page 120

Various Accounts of Kumara Cultivation

In order to explain the native methods of cultivating the kumara, it will be necessary to make many remarks of a general nature, but we have also several special descriptions, given by natives and Europeans, which it is proposed to insert as given by contributors and writers. Any such account given as pertaining to a certain district almost invariably contains some details peculiar to the region. Such minor differences in methods and customs are bound to occur when people live in semi-isolated communities, or where no frequent communication occurs between different tribes.

In his paper on the cultivation of the kumara, the late Archdeacon Walsh wrote as follows on soils and situation of the māra kumara or sweet potato plantation:—"Though, of course, some are more suitable than others, roughly speaking almost any soil will do for the kumara, so long as the situation is dry and the plants are not exposed to the cold southerly winds, or to the spring and autumn frosts. The heaviest crops are obtained on the sand and shingle terraces above high water mark on the sea coast, and on the low river flats; but as the former are limited in extent, and the latter are more exposed to frosts, besides taking a good while to dry up after the winter rains, advantage was taken of well drained, sheltered spots on higher ground for the early plantings, though the work of cultivation was attended by much harder labour. The volcanic lands scattered throughout the northern peninsula, where not too stony, offered every advantage, and the extent to which the cultivation on these was carried on may be judged from the large areas on which the blocks of scoria have been gathered and piled into heaps to make room for the crop. Speaking generally, a light, porous soil was preferred, but, where this was not available, the land was improved by a layer of sand from the river-bed, or from wherever it could be got. In Waikato the clay land was often treated in this manner with sand from the pumice plains, where the pits from which the supply was procured are still to be seen."

In Shortland's Traditions and Superstitions of the New Zealanders occur the following remarks on native cultivation:—"Their knowledge of the art of horticulture was not inconsiderable; for they even employed the method of forming an artificial soil by mixing sand with the natural soil in order to make it light and porous, and so render it more suitable to the growth of the sweet potato. In parts of the Waikato district, where this plant was formerly much cultivated, the traveller frequently meets with large page 121excavations, from twenty to thirty feet in depth, like the gravel pits one is accustomed to see in England near public roads: and in reply to his enquiries, he learns to his surprise that they were formed by those who resorted there, year after year, to procure sand for manuring the ground in the manner described."

The writer has seen some huge pits in the Patea district of Taranaki from which sand or gravel was formerly obtained by natives.

In a paper on the Pelorus district written by Mr. J. Rutland, and published in Vol. 3 of the Journal of the Polynesian Society, occur the following remarks:—"When the Nelson settlement was founded, whole sections of land in the Waimea were almost entirely worthless owing to the many large irregular shaped pits, or 'Maori holes,' from which gravel had been taken by some former inhabitants, and spread over the adjacent ground some five or six inches deep. As land was thus prepared for the growing of kumara, and the raising, sifting and spreading of such a mass of gravel, with rude tools, and by human labour alone, implied generations of workers, agriculture must have been carried on in that portion of the country long before Cook re-discovered the Archipelago." It may here be observed that there is no evidence to show that the Maori ever sifted gravel used for the above purpose, though he rejected the larger stones thereof.

To the above account was added the following note:—"In Waimea West alone over two hundred acres of land at least was covered artificially with gravel, everywhere intermingled with black, peaty mould, though the adjacent land that had not been interfered with was light brown coloured, being generally deficient in humus."

The following interesting description of the above works has been supplied by Mr. F. V. Knapp, of Nelson, as also photographs of the gravel pits and other objects of interest. Regarding the suggestion that a sieve was used to separate the larger stones from the fine gravel, we have no information that such an implement was ever so employed by the Maori. Photographs of these gravel pits cannot be said to be satisfactory; like the remains of earthworks of old fortified villages the pits do not lend themselves to the art.