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The New Zealand Railways Magazine, Volume 6, Issue 6 (December 1, 1931)

Sand for the Kumara Patch

Sand for the Kumara Patch.

Many railway travellers have noticed those great round excavations in the sandy delta plains just south of Ngaruawahia, where the Waikato and the Waipa meet, and have speculated on their origin. All kinds of theories have been advanced by visitors. An Englishman took them for shell craters. The most remarkable diagnosis I have heard came from an erudite lady, who explained that she had been informed they were holes, made by the Maoris in the war-time to pro-tect themselves from the fire of British rifles.

These sand-pits were delved out by the Maoris of old time, but not for dug-outs, nor yet for funk-holes. No, not so. They are runs for sand supplies for the sweet potato, otherwise the kumara (and please don't spell it with an “e”).

The kumara was in other days grown in very large areas over this fruitful plain, and a necessary item in the soil composition was sand. Vast quantities of sand were dug out of the plain near the river, and were used in its kumara fields. Sand, as all gardeners know, helps to keep a plant warm. It was put around the kumara in small heaps (ahuahu) and it protected the semi-tropic plant from severe frosts at night, and gathered the heat of the sun by day, besides giving a necessary element to the soil. So in time the sand-shifting, done by working-bees of men, women and children, pitted all the flat land with round ruas—many of which remain to-day, though many have been filled in—memorials to the old industrious age.