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The Cyclopedia of New Zealand [Auckland Provincial District]

[introduction]

Digging for kauri gum is one of the rare industries of the world, and is carried on chiefly in the northern districts of the province of Auckland. The kauri gum itself is the solidified sap of a species of pine tree which is said to be indigenous to the North Island of New Zealand. The tree, once seen, can never be mistaken for any other of the same family. It is never found in the volcanic soils, but is confined almost entirely to the clay soils, and to the sandy loams. Its trunk frequently rises to a height of upwards of 100 feet, straight, smooth, and imperceptibly decreasing in girth until it spreads into branches. Trees from eight to twelve feet through are not uncommon. They are of soft wood, of slow growth, and the timber is easily worked. The trunk of the kauri exudes gum, but it is the top of the tree that is the main source of supply. The gum, as sap, adheres to the bark, and forms into lumps, which drop off by their own weight, or the action of the weather, and get buried in the soil. However, it often happens that cavities in the trees themselves become receptacles for the oozing sap. This is termed bush gum, and is obtained by climbing the trees, not by digging. Bush gum is not so valuable as that which has been buried for a long
Photo by Dr. Logar Cambell. Kauri Tree.

Photo by Dr. Logar Cambell.
Kauri Tree.

time in the ground. Kauri trees are now found only in the northern portion of the North Island of New Zealand, but they are supposed to have flourished in the south during the remote past. As the kauri is slow of growth, long-lived, and of great size, and as gum on the northern gumfields has been, and still is, found at different depths in enormous quantities, the conclusion is that hundreds, nay, thousands of years ago, the face of the country was covered with magnificent kauri forests. Yet to-day the prevailing vegetation on an average gumfield consists, if the land is dry, of scrub and fern; if it is wet, of rushes, and the general aspect is that of a treeless waste. Here and there a charred stump or a mound of earth indicates where the latest survivors of the forest have stood, and all around, the soil, whatever it may have been formerly, is now almost without nutritious properties. It consists chiefly of sand, mixed on the surface with a decayed vegetable matter, and underneath it is generally as hard as concrete, and impervious to water. Some of the gum country is in private hands, and a royalty on the gum or conditions of some sort must be arranged between the proprietor and the diggers before the latter commence work. But most of the gum-bearing land is still owned by the Government, and may generally be worked by obtaining a gum license from the local body. The gum is obtained at depths varying from a few inches to several feet, and the pieces vary in size from a hazel nut to sixty and seventy pounds in weight. Subterranean supplies, different in age from those found near the surface, have already produced large quantities. Gum is prepared for market by being scraped, and if it is perfectly clean and of good quality, it is sold as re-scraped or first-class gum at nearly double the price of ordinary or half-scraped gum. Other grades are designated three-quarter-scraped, interior ordinary, and washed nuts. Much is done to the gum after it reaches the hands of the Auckland gum merchants, who employ a large number of men in sifting, sorting, and grading it into all the classes and qualities enumerated in the sale lists of New York or London. Since the industry began the provincial district of Auckland has produced gum worth £10,000,000, and still produces it regularly to the value of about £500,000 a year. This gives to the seven or eight thousand men employed in the industry wages averaging from 15s to 40s per week, and as there are nearly 2,000,000 acres of gumbearing land, it is not likely that the supply will be soon exhausted. All the gum raised in Auckland goes to America, England, or Germany, where it is manufactured into varnish, and as kauri gum is an important constituent in the best varnishes, Auckland practically holds a monopoly, which will no doubt by-and-by give rise to an important colonial industry.
Another Kauri Tree.

Another Kauri Tree.