Other formats

    Adobe Portable Document Format file (facsimile images)   TEI XML file   ePub eBook file  

Connect

    mail icontwitter iconBlogspot iconrss icon

The Pamphlet Collection of Sir Robert Stout: Volume 44

Notes on New Zealand Farming

page break

Notes on New Zealand Farming.

Since I have been in England and have conversed with farmers and others at their own firesides about agricultural life in New Zealand, I have seen a thousand times that naked statements of facts and figures about the price and quality of land there are often of little use. Some, who have never seen land that is not in a high state of cultivation, imagine that the land which they select in New Zealand at £2 per acre is in a similar condition to the farm on which they were bora. Such are hardly in a condition to understand and prepare for the real difficulties of beginning life on uncultivated land in a new country, or even to relish its romantic pleasures. Others again transfer all that they have read of American forests, or even of Indian jungle, to New Zealand, and allow their imagination to play around the subject until they picture a condition of solitude and clanger from man and beast, and separation from the comforts of civilized life, and white slavery generally, which appals them into the resolve of staying at home. The other day an intelligent farmer who had heard many statements about the prosperity of farmers in New Zealand, which he was quite unable to contradict, tried to tone down the effect of all that was said, by affirming that a New Zealand farmer was often fifty miles from the nearest post-office, and ten miles from the nearest church, and page 10 was in a condition of such solitude that, in giving up his social and religious privileges at home, he paid too much for his prosperity abroad. This objection would have considerable force if it were not, except in extreme oases, utterly untrue. Many others fail to see the advantages which the Colonies offer, from the limited range of their ideas about farming. They reason about agriculture in a country where land and sheep and cattle are cheap, where labour is four times the price ruling at home, and where the climate is such as to reduce the amount of labour required about two-thirds, as if as much labour were used and farming generally conducted the same way as here. One cannot wonder that such mistakes happen. Our habit is to reason from the known to the unknown; yet mistakes of this kind prevent many men who would make valuable settlers, and improve their own and their children's position in life, to an extent which is probably beyond their most sanguine hope, from venturing to break up their home and cross the seas. It is in the hope that I may clear up some difficulties of this kind, and help the farmer whose attention is turned toward the Colony, to intelligently understand how to use the facts which he will find elsewhere, that I write this paper.

Many difficulties would be solved by the careful study of a good map. Because we average only four people to the square mile in New Zealand, many seem to infer that no square mile can muster more than four residents. A good map shows that we are not scattered in ones or twos all over the country, but that we have millions of acres without inhabitant. Most of our settlements are on the coast line, and we encroach on the uncultivated territory gradually, like the incoming tide. Where we populate at all, we have, as a rule, good roads, convenient railway accommodation, sufficient neighbours, schools, and churches, and most other adjuncts of civilization practically as near as at home. Many families are deterred from going out lest they should find themselves beyond the reach of a medical man. There used to be a danger of that kind certainly. Many of the early missionaries combined surgery or dentistry with their more spiritual functions; but that state of things has passed away. I know New Zealand intimately, and am familiar also with some country parts of England in detail, and my opinion page 11 is that medical men are more easily reached in most country parts of New Zealand than at home. It would, in fact, be a good deal easier to find villages without schools, church, reading-room, and telegraph office in England than New Zealand, and no New Zealand settler need go far from a village unless he is determined to do so. In our remote up-country settlements you will generally find a local newspaper, containing London news only two or three days old. Many persons, on their arrival in New Zealand, make the mistake of lingering about the towns and cities instead of moving at once "up country." A pleasant surprise generally awaits such when at length they make the venture. They find themselves surrounded by the cultivated farms and beautiful homesteads of the early settlers, and mark the energy and hope and cheerfulness of the more recent arrivals. They soon feel at home, and, if at all suitable for colonization, adjust themselves readily to their new surroundings.

The glory of New Zealand is undoubtedly its climate. This is not the place to dwell in detail upon its charms for invalids of all classes, or the attractions it offers to the well-to-do, who have a keen relish for out-of-door pleasures, but are prisoners in England for half the year. If English people thoroughly understood that a climate better probably than that of Italy could be enjoyed under British rule, upon British territory, in the midst of the social and civil institutions which few Englishmen will sacrifice at any price, thousands more per year would be drawn to New Zealand for its climate only. But that is not my point just now. This matter of climate is very intimately connected with farming in its financial aspect. Our crops as a rule, can be safely harvested. Farming pursuits can be comfortably followed all the year round. The wheat return in New Zealand during the last five years averages about five bushels an acre more than in England for the same period, and that average yield is secured almost without manure and with a very sparing expenditure of labour. The quality of New Zealand wheat is already well-known in the English market, where it has been selling this winter at about 30 per cent, more than English wheat. This is a testimony to the New Zealand climate into which any English farmer can examine for himself. Such an average crop in quantity and quality bears its own page 12 witness to the superiority of the climate in which it is produced. The registered rainfall in New Zealand is less than in Devonshire, and more than in London, and when it is remembered that New Zealand abounds in rivers and streams of water it will be seen at once that there cannot be any danger of general drought and floods. Drought and floods are not unknown, but they are rare and always local. The charm of the New Zealand climate is its winter; summer there is but little warmer than here, but the average temperature in winter is nine degrees warmer. In the North Island, though there are mild frosts, ice thick enough for skating is unknown, and in the South Island skating is a form of luxury little known outside the rink. In my own garden in Napier, Hawkes Bay, my geraniums, fuchias, heliatropes, &c., flowered the whole of the winter in the open air, and from my fig trees I gathered two heavy fully ripened crops in one year. An English farmer finds it difficult to realize how little labour is needed to farm in such a climate. Horses, sheep and cattle live in the open air all the year round in five-sixths of New Zealand. One man can comfortably give to 2,000 sheep all the attention they ordinarily need. The labor required in England in growing root crops and hand feeding the cattle in winter is either wholly dispensed with in the colony, or is necessary to a very limited extent. A very considerable part of the labour required in an English farm is rendered necessary by the very severe English winter. We pay four and five times more wages in New Zealand to each labourer employed than is paid at home, but I question if on a farm of the same size more money is paid in wages there than here. If the English farmer had our climate and soil, he could well afford to double the wages of his men, for fewer men would be required. If in addition to our climate he obtained his land at one-tenth his present rental, with neither tithe nor poor rate, nor income-tax, even with produce at the present price he could pay his men a shilling an hour and grow rich. Such is about the condition of the farmer in New Zealand. The simplest explanation of colonial prosperity is this—the money which in England is divided between the landlord and the taxgatherer is there shared by the farmer, labourer, mechanic, tradesmen, and all concerned, The whole community feels the benefit.

page 13

In discussing the effect of the high rate of wages ruling in the colony upon farmer's profits, there are one or two other remarks which ought to be made. It should be noted that this enhances greatly the value of the farmer's own labour and that of his sons. A man feels the advantage of a change to colonial life in proportion as he can take out in addition to capital, workers in his own family circle. A working farmer in England cannot value his own labour at more than from 2s. 6d. to 3s. 6d. per day; the same work on a New Zealand farm would bring in three to four times the return. The difference in the earnings of a working family would alone amount to a good income. This is, beyond all others, the man for New Zealand. Nor is the high price of labour in the colony without other compensations. It stimulates the continual improvement of all labour-saving machinery. Few things astonish an English farmer upon his arrival more than a New Zealand agricultural show. He will not only see all the best and most modern English and American machinery, but also local improvements upon these. Again, horse labour is cheap in the colony. Not only is the cost of the horse considerably less but the value of its food is hardly appreciable. The field in which he grazes has probably been purchased at £10 to £12 per acre, and he needs but little corn or hay. I have often seen a team of horses plough an acre per day or more, week after week, and keep in capital heart and condition, with no food but grass. In such a case the man and his team taken together do not cost more there than here. Another compensation is that the colonist learns to help himself. This is one result of the price of labour in every department of colonial life. Few New Zealand farmers ever indulge in the luxury of a groom. "When a man is paid £2 per week, his master on coming home from a ride thinks twice before whistling him away from his work to come and unsaddle his horse. It occurs to him very naturally that he had perhaps better do it himself, and really he is not much worse for the exertion ! I find that much misapprehension exists at home as to the nature of the uncultivated land which may be bought at say £2 per acre. There is a common impression that it is generally heavily timbered, and involves an enormous expenditure of toil to clear. This page 14 is certainly not the rule in New Zealand. No man need have bush unless he prefers it. We have rather too little timber than too much. In many parts of New Zealand the settler has to buy his posts and rails for fencing. He who can secure on his land enough timber for fencing and firewood is usually considered to be fortunate. In the South Island this land is generally in rough grass, and costs nothing to clear. In the North Island, most of the unimproved land is in fern, growing from 4 to 6 feet high, and I have often seen a man with a box of matches and a scythe clear 30 to 50 acres in a day. Sometimes, when a settler is in haste to get grass, he sows the seeds among the ashes, after the fern has been burnt off, and I have seen many a beautiful field of grass and clover in the North Island which cost no more trouble than this. A tract of bush land often suits a capitalist who wishes to go into the timber trade, or a poor but strong and industrious man who splits his trees into posts and rails or firewood, and lives by selling his timber until his land is cleared; but no other man need choose a bush farm, nor will he find one, as a rule, without some trouble. It ought, perhaps, to be added that a farmer taking out capital, and with but little labour in his own circle, may easily buy in any part of New Zealand an improved farm in cultivation, with house and outbuildings, garden and orchard all ready to hand. This is not generally the result of failure but of success. Settlers, with large families especially, often prefer to sell out an improved farm and buy a larger block of unimproved land and begin again at the beginning for the sake of their children. Any New Zealand newspaper will be found to contain advertisements of such properties in the market at prices varying from £8 to £25 per acre—farms at the latter figure being equal, and in many respects superior to the choicest farms which are to be had in England. Runholders, too, sometimes cut up their properties already sown in English grass and partly fenced, in convenient blocks for farmers, and in most cases a considerable part of the purchase-money is allowed to remain on mortgage. I saw a property of this kind brought into the market in the province of Hawke's Bay in the early part of the year 1878. The farms were from three to five hundred acres each, and the price per acre ranged from £5 to £7, two-thirds of the purchase-money page 15 being allowed to remain at six per cent. This property consisted of excellent land within four miles of the railway on the main line between Napier and Wellington.

Many fears are expressed to me, lest there should be no permanent market in New Zealand for produce. Some think that too many farmers are finding their way out, and that the result will be that we shall have more meat than mouths. Such fears are the result of a misapprehension as to the kind of country New Zealand is. It is not, and never will be, a purely agricultural country. At no distant date it must become the factory for the Southern world All the materials for extensive manufacturing are there. Coal and iron abound. Our gold export has amounted to £33,000,000 during the last eighteen years. Nearly all minerals are known to be stored up in the earth and only await development. Already our manufacturers are becoming very extensive. One quarter of our population are congregated in four large and beautiful cities, each containing about 25,000 inhabitants. These are engaged chiefly in manufactories and commerce, and are all buyers and consumers of produce. Most trades are in full operation, and mechanics find ready employment at double and more than double English wages. Our exports per head of the population are already about three times those of England, and four times those of Canada. The impression in New Zealand is, that there are too few farmers, hence the special facilities offered for the introduction of more. Ordinary farm produce, such as milk, butter, eggs, cheese, &c., is worth about as much there as here. Meat is cheap, and is likely to continue so, but cattle and sheep are proportionately cheap, while the cost of keeping and feeding is quite insignificant. For our surplus produce, the markets of the world are open. New Zealand wheat, from its superior quality, is worth in the English market as much more than English wheat as about pays the whole cost of bringing it across the water. Wool can be sent home to England for about 1d. per pound; nor has the New Zealand settler much real trouble in getting his produce to market. England has no better roads than many of our roads in New Zealand. Most farmers yonder are practically as near the railway as they might hope to be in England. Eleven hundred miles of railway are in full operation, and page 16 main lines are being extended and new branch lines opened every year. The railways terminate at the ports where from three to five ships load for Great Britain every week, and a still greater number for the Australian colonies, and most parts of the civilized world. The New Zealand settler can send his produce home, and prosper at prices which to the English farmer are ruinous. It is surprising that so many under these circumstances are afraid to venture out to the colonies. The wonder is that they are not afraid to do anything else. It will easily be seen that New Zealand farming may be made as pleasant as profitable. The work-worn look which some of our settlers are supposed to wear, is the result of the successful endeavour, on the part of a hardworking man without capital to secure what would be impossible in most countries—a freehold farm of some hundreds of acres. The man with capital may secure more comfort and less care than in England in all respects but one, he will have to do with fewer servants. New Zealand is a delightful country for farming of a better sort. Its flowers and shrubs are gloriously beautiful, and fruit of all kinds abundant. In the North Island oranges can be ripened in sunny spots, lemons grow plentifully, while figs, peaches, grapes, apricots and all fruits of this class are found in profusion, which is sometimes almost bewildering. The culture of the vine for wine making will doubtless be followed to a considerable extent as the population increases, so also will tobacco culture. All the ordinary and more hardy English fruits, as apples, pears, gooseberries, currants, &c., abound. Many of the best breeds of sheep, cattle, and horses are there. For many years, as those who have been in the habit of attending the fairs and markets know, the best of English stock has been exported to the colonies. I may mention as an evidence of the attention which is paid to horse stock, that racing is indulged in to an enormous extent in the colony. The rivers abound with fish, and the woods with game, yet the country is without a single wild beast or venomous reptile. So that in a very few years, when the hard preliminary work of making a farm reproductive is over, life may be made thoroughly enjoyable. I have seen no part of the world so suggestive of abundance, and even luxury in the best sense, as some of the districts in New Zealand page 17 which have been in cultivation from ten to twenty years. To a capitalist who cannot satisfy himself on the subject without personal inspection, I should emphatically advise a voyage out for that purpose. If he did not decide after such investigation to transfer himself to the colony, the trip out and home would be a pleasant experience in his lifetime, and would be well worth the money. I have hardly met with anyone however, who has seen New Zealand and could be content to live elsewhere. Thoughtful men who read this paper will probably be convinced that land in New Zealand which, when cultivated, has cost the owner from £8 to £20 per acre, according to quality and neighbourhood, is really worth as much per acre, in the income it will yield, as land in England which even now sells at from £50 to £125 per acre. I hold this opinion very strongly. A very successful farmer in Lincolnshire told me the other day that he had recently received a letter from a relative who was farming in Canterbury, New Zealand, detailing the produce of his farm and the price which the produce realized, and that he found, on comparison, that his relative abroad was making as large a return per acre from land which had cost no more than £10 as he could obtain from land which had cost about ten times the price. This is no unusual circumstance, it is the rule rather than the exception. If a New Zealand farmer can secure a larger return in wheat with much less labour than in England, and the wheat sells here at a price which, after paying the cost of transit, leaves the grower nearly as much for his trouble as the English farmer gets, it is easy to see that the land in New Zealand, whatever it costs, is worth as much for agricultural purposes as the land here. Again: six sheep in New Zealand nearly equal in quality cost no more than one sheep here. Those six sheep can be easily grazed and tended within the cost for the same purposes of one sheep in England, yet the wool can be brought to England for 1d. per lb. Take the case of a dairy farmer. He can purchase near enough to a New Zealand town a good dairy farm in working order at say £13 to £25 per acre. A good cow costs about £9. His life in that sunny climate is holiday as compared with a dairyman's life here. He can sell all his milk readily at 4d. to 6d. per quart. Is it possible to exaggerate the advantages such a man possesses in New Zealand as compared with a similar position on this side the world?

page 18

This short paper supposes that the reader has gone to other sources for information about New Zealand. Its object is to guide the reader to a right understanding of the facts which he may find elsewhere. The subject will bear a strict and searching inquiry—the more searching and thorough the better. If only our farmers who wish to settle their children in life and can see no hope of doing it here, and our young men and women who have yet to shape their way in the world, knew and realized the advantages which New Zealand offers, no argument would be needed to induce them to make these advantages their own. The charm of this colony is that the financial gains it offers to suitable classes do not involve any civil, religious, social, or educational sacrifice. It is in the best sense English to the very heart. The advantages which New Zealand offers to the steady, industrious, intelligent farmer, whether with much capital or little, are hardly capable of exaggeration. Let no man hope for success without thrift and energy, and especially some power of adaptation; but with these he can hardly fail. The writer numbers among his acquaintances and friends scores of farmers in a position of comfortable independence whose beginning he saw ton to twelve years ago with little or no money, and whose progress he has watched with delight year by year. There are thousands of people in the agricultural counties of England who can see no hope of improving their condition here, and can hardly keep together the savings of past years, who might do as well as those referred to above, by going to work in the same way. Let not such thrust the opportunity aside without satisfactory reasons.

The possibility of serious trouble with the natives of New Zealand is practically at an end. They are outnumbered by the Europeans by ten to one, so that, if they were disposed to fight, they could not hope to do so successfully. But they are not so disposed. As a people they are loyal to the British throne, and friendly to the settlers. Info and property are undoubtedly as safe in every part of New Zealand as anywhere in Her Majesty's dominions.

The condition of farming interests in England at present is so dreary, and the prospect as to the future so blank, that the attention of the better informed among page 19 the farmers is very generally turned towards the colonies. Such can have no real difficulty in obtaining reliable information about New Zealand. Good books on the subject abound. Nearly every village in England probably has representatives in some part or other of the colony. Letters narrating the prosperity and happiness of these are continually coming home to friends, and are widely read and talked about. The testimony which these letters contain is all but unanimously in favour of New Zealand. Now and then a successful colonist comes home on a visit, and friends and neighbours hear from his own lips the story of his good fortune. Such is the effect, that tens of thousands more would go, but for one thing—they dread the water. A voyage of 14,000 miles is to them an insuperable difficulty. It is not because they know so much about life on the sea that they feel this dread, but because they know so little. There is no good reason why a long sea voyage should be regarded with the fear and shrinking which are so common. The vast majority of those who have actually experienced it speak of it as a holiday and a delight. Fine weather is the rule. The voyage by sailing ship usually lasts about ninety days. It is quite a common thing for ships to go out without a serious gale of wind. During two-thirds of the voyage the ship is in or near the tropics—the region of perpetual summer. Sea-sickness seldom continues longer than a week or ten days, and is not serious to one person in five hundred. A passenger going first class and paying about £50 can live as well in all respects as in a good hotel. The time is pleasantly varied by reading, music, and all sorts of games. By steamer, across America or viâ Australia, the voyage may be accomplished in six or eight weeks, though for families, or for persons of limited means or in delicate health, the long sea route is preferable. The risk to life ought hardly to be seriously considered. If the benefit to health on the part of those who travel is considered, the voyage is a gain to life, and not a loss. The report of the New Zealand Shipping Company, for the year ending last June, stated that they had sent 63 ships to New Zealand and back without losing one. Half the danger of the whole voyage is in the English Channel; when that is safely passed, there is little need for fear.

page 20

Hints to Intending Colonists.

1. I am frequently asked which is the best part of New Zealand to select. Except in the case of large families, this is a matter of little importance. If the emigrant does not like the part at which he happens to land, it is easy by railway or steamboat to move to another. A man with capital, and in search of a freehold property, will generally do well to travel through New Zealand, and judge for himself, before settling down. This can be done in about a month or even less.

2. It is not wise, as a rule, to take out more luggage than is absolutely necessary. If a farmer have a stock of the very best modem implements on hand, and cannot dispose of them here without considerable sacrifice, it may be well to take them. It is never wise to buy them to take out, they can be bought in New Zealand at a price which amounts to little more than the cost of importation added to the price here. American machinery is probably nearly as cheap there as in England. It is absurd to take out furniture, or more clothing than is actually required. Household furniture and clothing of all kinds are manufactured there, and sold at no serious advance on English cost. Especially does this apply to all kinds of woollen goods and boots and shoes, which are very extensively manufactured in New Zealand.

3. For a more detailed description of New Zealand, the reader is recommended to secure a copy of the "New Zealand Handbook;" it is published by Mr. E. Stanford, of Charing Cross, but may be ordered through any bookseller or obtained on application to "the Agent-General for New Zealand, 7, Westminster Chambers, London, S.W.," at a cost of 1s. 6d., or, including postage, 1s. 11d. The reader should note, however, that in matters which are capable of fluctuation, such as price of land, wages, stock, miles of railway, it is about five years behind current dates. Nor is the "Lands Act of 1877" embodied in its pages. As a general description of the country, including a mass of information of the kind an intelligent, practical man wants to know, it is the best book to be had.