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The New Zealand Railways Magazine, Volume 10, Issue 5 (August 1, 1935)

Butler's New Zealand Life

Butler's New Zealand Life.

But there is a special interest for us this centenary year in some of Butler's earliest writings, his letters and articles contained in “A First Year in the Canterbury Settlement.” Here he describes his voyage to New Zealand, his travels about raw new Canterbury and his experiences on an up-country sheep run of his own. It is rather curious to find that these writings include a page 22 kind of guide to young settlers; some chapters could have been entitled “All About Sheep—What the New Chum Should Know,” and could have been issued by the Department of Agriculture—had there been such an office of the State seventy years ago—as a booklet for “The Man on the Land.” Butler at this time, in his vigorous young manhood, was full of enthusiasm for the free and simple life, and he found more than enough of both in his four years of rough pastoral work, and his exploration of new grazing country for his flocks.