VII
Sowing

Panting and hot and black with dirt
  In a gully like a flue,
Leaving the briars half his shirt,
  The sower struggles through.

Sowing fern country, where there has been a good deal of small scrub and varied growths, is a beast of a job. As it has to be done in hot weather, clothing is necessarily of the lightest, and so unyielding is the jungle of dry burnt branches and twisted creepers that what little raiment one does wear is soon in rags. But as each twig and every roping vine is covered with fine black charcoal, you are soon properly clad in a complete coat— of soot. You have to struggle through these burnt thickets, across almost precipitous slopes, with a great bag of seed swung awkwardly in front of you, the contents of which you must scatter very carefully and quickly with either or both hands, according to the ever-changing flaws of wind, while keeping whatever balance the gods will. And as if a coating of dust and ashes were not enough, you soon acquire in addition a layer of most page 50uncomfortable fine grass seed all over you, and to top all, you are sometimes much too far up away from the river to get a swim when the day is over. Curiously enough, however, we found that although when we were near the river, and bathed frequently, the black stuck to us hard between whiles, yet when the water was out of reach for a day or two, the deposit could be dry-wiped off with ease. We found this fact interesting, but have so far founded on it no theory of hydropathic hygiene.

Bush land, well burnt (Plate VIIIb), is as much easier to sow than fern and scrub land, as half-burnt bush is harder. For in the latter you have to dive under, worry through or climb over a chaos of great trunks and branches, steadily sowing all the time, and you must often hazardously balance your progress along logs high in air across a gully, or lying over masses of other logs.

Maoris, being agile, careful, and good-tempered, are very good at this work, and we were glad indeed, when having become by actual experience masters of the job, we were able, on undertaking operations on a larger scale, to hand over to them its actual execution. For we loved it not at all.

The best bush land, well burnt, makes a magnificent seed-bed, as the coating of good page break

Plate VIII
Early Morning

Plate VIII
Sowing a Bush Burn

page 51wood-ash lies on a rich, black friable loam that has been rooted over by generations of wild pigs. When on this surface is broadcasted, before the first autumn rain, a carefully adjusted mixture of turnip seed and sundry grasses and clovers, it is possible to get a crop of turnips the ensuing winter that will fatten many sheep to the acre.

And when the turnips are eaten off right into the ground, the seedling grasses will be found ready to stool out and take their place, forming rich and permanent pasturage.