260 Essays. 



valuable to them, they must have raised immense quantities annually — an 

 operation requiring unceasing care and toil on their part, as they generally 

 fresh-gravelled their plantations every year ; and which, combined with the 

 great care required for the raising, keeping, and preservation of this root, 

 could only have been efLOctually done through the beneficial influence of the 

 taloo (tapu). Of the second, the taro, they had also several distinct 

 varieties (exclusive of the inferior kind called by them tarohoia, which, 

 'with many other roots, was introduced by Euroj)eans) ; they also ate the 

 thick succulent stems of this plant, as well as its root, and sometimes its 

 leaves. A large flourishing taro plantation is one of the most beautiful 

 cultivations the writer has ever seen. These were planted in regular 

 quincunx, the soil evenly laid, and strewed with white sand, and patted with 

 their hands, giving such a relief to the elegant large shield-like dark-green 

 versatile leaves of the taro, drooping gracefully from their thick clean red- 

 brown stalks, and were scrupulously kept in perfect order. This plant very 

 rarely flowers, and it has never been known to produce seed. The third, 

 the hue, which is only propagated by its seeds, is very constant to its kind, 

 although it varies much in size and shape, and has no varieties. The 

 staple uncultivated articles of vegetable food were three fruits, the well- 

 known fern-root, and the wild sow-thistle. Those three fruits are peculiar 

 to the country, and comprised the hinau (Elceocarpus dentaUis), the karaka 

 {Gorynocarpus Icevigata), which was often planted about their villages, and 

 the tawa {Nesodaphne taivd). Those berries (drupcB) were not however such 

 as are generally known to ci"\dlized nations by the name of edible fruits, 

 being scarcely so, especially those parts of them which were mainly used, 

 save through long and necessitous habit. Although those fruits were 

 yielded spontaneously and in abundance where the trees producing them 

 grew, yet the gathering, preparing, and storing them, so as to be kept fit for 

 food, was no light labour. The kernels of the karaka, after due preparation, 

 would remain sound some time in a dry store, but not near so long as those 

 of the tawa. Much labour, too, was required to procure and fit the aruhe 

 or root of the .common fern of New Zealand (Fteris esculenta) for food, 

 while the spots producing fern-root of the best quality were by no means 

 common. The puwha, or milk-thistle (Sonclms oleraceus), the large-leaved 

 variety, was common, though not, it is reasonably suspected, too plentiful ; 

 and this was abandoned for the smaller-leaved European kind (after its 

 introduction), as being less bitter and more palatable. 



(2.) The smaller fruits and vegetables invariably used while in season 

 comprised (a) those which were largely and commonly used, viz., — The 

 fruit of the tutu or tupakihi {Goriaria ruscifolid), the pleasant juice of which 

 in the early summer was drunk with avidity in large quantities ; the berry 



