_KAIPARA FISH._
Although I had been defeated in my scheme of draining my orchards,
I did not on that account give them up in despair, but endeavoured
to improve the condition of each tree by lightly digging round it,
and mulching it with the weeds I had taken off the land. They seemed
all to be growing nicely, and the peaches the first season yielded a
tremendous crop of most delicious fruit; so many indeed had we, that
besides almost living on them ourselves, we fed the pigs with them.
It was a great season everywhere in North New Zealand for peaches,
but since then some sort of blight has universally attacked the older
trees. The why or the wherefore of the disease remains a mystery,
and the matter is greatly exercising the minds of the most eminent
authorities in the colony. All sorts of theories have been put forward,
but no satisfactory solution has been arrived at. One might almost
fancy that some personage possessing mysterious power, and suffering
from too free indulgence in the delicious fruit, had cursed them, as
the Abbot in the Ingoldsby Legends cursed the Jackdaw of Rheims.
Other fruit-trees, both English and sub-tropical, grow and fruit
remarkably well in the North Kaipara, in spite of the fact that not a
single orchard anywhere is drained. If every advantage were given the
trees, what would they not produce!
The climate is eminently suitable to fruit-tree culture, and the slopes
of the undulating hills present everywhere opportunities for planting
snugly sheltered orchards. Fruit-growing ought to become one of the
standard industries of the district; but before that can happen, the
railway charges must be lowered very considerably. The first apple
season after I was settled in Matakohe, I sent a case of splendid
apples down to Auckland to be sold, and the sale just covered the
freight.
The excessive and prohibitive railway charges tend to stop all
enterprise. The railways are supposed to have been constructed to open
up the country, develop its resources, and induce settlement; but as
they are at present managed, it would be absurd to think of starting
any industry, in which they would have to play an important part as
carriers. Cheap railway freights and fares would naturally have a
tendency to enhance the value of the land in the country which came
within their influence, bringing it as it were in closer contact with
the centres of population, and it may therefore be inferred that owners
of suburban estates--which must suffer by country properties being
rendered more marketable--are by no means anxious for any alteration in
the railway tariff, and suburban landowners are a power in the colony.
The time must come, however, when in spite of all opposition, the
freights will be lowered, and the sooner the better for the prosperity
of New Zealand, and for the fruit-growing industry of the Kaipara.
Enough, however, of railway mismanagement.
A settler who understood netting had made me a small fishing-net, and
fish now formed a prominent feature at our table. Fishing wasted a
good deal of time, however, as most of the fish are caught in narrow
channels when the tide is running out, and the punt almost invariably
was left high and dry, and had to remain until the tide flowed. I
always in a day's fishing caught a great many more fish than we
required for our own use, and it occurred to me to enclose a portion of
the beach below high-water mark with a wall, so as to form a miniature
fish-pond to keep the surplus fish in. As the tide flowed a self-acting
valve let the water in, but prevented it from flowing out again when it
ebbed. A lever connected with this valve, allowed me to empty the pond
at pleasure.
[Illustration: My Fish Pond.]
The piscatorial residence--forty-six feet long, twenty-three feet
wide, and five and a half feet deep--being ready for occupation, the
next question to determine, was how to keep the fish alive after
they were caught, until they could be transferred to the pond. To
accomplish this, I made a sort of basket of wire-netting to hang over
the side of the boat and keep the fish in, but it proved a failure, and
I eventually purchased a little punt about six feet long, which had
been built for a boy, but was too cranky to be used with any degree
of safety. In this punt, fitted with a removable canvas cover, and
filled with water, the captured fish were deposited, towed home, and
transferred to the pond, where they soon appeared to be perfectly at
home.
About this time I obtained the services of an able-bodied lad of some
seventeen years, who understood farm work and a little carpentering.
He used to fish for me at times, and caught so many fish that I tried
sending fresh fish down to Auckland for sale there. The journey
occupied, however, the greater part of two days, though the distance
is under a hundred miles, and the fish did not arrive in town in good
condition. If packed in ice, they would of course have kept perfectly
fresh, as they were alive when sent from Matakohe; but I had no
ice-making machine, and therefore was obliged to give the matter up.
I feel confident, however, that the fishery here only wants capital to
develop it, to become one of the great industries of the North Kaipara.
Its land-locked waters swarm with the finny tribe, and can be fished
with impunity in any weather. Fish is by no means a cheap commodity in
Auckland; but the population being small, the market there would soon
be glutted. Sydney, Melbourne, and the other Australian ports, however,
present a grand field for the disposal of the fisherman's spoils,
and were fish sent away alive from here packed in ice, frozen by the
Freezing Company in Auckland, and transported from there to Australia
in ships provided with freezing chambers, I cannot help believing an
immense trade would be done.
[Illustration:
Sketch of Schnapper.
Skull of Schnapper.]
I have seen in the newspaper the price of fish called schnapper, quoted
in the Sydney market at from thirty-six shillings to eighty-four
shillings per dozen. These fish can be caught line-fishing in the
Kaipara, at the rate of sixty or seventy an hour per line of two hooks,
and of an average weight of about 9 lbs. each. The schnapper fisherman
files the barbs off his hooks, that they may readily be extracted
from the fishes' mouths; he also ties the bait securely on; and thus
prepared, can haul the fish in as fast as he likes. The schnapper
has most powerful teeth and jaws, and lives principally on cockles
and mussels, the shells of which it crushes in its mouth without
difficulty. It will, however, take almost any sort of bait, and is by
no means a fastidious eater. The Kaipara waters swarm also with several
other varieties of fish.
[Illustration: Sketch of Lower Jaw of Schnapper, showing double row of
teeth. (About half size.)]
_Mullet_, resembling in appearance the grey mullet of the old country,
but far richer and superior in flavour, are very plentiful during the
summer months. These fish and schnapper are most delicious when salted
and smoked, and may be said to fill the place of the English herring
and haddock. Mullet average about 2 lbs. each in weight, and I have
known one hundred and twenty dozen of them to be netted by two men in a
day up here.
_Patiki_, a fish shaped exactly as the English flounder, but resembling
more nearly in flavour the sole, are here in great numbers, and can be
caught with a net in boat loads.
The _Kahawai_, weighing on the average 5 or 6 lbs., and modelled very
much like the salmon, though finer in the tail, and with spotted sides.
The resemblance unfortunately ends with the shape, for its flesh is dry
and not over palatable. It lives principally on young mullet and Patiki.
The _yellow tail_, a sort of sea bream; a fish called locally the _king
fish_, closely resembling in shape, fins, colour, and scales the fresh
water tench; the _dog fish_, _eels_, and a small fish with a long snout
called the _pipe fish_, complete the list, with the exception of the
_shark_, and a fish called the _Stingarie_, doubtless a corruption of
Stinging Ray. This fish--in form somewhat like the skate, with the
exception that it has a long tail--attains a weight, at times, of about
a quarter of a ton, and possesses a most formidable sting, armed with
sharp-pointed barbs, and from six to eight inches in length, and about
half an inch in width. This sting is situated at the root of the tail,
and lies flat along it. When the fish makes an attack, it elevates its
sting, and runs backwards with great speed at the object of its wrath.
The Stingarie is of a discreet nature, however, and will never make
an attack, unless driven to it. Its principal food, like the Kahawai,
consists of mullet and Patiki.
Oysters and other bivalves, including Pipis (cockles) and escalops,
also abound in the Kaipara. The rough corrugated shelled rock oyster,
spoken of in my second chapter, are very abundant in places; and there
is another kind, a smooth shelled oyster, very like the English native,
which locates itself in deep water, and therefore is seldom met with.
Escalops, I think, must be plentiful, if one may judge by the number
of escalop shells thrown up on the beaches near deep water. To procure
these delicacies a dredge would be necessary, and dredges for shell
fish are as yet unknown in the Kaipara, neither has the trawl net
ever been tried, so it is impossible to say what unknown piscatorial
treasures may yet lie hidden in the unexplored depths of the waters of
our inland sea.