OUR PIONEER FARM.
I.
Of course, all farms are not the same, even in the North. Nevertheless,
there is a good deal of similarity in the work that has to be got
through at the outset. The modifications in it are various, consisting
in the character of the land, the amount of capital available, the
labour employed, and so forth. But, generally speaking, most settlers
must go through pretty much what we did before they get the wilderness
reclaimed into an orderly farm.
People who commence with plenty of capital have naturally a great
advantage. They can employ more labourers, and get the first operations
over more quickly. But, more than that, they are not hampered by the
necessity of making a living as they go along. They can afford to wait
until the farm is in thorough working order before they expect any
returns from it.
Not many of this class have settled in the North. When a man has large
capital, his chief idea is sheep or cattle. And he is not impressed with
the notion of making a home, but with the desire to make a great pot.
So, if he comes to New Zealand, he goes South as a general thing, and
leases a vast run of natural pasturage. In ten or twenty years he has
made his pile, and gives up farming altogether. Then he either goes
home, or settles down in one of our cities.
We were circumstanced very differently from that. When we made up our
minds to work for ourselves, instead of acting as labourers to others,
we were not blessed with much capital. Our joint purse contained just
enough, as we calculated, and it did not contain more. But our notion
was to make ourselves a comfortable home, primarily, though, of course,
we had our golden dreams as well.
The bulk of the land in the North Island belongs to the Maori tribes,
who sell tracts of it to Government or private individuals occasionally.
In the South Island all the waste land is the property of the Crown--a
nice little estate of about the size of England and Wales. Most of the
Kaipara district belonged to the Ngatewhatua tribe when we came on the
scene; and the early settlers bought their stations from them.
We had our korero with the chiefs, and arranged to purchase a block, or
section of a block rather, on the Pahi. We selected our location--from
such a creek to such a creek, and back from the river as far as such and
such a range. We offered ten shillings an acre for it, the then
market-price. The chief said, "Kapai!" and so that was settled.
Then we got up the Government surveyor for the district, and to it we
went with billhook and axe, theodolite and chain, fixing the boundaries
and dimensions of our slice of forest. Said the surveyor, after plotting
and planning and making a map, "There you are! Two thousand and
twenty-one acres, two roods and a half!" "Right," said we; and proceeded
to the next business.
A Land Court was held by the Crown official at Helensville. Thither
proceed the Ngatewhatua chiefs, with the surveys and maps of the section
we had chosen. They make out their claim to the land, according to
established usage, and receive a Crown grant as a legal title. This is
then properly transferred to us, in lieu of our cheque. Various
documents are signed and registered, and we stand the proud possessors
of so much soil and timber; while the Maoris make tracks straight to the
hotel and store, with much rejoicing.
Not that we paid in full at the time. Such a simple arrangement would
not have suited our pockets, any more than it would have suited the
Maori idea of a bargain. A part of the land was paid for and bought
outright, the rest was to be paid off in certain terms of years, or
sooner, if we liked. Meanwhile, we were to pay interest on the sums
remaining due, which was actually a sort of rent for the balance of the
estate. As a concession on their side, the Maoris gave us the right of
running cattle free over the unpaid-for acres. And as there were no
fences, of course, this really meant that we might run our cattle over
the whole country side, which was practically what we paid the interest
or rent for. Then we entered into possession, and built the shanty. But
observe what we had to do in the forthcoming years. We had to get a
living, first. We had to pay the annual sum agreed on as a sort of rent,
second. We had to provide for the purchase of implements, sundry
accessories, and stock, third. Lastly, we had to lay by to meet the
future large payments for the land, which would make us proprietors of
the whole of it, and, of course, annul the annual rent.
Perhaps it will be better understood now why we live in a shanty, and
why the furniture of it is so unique in quality and restricted in
quantity. How we have got on so well is a marvel, and shows what hard
work will do in this country. A thousand pounds would have bought our
station outright. But we had not a thousand pounds among us, or anything
like it; and we had to reserve money to live on for the first year, to
buy our axes and spades and milk-pans, and to buy the nucleus of our
future herds and flocks and droves. We have done all we had to do, and
now we are beginning to see that our joint work during all these years
will eventually produce for us homes and comfort.
It is a hard and difficult thing to make money without capital to start
with. It is as hard a thing to do in the colonies as it is at home,
though people at home are apt to think differently. And it is always the
early years of toil that are the worst.
Money is like an apple-tree. At first it grows but slowly, and there is
no fruit. Then there come little scanty crops, increasing year by year,
until at length the tree attains maturity. Then there are full crops,
and you realize a handsome profit on your planting.
Our station--or, as you may choose to term it, our estate, selection,
place, farm, location, homestead, or run--may be reckoned a choice bit
of land.
The soil is not all of one character, it seldom is so on any one farm in
this country, but it is all good class. Most of it is a rich black
humus, resting on clay and mountain limestone. In configuration it is
of the roughest, like the country generally, being an abrupt succession
of ranges, gullies, and basins, in every variety of form and size.
When we took possession, nearly every inch of the property was covered
with what is termed light bush. It might have been a slice out of the
New Forest. The light bush is just as dense a wood of small trees,
twenty to fifty feet in height, shrubs, creepers and undergrowth, as can
well be conceived of. Where the thicket is thinner the trees are larger,
and the smaller they are the denser the covert. If you wish to journey
through this light bush, where there is no semblance of a track, it will
take you perhaps two hours to make a single mile, so thick is it. To
ride through it is, of course, impossible, unless a track has been cut.
Two or three miles back from the river--at our back, or behind us, as we
say--the heavy bush begins. This is the primeval forest: endless miles
of enormous timber-trees, girthing ten feet, twenty feet, thirty feet,
forty feet, and even more, and of startling height. People cannot make
farms out of that; at least, not all at once. The timber is slowly
encroached upon to feed the saw-mills. Then the land so denuded can be
done something with. The stumps can be fired and left to rot, which they
do in about twelve or fifteen years, or they can be stubbed up with
infinite labour, or blown out with dynamite, the quickest and least
expensive way.
We have not much big timber on our section. Here and there are groves of
larger trees amidst the jungle, and most of this sort we shall leave
standing, for it is not good to totally clear a large farm. Patches of
bush are wanted for shade, for cover, and to keep up the supply of
moisture. Settlers before us, who have inconsiderately made a clean
sweep of everything, have found out their error, and are now planting
out groves.
But when you get a slice out of miles and miles of pathless woods, and
have to hew your future farm out of them, you are apt to forget the more
distant future, and go at everything before you with axe and fire. You
want to see grass-paddocks and plough-lands. Time enough to think of
planting again, or of saving bits of bush.
Our first operation was to clear some twenty acres or so, as a primary
clearing, wherein our shanty might be built, and a little grass provided
to keep the milch-cows near home. We had two or three weeks chopping,
then, in the height of the dry season, managed a successful burn of the
fallen stuff, letting the fire run among the standing bush where it
would, and which it would not to any great extent, as the undergrowth
always keeps fresh on such rich soil. Thus we had a small clearing ready
to be sown with grass-seed directly the rains should come. And then we
were occupied with the erection of the shanty, as already described.
After that we had our first stockyard to set up. It is a simple
enclosure, measuring a chain or two square; but had to be made of great
strength, in view of the contingency of unruly mobs of charging cattle.
To procure material we went six or eight miles off, to a creek that ran
through heavy bush. There we felled certain giant puriri trees, cut them
into lengths, and split them up with wedges into posts and rails. Puriri
timber is terribly tough stuff to work. It is harder than oak, and very
heavy, too, so that transporting it is serious toil. We groaned over
this job, and spoilt numerous axes; but we did it.
Terrible work it was getting this material on to the ground. After we
had finished cutting, and had split out all the posts and rails we
wanted, it was comparatively easy work to punt the stuff into our own
water. But then the carrying up from the landing-place, a quarter-mile
or so, to the spot selected for the stockyard, was a labour indeed. It
took six of us to lift one of the posts, so solid were they, and so
heavy the timber. Old Colonial said--
"We are giving over work, and taking to humping."
This is a bit of pleasantry that only those who have tried it can
understand, for humping timber is one of the most undesirable
occupations possible; as many a galled shoulder and aching back could
testify.
Puriri timber is the strongest and most durable of any in the country.
We knew that kauri would give us less work, but the result would not be
so lasting or satisfactory. Therefore, we elected to go in for puriri.
The posts stand about eight feet above ground, and are sunk some three
or four into it. Their average thickness will be from nine inches to a
foot. They carry five rails almost as substantial as the posts, both
being of roughly split timber. The rails are fixed into holes, bored and
wedged in the posts. Slip-panels form an entrance. Such was our first
stockyard--a substantial, thoroughly secure, and cattle-proof enclosure.
And it is as good now as it was eight years ago. For a long time it
served all our needs; but, subsequently, we have put up other yards, a
milking-shed with bails, sheep-pens and hog-pens, all constructed of
rough material, cut by ourselves in the bush.
Having now got our habitation and our stockyard completed, and it being
well on in the wet season, with the newly-sown grass springing green
over the charred surface of the clearing, obviously it was time to
introduce stock. Our agent in Auckland bought for us a dozen good, young
cows and a bull, which were despatched to us on a small schooner. She
brought them up the river; and then they were dumped into the water, and
swum ashore. The whole lot cost us about a hundred pounds, freight and
other charges included, the cows being four or five pounds apiece, and
the bull forty, he being a well-bred shorthorn from the Napier herd.
The cows were belled, and the whole little herd turned loose in the
bush. But the cows were tame, some of them being in milk, and we had not
much trouble in keeping them near home. The bull would not wander far
from the cows, and we drove them up and yarded them, with a good feed of
fresh koraka, every now and then. Besides the cattle we introduced some
pigs, fowls, and a dog or two. Before long we were milking daily, and
beginning to turn out butter and cheese; for the cows throve on the
plenteous feed in the bush.
Although the wet season is not the usual time for felling bush, yet we
went to work at that at once. We were anxious to get as much grass as we
could the first year, so that we might get some sheep on it. For, though
cattle find plenty of feed in the bush--leafage, and shoots of
trees--sheep must be provided with grass, and there is no grass suitable
for pasturage indigenous to _Northern_ New Zealand. Accordingly, we
worked steadily at bush-falling right along to the end of the succeeding
summer; and when the next wet season came round again, we were able to
contemplate a hundred and forty acres sown down with grass.
Axe-work was our principal daily toil, and it is a somewhat different
thing as practised here, to what the English woodman has to do. A
bushman's work is severe and energetic, altogether in contrast with the
lazy stop-and-rest methods of too many labourers at home. It is a fierce
but steady and continuous onslaught upon the woods. Everything must fall
before the axe, and everything does fall. Once I was watching the
prostration of a Worcestershire oak. It was a tree that might have had
some twelve feet of girth. Three men and a boy were employed at it,
armed with ropes and pulleys, wedges, saws, and all sorts of implements,
besides axes; and it was two days and a half before they got the tree to
earth. If a single bushman could not have knocked that tree over before
dinner-time, he would not have been worth wages in this country; I am
sure of that.
Of course, it is an understood thing that England cannot turn out an
axe. If you want an axe that is really good for anything, you must go to
America for it. Here, in the bush, all our tools come from the land of
the Stars and Stripes. Why it should be so ask English cutlers. English
tools and cutlery of all sorts cannot find a sale here; for bitter
experience has taught us what inferior and unreliable goods they are.
American things never fail us. We do not buy them because they are
cheaper, but because they are better. They are exactly what we want, and
of sterling quality.
Now, Sheffield can turn out the best hardware in the world, no one can
deny that. Then, why do we not get some of it out here? Some settlers,
who have furnished themselves in Sheffield itself, can show tools of
finer make than the American ones. But all the cutlery that we see
anything of in the stores, if it be English, is thoroughly worthless.
Why will English traders continue to suppose that any rubbish is good
enough for the colonies? We are afraid to buy English implements and
tools out here; and every experienced colonist prefers to trust America.
Our patriotism is humiliated, but we cannot afford to be cheated.
Surely, trade interests must suffer in the long run, by the pertinacity
with which English traders send inferior goods to the colonies.
In felling bush, or "falling" it, as we say here, advantage is taken of
the lay of the land. To make the burn which is to follow a good one, the
stuff must all lie in the same direction. The tops of the felled trees
should point downhill as much as possible. The trees are gashed at about
three feet from the ground. This saves the bushman's back, obviating the
necessity of his stooping, and, moreover, allows him to get through more
work. Also, in after years, when the stumps are rotten, they are more
easily pulled out of the ground. By a simple disposition of the
direction in which the gashes are cut, the bushman is able to bring down
his tree to whichever side he wishes. A bill-hook, or slasher,
supplements the axe, for the purpose of clearing all the undergrowth.
Nothing is left standing above waist-height.
The usual time for bush-falling is the dry season, that is to say, from
August till March, in which last month the burn is usually accomplished.
By that time the fallen stuff has been pretty well dried in the summer
sun, and will burn clean. Fires are started along the bottoms on days
when the wind is favourable. Some experience is needful to ensure a good
burn. Should the burn be a bad one, after work is much increased, and
wages consequently spoilt.
After the burn comes the logging, that is, the collection into heaps of
such _debris_ as lies about unburnt, and the final burning of these
heaps. During April and May the rains begin; and then grass seed is sown
broadcast over the charred expanse. It soon sprouts up, and in a couple
of months there will begin to be some pasturage. Before next season a
good strong turf ought to have formed among the stumps. Every farmer has
his own particular ideas as to the kinds of seed to use. We used a
mixture of poa pratensis, timothy, and Dutch clover, and have abundant
reason to be satisfied with the result.
When bush-falling is performed by hired labour, it usually goes by
contract. The bushman agrees to fall, fire, and log a specified tract,
at a fixed price per acre. Such bush as ours would go at thirty
shillings to three pounds an acre, according to the size of the trees on
the average. A bushman reckons to earn five shillings a day, taking one
day with another, so he ought to knock down an acre of stuff in from
five to ten days. Thirty or forty acres represent one man's work for the
season.
A good deal of judgment is required in making these contracts. Where
there is a great deal of supple-jack, or tawhera scrub, the work may get
on as slowly as if the trees were comparatively large. And there is a
good deal of luck in the burn, for if it be a bad one there may be
weeks of logging afterwards. Sometimes, at the end of the season, a
bushman may find that his contract has not paid him much more than the
worth of his tucker during the time; or, on the other hand, he may find
he has made ten shillings a day clear out.
New-chums often find a job of bush-falling is the first thing they can
get hold of, and a bitter apprenticeship it is. Their aching backs and
blistered hands convey a very real notion of what hard work and manual
labour means. And this goes wearily on day after day, while, very
likely, they find they are not earning a shilling a day, do all they
may. The ordinary English agricultural labourer, transplanted here, does
not seem to do better at this work at the start than the "young
gentleman." His class take a lot of teaching, and anything new appears
to be a tremendous difficulty to them. Moreover, they have to learn the
meaning of an Antipodean ganger's frequent cry, "Double up, there!
Double up!" And they do not like to work so hard that every now and then
a stop must be made to wring out the dripping shirt. Worst of all, there
is seldom any beer in the bush!
After we had got some grass clearings, the next thing to do was to fence
them in. A very necessary thing that; first, to keep the sheep in--and,
second, to keep the wild pigs out. Two most important reasons, besides
other lesser ones.
Fencing of many kinds has been tried in the colony, the question of
relative cost under different circumstances mainly influencing settlers
in their choice. I need only mention four varieties as being general in
the North. They are post-and-rail, wire, wattle, and stake.
The first is undoubtedly the best of any, but the labour of cutting,
splitting, getting on the ground, and setting up is so great, that the
cost of such a fence is very heavy. It may cost two to five pounds a
chain, or more; but it should require no repairs for ten or twelve
years, and is proof against cattle, sheep, or pigs. The materials,
whether kauri, totara, or other timber, is much the same as that we used
for our stockyard, only, of course, it is not needed anything like so
strong. But it is the same sort of rough stuff, procured in the same
way.
As to wire fences, they are useful enough for keeping sheep in, and come
in well for inner fences, being sufficiently cheap and easily set up.
But they will not keep out wild pigs, and cattle, accustomed to force
their way through the thickets of the bush, mistake wire fences for mere
supple-jack, and walk straight through them. Wattles interlaced on
stakes make first-rate protection, but they can only be used with
economy when the supply of them is close handy.
The fence most commonly seen on new farms, and that may fairly be termed
the pioneer's mainstay, is a simple one of stakes. This is the kind we
went in for, as we had the material for it in any quantity upon our own
land.
The stakes are the trunks of young trees, either whole or split. They
are about four inches diameter at the thickest end, and are set up at
three or four inches apart. The stakes are connected by one or more
battens nailed along them, or by wires. They are cut eight or nine feet
in length, so as to allow of a good six feet above ground when set up.
Red, black, and white birch are used, also red and white ti-tree, the
last variety being most esteemed, as it is more durable. A stake-fence
ought to be proof against both pigs and cattle, and is reckoned to be
good for seven years; if of white ti-tree it will last ten or twelve
years. It will cost, in labour, from eight shillings a chain and
upwards, according to the distance the cut stakes have to be moved.
Our work in fencing was as follows. The first clearing we set about
enclosing was on the side of a range, and included forty or fifty acres.
If this were a square there would be some eighty chains or a mile of
fencing required to enclose it. Practically, there were nearer a
hundred chains of boundary. Each chain required from a hundred to a
hundred and thirty stakes. This is about the number that one of us could
cut in the day, and bring out of the adjoining bush on to the line. For
we got our material in the standing bush close to the clearing, working
along the edge of the woods, and seldom having to go further than five
chains away from the edge of the clearing to find suitable trees.
Two or three men were engaged in pointing the stakes, and dumping and
malleting them into the ground. Sometimes they would put up four or five
chains in the day, sometimes only one; it depended on the nature of the
ground. When the weather was wet, and the ground soft, the work was
naturally lighter. After the stakes were set up we had to batten them
together. We bought several boatloads of battens--rough outside boards
split up, and the like--for next to nothing, at the Wairoa saw-mills,
and got them down to our place. Then we had to hump them up to the
ground; no light work, for a load had to be carried often nearly a mile
uphill. We purchased a keg or two of nails, and finally fixed up the
fence.
We were proud of our clearings when they were new, and we are proud of
them still. But they would look strange sort of paddocks to an English
farmer's eye. The ground is all hills and hollows, lying on the sides of
ranges, or stretching across the gullies. Amidst the grass is a dazzling
perspective of black and white stumps, looking like a crop of
tombstones, seen endways; and round the whole careers, uphill and down
dale, the rough, barbarous, uncouth-looking stake fence. Never mind! Off
that gaunt and unseemly tract has come many a good bale of wool, many a
fair keg of butter, or portly cheese. What have we to do with trim
appearances?
In the course of fencing operations, the Little'un developed a wonderful
aptitude for the manufacture of gates. Whether he had learnt the whole
art of carpentry from his practice upon a certain chair, elsewhere
described, I do not know; but his gates are a marvel of ingenuity, and
really very capital contrivances. Only, he is so vain of his
performance, that he wishes to put a gate about every hundred yards. A
constant warfare is waged upon this point, between him and Old Colonial,
who does not seem to approve of gates at all.
In subsequent years we have done something towards making live-fences.
We have dug ditches and banks within some of the fences, planting them
with thorn, acacia, Vermont damson, Osage orange, and other hedge
material. We have now some very good and sightly hedges. Luckily, we
never tried whins, or furze, as here called. This is a vile thing. It
makes a splendid hedge, but it spreads across the clearing and ruins the
grass; and it is the worst of weeds to eradicate.
Whins and thistles are the only bad things that Bonnie Scotland has sent
out here. They, and sweetbriar, are given to spreading wherever they go.
In some localities in the North there are clearings submerged under
whins or sweetbriar, and there are forests of thistles, which march
onward and devour all before them. Whins you cannot clear, unless by
toil inadequate to the present value of land. But thistles can be
effectually burnt, I believe. At any rate, they die out after a term of
years, and, it is said, leave the land sweet and clean. So they are,
perhaps, not an unmixed curse.
We think that thorn makes the best hedge. But there are objections to
it. It is not easily or quickly reared, and it straggles on light soils;
moreover, it is always needing attention. We have no time to spare for
clipping and laying and all that sort of thing. Labour has to be
severely economized on pioneer farms.
Of course, all the time these things were proceeding, we were
simultaneously busied with other matters. Chiefly were we providing for
our own immediate sustenance. The pigs were bred and well looked after,
fattened, butchered, made into pork, or cured. Poultry was also
carefully regarded, especially the turkeys, which are so valuable in
keeping down crickets, and make such an important addition to the
commissariat. Then there was the garden.
We have several gardens at present, as we follow the custom of enclosing
any particularly choice bit of land, and using it for our next year's
crop of potatoes, kumera, or maize. Some of these enclosures are
afterwards turned into the general grass, or are converted into
orchards, and so on.
The first garden we made was set apart for the purpose directly after
the shanty was finished, and certain of our party were engaged
exclusively upon it for the time being. It comprehended two or three
acres on the shoulder of a low range, and was once the site of a Maori
kainga, or village. Hence, the scrub that covered it was not of large
growth, while the soil is exceptionally loose and rich, consisting of
black mould largely intermixed with shells. This space we cleared and
fenced in. Then we went to work with spade and pickaxe and mattock.
We cut drains through the garden, and laid it off into sections. These
were planted with potatoes, kumera, melons, pumpkins, onions, and
maize. Digging was, of course, a hard job, the ground being full of
roots. We threw out these as we dug, or left them; it does not matter
much, for as long as we just covered the seeds anyhow, the rest was of
small concern. After a crop or two the ground gets into better
condition, and what we put in thrives just as well among the stumps as
not.
Round the sides of the garden we planted peach-stones, which have now
developed into an avenue of fine trees. We also set cuttings of
fig-trees, apples, pears, loquats, and oranges, obtained from some
neighbour.
Thus, before we had been a year on the land, we had gone a good way
towards providing the bulk of our food-supply for the future. We have
since seldom had to buy anything but our flour, tea, sugar, salt and
tobacco, so far as important and absolutely needful items are concerned.
And now that I have recorded the manner of our start, I may go on to
speak of things as they are, seven or eight years later.