdivided. 



Fern seldom grows on poor soil ; wherever it 

 flourishes it is a sure indication that grasses will thrive 

 there. Greater the fern growth better the prospects for 

 substitution by grass. 



