Brighter Britain! Part 11

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 gra.s.s 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 cla.s.s 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 gra.s.s 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 circ.u.mstances 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 quant.i.ty 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 gra.s.s 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 b.u.t.ter, or portly cheese. What have we to do with trim appearances?

In the course of fencing operations, the Little'un developed a wonderful apt.i.tude 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 gra.s.s; 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, k.u.mera, or maize. Some of these enclosures are afterwards turned into the general gra.s.s, 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 sh.e.l.ls. This s.p.a.ce 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, k.u.mera, 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.

CHAPTER VIII.

OUR PIONEER FARM.

II.

We have a large farm, and a great deal of work to get through, but then there are eight or nine of us to share in the first and to do the latter; yet we find that we never have time to do all that we ought to do, and all that we want to do. Every year brings with it an increasing amount of labour, just to keep things going as they are, consequently the time for enlarging the farm becomes more and more limited. Thus it is, that though we cleared and gra.s.sed a hundred and forty acres in our first year, yet we have now only five or six hundred acres of gra.s.s in our eighth.

Hampered as we were by the lack of capital, and by the necessity of sc.r.a.ping and pinching to meet those payments spoken of, it is little wonder that we seem as poor and pauperized as we were at the commencement. But we are by no means really so. We are actually in very good circ.u.mstances. Our farm is immensely increased in value, and is now beginning to pay substantially. Another year will see the sum completed, which will close the purchase of the land. After that, we shall have means to make outlays of sundry kinds, be able to build a fine house, go in for marriage. Who knows what else?

The gra.s.s on our clearings is rich and abundant, and, owing to the nature of the soil, keeps fresh and green all through the dry season, when other districts are crying out against the drought. In spite of the standing stumps, the rough ground, and the mere surface-sowing, our gra.s.s will carry four sheep per acre all the year round; some of it more. It is not all fenced in--that would be too much to expect--but most of it is; and what is not gives the milch cows plenty of feed, and so keeps them from wandering off. The clearings are not all in one piece. They are divided off into paddocks, and there is a good deal of standing bush among them, some of which will eventually come down, and some of which will be left.

We have now seven or eight hundred head of sheep. We had to buy our original store flock on credit, but the increase and wool has enabled us to pay that off long since. Similarly, gra.s.s-seed, some stock, and other things were bought on credit, which has since been liquidated.

What we have is our own. We have had years of incessant toil, the hardest possible work, with plenty of food, but little comfort and no holidays to speak of. Two or three years more of it, and then we shall be in a condition to really enjoy the prosperity we have laboured for.

Except at shearing and lambing seasons, our Lincolns and Leicesters give us but little trouble. We did try the merino breed, but they broke through the fence and ran away into the bush, where we occasionally see traces of them, and have once or twice caught one and turned it into mutton. Shearing is a great business, but we are all accomplished hands at it now, and our bales are larger every year as the flock increases.

Wool is ready money here, being an article that can always be negotiated at once with the Auckland dealers. Our wool is reckoned of even better quality than that grown on the great sheepwalks of Canterbury and Otago.

During a great part of the year we are milking ten to twenty cows daily, and, in spite of the seeming inefficiency of our dairy arrangements, we send a goodly store of b.u.t.ter and cheese to the township, whence it goes to Auckland and elsewhere. We fatten pigs, too, on skim-milk, maize, pumpkins, and peaches grown by ourselves. A score or two are usually to be seen on the clearings round the shanty. We are able butchers and curers; and Old Colonial excels in the manufacture of brawn, sausages, collared head, and the like. Most of the pig-meat is consumed by ourselves. In one form or other it is our staple food. But occasionally we sell a barrel of pork, or some flitches and hams, to such local buyers as the bushmen employed at the saw-mills.

Dandy Jack talks of introducing Angora goats. I do not know exactly why, but he appears to think the project a good one. He has long ago given up mere coaching. In fact, people began to have doubts about entrusting themselves to his driving, though I hesitate to record such a disagreeable matter. He joined our society some years ago, though he is not always with us, gravitating invariably towards all the races, horse and cattle fairs of the country. But he has set up as a horse breeder and trainer, keeping his stud on our clearings, and thus adding another industry to the various others of our pioneer farm. This is a good thing for us, as Jack's horses come in very usefully sometimes, for carrying or dragging purposes.

Our largest source of income just at present is the herd. First there is the dairy business, which I have already spoken of. The milch cows keep on the clearings, or near to them, and soon get tame enough to come up when called. They are brought to the bails morning and evening, fastened up, and given a feed of koraka. All cattle are very fond of the leaves of the koraka-tree, and it is used to entice them with when that is required. Of course, it will be understood that, as there is no cold winter here, we do not require to house our cattle at any season, nor do we need to provide them with hay or root food. They find their own living all the year round, either in the bush or on the clearings, and the most we do is to give them maize-stalks when we have some.

The bulk of the herd, numbering now upwards of two hundred head, runs free in the bush. There is no native gra.s.s, as I have before mentioned, and the feed is tree leaf.a.ge. This suits the cattle, and they fatten well upon it, though not turning out very large beasts. But the pasture-fed cattle of the South are not in prime condition for market during the dry-season. Our bush-raised beasts are, and this gives us a pull.

The best part of one man's time is always taken up with stock duty. To keep the cattle from becoming unmanageably wild, and from getting too far away, they must be constantly driven up to the yards, and accustomed to discipline. It is our practice to give every beast a night in the yard at least once in six weeks. And it is also essentially necessary to keep an eye on calving cows, for if the calf is not brought up at once, branded, and so forth, it will be sure to turn out wild and a rusher, and then it would have to be shot at once, to prevent its infecting other beasts.

Of course, we are all stockmen more or less; but Old Colonial and the Saint are the chief hands at this work. The latter gentleman did not receive his appellation, as might be supposed, from any relations which his character bore to it. He was intended for the Church at one time; but, perhaps, the Church is to be congratulated in that it did not receive him. There is nothing mild or milk-and-watery about our Saint, though he has his own peculiar moral code, and is strictly scrupulous in its observance.

The Saint is the most elaborate swearer I ever heard. That is, when he is driving cattle. At other times he most conscientiously refrains from everything but abstract rect.i.tude of speech. He says that you cannot drive cattle without swearing; that they understand you so far, and never think you are in earnest till they hear an oath. Whip and dogs and roaring will not do without some good hearty swearing, too. The Saint says so, and he ought to know. He declares that he could never bring up cattle unless he swore at them. I think I have heard something similar from other drovers. Perhaps some naturalist will be good enough to explain this extraordinary characteristic of cattle.

The cattle a.s.sociate themselves into mobs. Each such mob is headed by an old bell-cow, sometimes by two or three. Bulls, of which we have now two, are sometimes with one mob and sometimes with another. Individual beasts, belonging to neighbours of ours, are to be found running with certain mobs belonging to us, and the reverse is also the case. We have to look after the strange beasts with our own, and our neighbours do the same by us. At musters, or when drafting for market, we make the necessary exchanges. But we have only two neighbours on this side the river who run cattle in the bush; one lives six miles off, and the other fifteen.