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The New Zealand Railways Magazine, Volume 5, Issue 7 (December 1, 1930)

Our First Plough

Our First Plough.

It is well to have reminders now and again of our beginnings as a nation, and especially of the pioneer dates in the work of breaking-in the wild country for civilised industry. This item is particularly worth remembrance, as brought before the attention of His Excellency the Governor-General lately. It was on the 3rd of May, 1820, that a plough was first put to the soil of New Zealand. This was at Kerikeri, Bay of Islands (the early page 46 pakeha chroniclers called it “Kiddi Kiddi”). The ploughman was a missionary, the Rev. John Butler, and the plough was drawn by a team of six bullocks, brought over from Sydney in H.M.S. Dromedary. “I trust,” Mr. Butler wrote, “that this auspicious day will be remembered with gratitude, and its anniversary kept by the ages yet unborn.”

Indeed it is an anniversary New Zealand should be profoundly glad to honour. That upturning of a furrow a hundred and ten years ago was a momentous thing for us— marking, as it did, the opening of a new era for these islands.