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Title: William Soltau Davidson, 1846-1924 : a sketch of his life covering a period of fifty-two years, 1864-1916, in the employment of the New Zealand and Australian Land Company Limited.
Author: Davidson, William Soltau
Published: Oliver & Boyd, Edinburgh, 1930
By permission of] [Messrs Jackson, Wylie dt Co., Glasgow William Soltau Davidson From Portrait by Sir James Guthrie, 1918
William Soltau Davidson 1846 —1924
A Sketch of his Life covering a period of fifty-two years, 1864-1916, in the employment of the New Zealand and Australian Land Company Limited
Printed for Private Circulation by
Oliver & Boyd, Tweeddale Court, Edinburgh
8
Contents
Page
Introductory 5
Cultivation 21
Corriedale Sheep 23
Dairy Factory, Frozen Meat, etc. 29
Rabbits 47
Stock-Feed and Meat-Preserving 63
Horses and Cattle 65
The Estates belonging to the Canterbury Company 75
The Amalgamation 91
Australian Estates 109
Western Australia 149
Management 153
3
Introductory
AS my jubilee period of fifty years in the employment of the two companies now amalgamated and continued under the name of the New Zealand and Australian Land Company was completed in September 1915, it has struck me that a rough sketch of my experiences with the companies would, at any rate, be of interest to myself if not to a few others who may care to look back on the life and history of what I believe has grown to be the largest pastoral company in existence.
My story will be devoid of thrilling experiences such as fall to the lot of settlers in countries peopled by hostile tribes or overrun by savage animals, and practically the chief enemy we have had to contend against has been adverse seasons —that is, if adverse taxation is excluded. I fear, too, my remarks must be more or less egotistical, as my business life has been so closely interwoven with that of the Company’s.
I have frequently been struck with the extraordinary way in which the accidents of life entirely alter plans and programmes previously settled on, and it was by the merest chance that I ever entered the service of the Land Company.
As a lad of nineteen I was learning business habits and book-keeping in a merchant's office, which work did not appeal to me, and I suggested to my
c
6
Introductory
father that an outdoor life was much more to my taste, and that I was anxious to go abroad in order to secure this. The Argentine was then attracting attention, and as a family friend who was the owner of an estancia in Buenos Ayres happened to be in Edinburgh at the time, I was able to obtain full information about what was then a comparatively new country to British investors. In the end it was arranged that I should return with our friend to Buenos Ayres, where everything seemed promising excepting that periodic revolutions were troublesome, and generally resulted in a loss of horses, which were commandeered without payment by the contending parties. However, the sheep were seldom interfered with, and the money value of the horses taken was not great. In order to prepare myself for my new life, I arranged to take lessons in Spanish until we sailed.
However, after my fate was practically settled, my father chanced to visit Glasgow, and on his return journey happened to get into the same compartment in the train as was occupied by Mr James Morton, the well-known financier. Knowing that Mr Morton had many irons in the fire, my father asked him if he could give me one or two notes of introduction which might be useful to me in Buenos Ayres. In response Mr Morton asked why I had selected Argentina to go to, when New Zealand was such an infinitely better country to start life in; and by the time Edinburgh was reached my father was much impressed by what Mr Morton told him about that colony, and was also influenced by the fact that I would remain under the British flag if I went there. I had quite an open mind regarding
7
Introductory
the country I should select as my future home, and willingly accepted Mr Morton’s offer to enter the service of the Canterbury and Otago Association in New Zealand, which was a land company he had just started; and by adopting this change of plans I escaped being involved in the troubled times and financial difficulties which brought grief to my friend after he returned to the Argentine. My lessons in Spanish were abandoned and I devoted myself to preparing for my voyage to the little-known colony at the Antipodes.
Nothing makes me marvel more at the changes which have taken place during the past half-century than comparing my journey to New Zealand in 1865 with the voyage which can now be made in stately liners of 13,000 or 14,000 tons with twin screws and luxurious accommodation of every description. The docks at Wellington, in New Zealand, are now often a sight to which Britishers may well feel proud, as they are lined with long rows of magnificent steamships waiting to carry wool, dairy produce, and often 100,000 or more frozen sheep each, to England. When I first went to New Zealand, and for many years after, there was not a single steamship plying between that colony and home ports, and the only steamers connected with the colony were diminutive coasters and a few small and very uncomfortable steamers which ran to and fro between New Zealand and Australia. All the produce of the country was carried to Europe in sailing ships, many of which were of the Aberdeen clipper class and were very fast sailers, there being considerable rivalry amongst the captains regarding the length of the passages made. These vessels always went to New Zealand
8
Introductory
via the Cape of Good Hope and returned via Cape Horn.
I took my passage in the Celoeno, a full-rigged ship of 702 tons register, and had to provide all the bedding and fittings for my cabin, and also linen and soap. She was a beautiful little ship and a pretty sight when all her twenty-six sails were set. We were eight passengers all told, of whom three were young fellows about my own age. We formed what was called the “poop-watch” and became quite smart in our assumed duty of working the sails on the mizen-mast, going so far as to go aloft and stow canvas. Indeed I used to spend much time aloft, and was greatly impressed by the beauty of our ship as seen from the royal yard, especially when she had all sails set and looked as if she must upset when heeling over to a stiff breeze and rushing through the water. It was fortunate that we went aloft so frequently, as one day one of our “poop-watch,” who was up the rigging, called out to me that he saw four ships close together. They could not be seen from deck, so I fetched my telescope and, going aloft with the captain, discovered the ships to be the rocky points of a small island, which turned out to be that of St Paul, which lies close to the equator, midway between America and Africa. The ship’s new chronometer was eight minutes wrong, and the captain was 145 miles out in his reckoning, and said he might have run our ship ashore had we approached land at night or in thick weather. By seeing this island he was able to correct the ship’s position, and afterwards checked his reckoning by taking many observations.
I went on board the Celoeno at Gravesend on 18th September 1865, but we were unable to sail until the
Introductory
20th, as the cook engaged failed to appear and the captain had to go to London to find another, the ship meantime being kept waiting ! We soon ran into rough weather, when our small ship “knocked about” tremendously, to my complete discomfiture, but in about three days I had got my sea-legs and remained well for the rest of the voyage. We encountered too much calm weather, on the whole; but, on the other hand, we experienced numerous squalls and a very strong gale south of the Cape of Good Hope, when the captain said the sea was as rough as he had ever seen it. For about a couple of days we ran under almost bare poles, and the officer of the watch and the steersman were lashed to the wheel, and stood with their faces looking over the stern, so as to keep the ship as nearly as possible at right angles to the mountainous seas rolling up majestically behind us, and looking as if they would engulf our ship entirely. When the wind moderated, our vessel rolled so seriously that the studding-sail booms frequently dipped into the sea, and sometimes the ends of the yards themselves.
We carried a few sheep, pigs, and fowls to provide fresh meat now and then, and we had roots as vegetables. We had also to carry fresh water, the use of which was carefully restricted. A bathroom was an unknown luxury, and the best tubbings we had were on deck, when heavy tropical rainstorms supplied most welcome fresh water shower-baths. I mention
these comparatively trifling experiences to show the primitive conditions under which people going to and coming from New Zealand had to travel half a century ago as compared with stepping on board a huge liner nowadays and being conveyed in much luxury at fifteen knots or more an hour-—or in about forty-five days—
'J
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Introductory
to the other side of the world. I sailed from Gravesend in the Celceno on 20th September and reached Port Chalmers, near Dunedin, on 30th December 1865, the voyage being thus completed in one hundred and one days.
On landing I went to visit some relations who had a valuable estate in the south of Otago, and there I obtained my first glimpse of pastoral life in New Zealand. I then proceeded to Timaru in a wretched coasting steamer, and landed in a surf-boat worked with ropes and a stationary engine on the beach. At that time all vessels lay in the open roadstead, but now there is a large harbour built at great expense in the face of the huge breakers which the Pacific frequently rolls up on the beach.
I found Timaru little more than a village, and if I had purchased town lots at that time I would have made a small fortune, as the township has now grown into an important and thriving city. The Levels estate lay adjacent to the town, the homestead being seven miles away, and on reaching it I found the manager, Mr Hassell, had barely completed taking delivery of the station, which had only been recently purchased by the Canterbury and Otago Association, the company into whose service I had entered, and which was founded in 1865. The first Annual Report of this company was published in 1866, when the capital amounted to £218,840, and the following three estates were held ;—
Freehold. Leasehold. Total Land. Acres. Acres. Acres. Sheep.
The Levels, embracing . 6,317 146,744 153,061 carrying 85,352
Pareora, „ . . 14,440 7,000 21,440 „ 17,580
Acton, „ . . 7,926 64,084 72,010 „ 27,987
28,683 217,828 246,511 „ 130,919
All of these estates were in the province of Canterbury.
17
Introductory
The best of the sheep were valued at about 205., the average being about 15s. per head.
In May 1868 the Canterbury and Otago Association purchased the Hakateramea and Deep Dell leasehold runs, the former being situated in Canterbury and the latter in Otago. The sheep stock were thus increased to a total of 306,202, of which
102,061 were carried on The Levels.
20,360 „ „ Pareora,
42,078 „ „ Acton,
85,476 „ „ Hakateramea.
56,227 „ „ Deep Dell.
306,202
When I first went to The Levels it was quite unimproved, there being only twenty-six miles of fencing on it. There was, however, a good homestead—which had recently been erected by the vendor, the late Mr George Rhodes—surrounded by a small plantation of blue gums, which were the only trees growing on the 153,000 acres with the exception of some native bush, which was to be found in a few gullies and which for a time served as firewood. There was a substantial house at the Cave out-station, but beyond these improvements the whole property was in its natural condition. There were no roads, but only tracks where there are now scores of miles of formed and metalled roads. Even in its leasehold days it was one of the most valuable estates in New Zealand, and when later on it was mostly converted into freehold and was highly improved, it was probably worth more money than any single holding in the colony.
In 1866 the flock consisted entirely of merino sheep, which were grazed on the native grass and produced a splendid clip of wool, although the fattening
18
Introductory
capabilities of the natural pasturage were not great. To maintain the quality of the sheep, a good stud flock supplied suitable rams, and now and then costly stud sheep were purchased to raise the standard of quality.
Under the guidance of a first-rate architect and carpenter called Manson the plans and specifications for a large wool-shed were drawn up, and I profited much by closely watching the drawing of these plans, as I was able later on to draw plans and specifications for another wool-shed and various buildings. Soon after I arrived it was also decided that the Australian system of washing the wool on the sheep’s backs before shearing should be followed. The manager of The Levels, Mr Hassell, had had experience of sheepwashing in Australia, and he planned a system whereby one of the rivers on the estate was tapped and the water led to the boilers for heating, and to the baths for washing the sheep. Large drying paddocks were enclosed so as to allow three days for the drying of the fleeces after washing, and matters went fairly well during one or two shearings, but then a heavy flood in the river overflowed the low banks and all the washing plant was ruined or swept away. Thus ended the attempt to wash the sheep ; and indeed it should never have been entertained, as the water supply was unreliable and the strong winds raised so much dust that the snow-white sheep often became more or less grey by the time their fleeces were dry enough to shear. Eventually the wool-shed, which was a very large one, was removed to a more convenient situation alongside the railway which later on was run through the property.
After about a couple of years' work undertaking a
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Introductory
shepherd’s duties I was promoted to the post of overseer at the Cave out-station, which was situated about fifteen miles from the homestead, and there I had very hard and constant sheep-work.
When entering on this position I had a serious undertaking to face in the burning of the long grass, which was quite unsuitable for sheep-feed and which covered about 60,000 acres at the upper and highest portions of the run. My predecessor avoided the risk of lighting a fire, which when started could not be controlled, and which might possibly have been carried down to the pastures covered with the flocks, when the results would have been disastrous. I was in dread lest some traveller might kindle the grass, and could not rest until, with the shepherds, I had made firebreaks about ten miles long to safeguard the low country carrying the sheep. This was done by burning two narrow parallel strips and then setting fire to the grass between, thus creating a broad band of burnt country. When the few stray sheep which grazed on this wild vegetation—where the snow grass and rough vegetation were up to a man's middle —were collected, I rode across the block and dropped matches, thus starting a number of fires. There was little wind when I set the first fire a-going, but almost immediately a dry nor'-west gale started, and in a very short time the whole of the country-side, with its high hills and rugged gullies, was covered by a roaring, rushing conflagration, the magnificence of which, especially when darkness fell, I shall never forget. Every now and then when the flames licked up an extra rough growth in a swampy gully there was added to the hissing and crackling of the fire the squeals of some unfortunate wild pigs which had been caught in their
20
Introductory
lairs. All went well and next day I was delighted to see these thousands of acres all black, and I was able to sleep comfortably without the dread of a fire breaking out.
A curious feature of this fire was that after the smoke had rolled in black clouds over Timaru, about eighteen miles away, and passed out to sea, it in the evening fell into a lower stratum of air, which brought the smoke right back to the town and there left burnt ferns and leaves.
After this the annual burning of grass was easily enough controlled, as the long grass was only in patches. One had sometimes alarms, however, and I remember one night a shepherd came to tell me that there was a fire on the Opawa Hill. I saw the reflection in the sky and immediately dressed and galloped off, only to discover after riding a few miles that the “fire ” was nothing more than a fine example of the Aurora Australis.
For some time the outside boundaries of the estate remained unfenced, and our sheep were only kept apart from our neighbours by the constant patrolling of shepherds up and down the boundaries. The result was that when the sheep were mustered there was usually a number of sheep to return to other owners, who were always present at draftings to claim what belonged to them.
At the Cave I had very hard work, having charge of all the mustering, and had under me about a dozen of as fine specimens of Scotch shepherds— Highland as heather—as could be found anywhere, their dogs being worthy of their masters. I allowed each shepherd three dogs and a puppy, and often when we returned from mustering there were upwards of
21
Introductory
thirty collies about the Cave out-station, and as the houses were built right alongside the main tract to the west, it was a bad lookout for anyone driving past with restive horses, as generally the whole pack rushed after the buggy with hideous din. I had so many complaints on the subject that in the end I insisted on all dogs being kept tied up when not in use. Until the run was enclosed and subdivided the assistance of these expert shepherds was most essential, as The Levels was a difficult run to muster owing to there being much broken country with sharp, deep gullies, very dangerous for smothering wild merino sheep, which, when in large numbers, often careered blindly on when they got “on the run.” I remember a neighbour once lost about 1500 sheep in as many minutes in a gully, as there was no shepherd at the proper place at the proper moment to check them. Seeing that they were worth about 20s. per head, it was a heavy loss. We did all our mustering on foot, starting at daylight in order to catch the chief mobs on their camps; and it was a point of honour with me to walk as well, and as far, as my long-legged shepherds. Merino sheep climb to the. tops of hills each evening to sleep, which habit, I imagine, is a relic of their former wild nature, when doubtless their instinct taught them that there was less risk of being caught unawares by beasts of prey if they camped on the crown of the hill.
Even in these primitive days strikes were not unknown, and I was immensely grieved when I had to part with my shepherds for a very trivial cause. One of the leading men came to me one day with the complaint that they only had cold mutton for breakfast, while on the neighbouring station the men were served
22
Introductory
with hot chops every morning. I told him they might have chops when convenient, but for early starts cold meat was preferable. This did not meet the demands of the men ; and having once asked for hot chops, the proud Highland spirit was not to be put off with cold shoulder! They knew how much I valued their services, and doubtless thinking I would give way, they all gave notice that they would leave unless I met their wishes. This put my back up—as the reason was so trivial—and I declined to give in. At the end of the month's notice they came to say good-bye to me, and I firmly believe they were just as sorry to go as I was to lose them. I corresponded with one or two of them after they left, and had they been able to sink their pride they would have returned.
Such was our primitive, hard-working but happy pastoral life during the first four years of my sojourn at The Levels. But a great change was rapidly approaching, as the advance of settlement was driving in the thin end of the wedge of further development.
About 1870 small farmers commenced to look out for farms, and all good leaseholds began to be threatened. The land laws in the province of Canterbury, where lay the estates of the Canterbury and Otago Association, were simple, and in my opinion have proved themselves to be as good as, or better than, any other land code I have been brought in contact with. Anyone could inspect any leasehold land on any run, and if he discovered a block of land to suit him, all he had to do was to go to the Christchurch or Tiinaru Land Office and enter his application, which was duly recorded as regards time and was sketched on the public map, the only
23
Introductory-
restriction being that the shape of the block had to conform to certain regulations laid down. There was no limit to the area purchasable, but the minimum was fixed at twenty acres. After applying for the land the application was submitted to the Land Board, and if the price of forty shillings per acre had been duly paid and the block was within the regulations as regards shape, a certificate of title was immediately granted to the purchaser. In this way the Company’s leaseholds in Canterbury were open to invasion by land buyers, and The Levels, with its huge area of excellent and accessible agricultural land, was specially liable to purchase.
In the year 1869 Mr John Hunter, one of the directors of the Big Company —as we used to designate the old New Zealand and Australian Land Company—came out to New Zealand and visited the estates of the Canterbury and Otago Association. He arranged an alteration in the management and control of the properties belonging to the latter company, whereby Mr Donald M‘Lean, who had managed the Acton run as part owner since it was purchased, was transferred to The Levels as manager of it, and superintendent of all the estates, and I was appointed as his assistant. The former manager of The Levels resigned his position, and a new manager was appointed at Acton. This was an excellent move, as the superintendence of the estates was taken out of the hands of the mercantile agents, who were without the necessary practical knowledge to enable them to properly control the expenditure and the working of the runs. Mr M‘Lean, who was well up in years when appointed to this position, was a shrewd and reliable adviser, with considerable experience in sheep
17
c
Introductory
farming. I had the greatest regard for him, and we worked together most harmoniously.
Soon after he came to The Levels land-buying increased greatly and runholders left no stone unturned in order to find money with which to convert their leasehold—or, at any rate, the best of their leasehold—into freehold, thus securing any costly improvements they had introduced and saving their properties from disintegration.
With free selection of land at £2 per acre everyone had the same opportunity to buy, and a leaseholder ran the risk of waking any morning to find the eyes picked out of his run by some outsider who had taken a fancy to the land. In this way the anxiety of the squatters was maintained at fever heat.
There was plenty of land for everyone, but as it was a case of “first come, first served,” the main object was to buy early and so secure the best land.
I have often been amused by the bluff put up by men who had difficulty in securing the wherewithal to buy their leasehold, and who therefore declared for public consumption there was not an acre on their runs worth anything approaching £2. I remember meeting a proprietor one day who endeavoured to persuade me as well as himself that this was his fortunate position, but only a week after he told me with much satisfaction that “he had been able to raise the wind” and had just bought about 1000 acres of “as splendid land as was to be found in the province ” and the balance of his run was only “ rubbish.” Probably a second or third edition of this story was given, dependent on the possibility of borrowing more money, which was, as a rule, freely lent by the banks for land buying. The securing of the best of the land on our properties, and especially on The
25
Introductory
Levels, became a great anxiety, and this work Mr M‘Lean practically handed over entirely to me. In order to overtake it I had to learn the use first of a prismatic compass and then of a theodolite.
The puzzle was how to retain a large estate with only a limited sum of money to work with. Naturally the first step was to maintain the working capabilities of each estate by securing the choicest portions of the country, and then to proceed with the buying of less attractive land as the demand rendered this advisable.
I was extraordinarily lucky—though I had some narrow escapes —in securing the most important blocks by degrees, and later on, at the time of the amalgamation of the two companies, I put the finishing touches on my work by purchasing the second-rate land intervening, so as to consolidate the whole. When the rush for land was in full force, this work was the most anxious, and I may say exciting, I ever engaged in, more especially as after many of my purchases a halt was called by the agents who had to supply the cash, and I was forced to give them breathing time. When I considered that their protests had cooled down sufficiently, I made a fresh start in buying, until I was once more pulled up. It was fortunate that at that time the Company had a big financier as general manager at home, with whom the meeting of bills for a few extra tens of thousands of pounds was a trifle! Indeed the buying of the land on the estates in Canterbury was the saving of the present Company’s position after the amalgamation, as the increased value of this freehold served to fill up the many deficiencies discovered in the value of the assets in the old New Zealand and Australian Land Company.
When the Canterbury and Otago Association
26
Introductory
purchased their estates the total freehold amounted to 28,683 acres, and when the amalgamation took place in 1877 the area had been increased to 103,349 acres, practically the whole of which increase 1 personally selected and purchased for the Company at £2 per acre, the cost being about £150,000.
27
Cultivation
WHEN I went to The Levels in January 1866 there was no cultivation, but soon the manager made a bold plunge and ploughed up about forty acres and put it under grain! This wonderful enterprise was the talk of Timaru for a time, and w r hen the grain was ripening the townspeople were wont to drive out on Saturday afternoons to see the crop !
From the start the Pareora estate consisted mostly of freehold, and about 1867 it was decided that agricultural operations should be commenced on a large scale, and a special overseer was appointed to supervise this branch. The object was to put the land under English grass, and so nearly treble the carrying capacity. At that time I had nothing to do with Pareora, but I remember pitying the staff, who were involved in husbandry, while we at The Levels still pursued the more Arcadian and pleasant life of the pastoralist pure and simple. Our turn was soon coming, however, as once a considerable area of freehold was acquired on The Levels, it was evident it would not pay to run merino sheep on land which cost 40s. per acre, and, much against our inclinations, the plough had to be resorted to.
By this time (in the year 1869) there was a considerable number of small farmers in The Levels district, and in order to reduce the risks attending cultivation the aid of these men, much to their
28
Cultivation
advantage, was called in, and for many a day thousands of acres were tilled annually by what we called “ cropping contractors.”
The main object was to put as much land under English grass as quickly as possible, the first conditions of contract being that the farmers should be allowed two white crops and 10s. per acre in cash, to pay for their labour and the grass seed, which was generally sown with the second grain crop. Later on a rent of 20s. per acre was charged by the Company for being allowed to take one grain crop after two ploughings, the land being left in stubble. After this the land was again ploughed at the Company’s expense, and was either sown out in grass or a crop of roots was taken. When this system of cultivation was in full swing, as much as 8000 acres, on The Levels alone, have been under grain crop in one season, of which perhaps 2000 to 3000 acres were at the Company’s own risk.
In 1892 the English grass on this estate reached to about 40,000 acres, and the system under which this was introduced laid the foundation of many a colonist’s success, and numerous are the farms to-day which have been purchased with money made by working on the Company’s estates. Many farmers took land as cropping contractors when they had only one, or perhaps two, teams and ploughs—possibly bought partly with borrowed money —and now they are wealthy men. In fact the enormous sums of money expended and circulated by the Company in New Zealand during the infancy of that colony did very much to expedite its rapid and successful growth and settlement.
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Corriedale Sheep
THE introduction of English grass pasturage necessitated a change in the stocking of the properties, because merino sheep when grazed on cultivated land soon became afflicted with foot-rot. It was therefore necessary to adopt a long-wooled breed and their crosses, which throve well on the English grasses. The old New Zealand Company had already been the first to import a large shipment of Lincoln and Leicester sheep from home, so that the Canterbury Company were able to obtain the necessary rams, and soon we had a large number of half-breds and cross-breds on the estates.
It was at this time, after reading of the creation of some of the home breeds of sheep, I determined to try and establish a pure half-bred type for ourselves, which in all respects was the most valuable animal—in fact an ideal sheep—with which to stock the English grass pastures.
While a supply of merino ewes was available, excellent half-bred sheep were easily enough bred by crossing them with Lincoln or Leicester rams, but it was the after-breeding that was the difficulty. If the half-bred ewes were mated with Longwool rams the progeny—three-quarter-breds as we called them—were heavier sheep than we desired ; while if merino rams were used the progeny were too small and were uneven in wool. It was the half-bred sheep we wanted and nothing more or less.
30
Corriedale Sheep
The Levels stud merino flock was just then being reduced, as very few merino rams would in future be required, so I secured a thousand of these pure and highly bred ewes, and to these I joined stud Lincoln rams. The first lambing from this cross yielded about 450 females ; and it will be realised how heavily these were culled, in order to restrict the selection to the exact style of sheep aimed at, when I mention that only about 150 were retained, while about two-thirds of the lambs were rejected. The original parents were bred from each year until old age intervened ; while the same heavy culling of the progeny was annually continued.
In due time the young half-bred ewes were mated with rams chosen from their own lot, the flock continuing in the future to be entirely inbred. I attribute the success of this flock to the purity of the sheep employed in its foundation, and to the care exercised in selecting from the progeny only such sheep as fulfilled the characteristics desired. After nearly half a century of inbreeding the flock has lost nothing in size and constitution—rather the reverse—partly, no doubt, because of the comparatively large scale on which it was originally started. Now that the numbers of the pure flock have reached about 10,000, with an inner stud flock of about 1500 ewes, the dangers connected with consanguinity in breeding have practically passed away.
A branch of this stud flock has also been established on the Company’s Quabothoo property in New South Wales, and I look forward to sires bred in that entirely different climate and country eventually proving a valuable change of blood when used in the main flock in New Zealand.
31
Corriedale Sheep
A number of pastoralists have now established halfbred stud flocks on similar lines to those followed by the Company, and these flocks are recorded in the Flock Book of the South Island of New Zealand under the name of Corriedales, and in that publication the Company’s stud flock takes premier place as the oldest in existence. Some breeders have adopted the merinoLeicester cross, but I gave preference to the Lincoln cross, with a view to securing a heavier fleece. In starting this flock I selected from the fleeces of the first lot of young ewes bred samples of what I considered should be the true standard quality and style of the half-bred wool to be aimed at, and with these samples I refreshed my eye and memory during the first years when I culled the young sheep myself—constitution and bodily frame being also kept well in view.
Since the inception of this flock in 1874 —forty-four years ago —only on two occasions was some outside blood tentatively experimented with by the purchase of two rams from flocks which were bred on similar lines to those I followed. These two rams were, however, only used to a very limited extent, so that practically the Company’s flock contains no other blood than that originally adopted to create the type, which is now absolutely fixed. Mr Orbell, who was manager of The Levels estate for many years, took the keenest interest in the flock after 1 had started it, and when I left New Zealand to take up my appointment as general manager, he carried on the work admirably on the lines I had laid down, and much of our success is due to his constant care and attention. He reports that it was only after eight years that the sheep were brought to a satisfactory degree of evenness by the careful culling described.
32
D
Corriedale Sheep
After the last of the land on The Levels estate was sold, the Company’s Corriedale stud flock was removed in 1904 to the Hakateramea and Moeraki estates, which are the only two properties remaining to the Company in New Zealand. Much of the country on the former estate is very cold, but the sheep thrive as well in the hard winters of the high snowy country as they do on land nearer the sea.
Corriedale sheep are now an important feature at the best agricultural and pastoral shows in the Dominion, and there is keen competition for the prizes given. Representatives of the Company’s flock have been most successful, and at Christchurch, the premier show for this breed of sheep in New Zealand, they have won ten championships in the past ten years, besides numerous other prizes.
When the first lots from the Company’s flock were sent to Australia, our estate managers there, who were wedded to the finer wooled merino sheep, looked at them much as a young horse eyes an overturned wheelbarrow ; but now that the attractive qualities of the breed have been proved, there is quite a change of feeling, and we cannot supply the demands made for further shipments.
In my opinion the Corriedale breed will prove to be the best utility sheep for small holders in Australia as well as in New Zealand, as they are excellent breeders; clip a heavy fleece weighing 8 to 10 lbs. of wool of a class that is always in strong demand; are not surpassed as mutton sheep; and during the late dry times have proved themselves to be as hardy as, if not hardier than, the merino sheep.
33
Corriedale Sheep
Representatives of the breed have already found their way to America and Japan, and it is the case that the Corriedale sheep has “ come to stay,” and has added another very important and valuable species to the flocks of the world.
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2'.)
Dairy Factory, Frozen Meat, etc.
THE Company was ever ready to undertake and pursue any venture which promised to assist in the success of their operations and, at the same time, to promote the agricultural and pastoral interests of the colonies.
In its very early days the old New Zealand and Australian Land Company imported from home the first long-wooled sheep, consisting of Lincolns and Border Leicesters, ever brought to New Zealand, and the progeny of these later on had an immense effect in producing the most valuable type of cross-bred sheep for the frozen-meat trade. From time to time further fresh blood has been secured by introducing sires from the best flocks in England, and to this day the Lincoln flock on Moeraki holds a premier position for that breed in New Zealand.
The Canterbury Company also imported some excellent merino rams from Australia, but that type of sheep almost disappeared when the more suitable cross-breds were adopted for feeding on English grass pastures along with root and green crops—and now the Company has an unsurpassed Corriedale flock founded by myself nearly fifty years ago, so that the best breeds of sheep are available for producing mutton.
The old Land Company also introduced a herd of polled Angus cattle, directly descended from Mr M'Combie's original herd which founded the breed.
Dairy Factory, Frozen Meat, etc.
The bulls were largely used in the Southland Province of New Zealand for crossing with the ordinary cattle, and the progeny, when fat, were worth an extra £l per head in the eyes of the butchers, as they were such good “killers.”
When the estates were sold in New Zealand I sent some of the best specimens of this breed to Walhollow and Orandunbie in Australia, and this small herd is still kept pure, and is one of the oldest branches in the world of the original polled Angus family. The bulls are used for crossing purposes, but the “ black skins ” have only lately attracted attention in Australia, and the pure animals we bred have not been readily saleable at the prices they should easily command. Several valuable additions were sent from home to introduce fresh blood into the herd, and in every way it has been carefully maintained.
One of the most valuable adjuncts to farming in New Zealand was introduced by the Company when they led the way in dairying and built the first dairy factory ever erected in that colony. When the Company was desirous of selling its land on the large estates of Southland Province, it was most difficult to attract purchasers; and in 1881 the late Mr Brydone, the Company’s superintendent in New Zealand, suggested that we should try dairying, for which the country was much more suitable than for cropping, and his proposal was approved, he being at the same time requested not to go beyond the initiatory stage of purchasing cows until I reached the colony to discuss details.
I was at the time about to start on one of my tours of inspection, and purposely went via Canada, in order to study the factory system adopted there
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for the making of cheese and butter. The Canadians were most obliging in giving me the fullest information, and at the dairying centre of Ingersoll I obtained plans of what was considered to be a model factory, and these were the plans on which the factory at Edendale was constructed, and were afterwards adopted for the building of other factories. I passed on the large amount of information I had acquired to Mr Brydone, who thus had first-hand details to guide him in supervising this new branch. We were also able to purchase the best machinery. Everything worked smoothly from the first, and though the quality of the cheese was later on improved, the output was generally saleable at home at top prices. In order to give the factory a fair start, the Company themselves purchased 300 cows; but it was always a difficult and expensive matter to secure milkers, and later on we were glad when the land purchasers and tenants on Edendale became the chief suppliers of milk. Indeed it was mainly to attract farmers to that estate that dairying w r as started, and the existence of the factory and the purchasing of milk by the Company helped the sale of thousands of acres.
The factory cost about £l2OO ; but against this the Company gained the bonus of £5OO offered by Government to the dairy factory, on the American principle, which first exported to a foreign market fifty tons of cheese or twenty-five tons of butter.
It is a curious fact that not long ago the Press reported that, owing to a short supply, a large amount of New Zealand cheese was imported into a district of Canada close to where I obtained the first information and plans to guide us in the erection and working of our Edendale factory, so that in this small way the
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Canadians may have profited by the information they accorded me so generously.
When visiting Edendale some years later, I decided that we should make butter as well as Cheddar cheese, and thus have two strings to our bow at the factory; so in 1890 I visited Denmark under the best of auspices, as the late Mr Walter Berry, Consul-General in Scotland for Denmark, very kindly accompanied me, and after visiting dairy factories and interviewing a number of experts, I fixed on a first-rate buttermaker, who was in due course sent out to Edendale, where he did good work until he was tempted away by the New Zealand Government to become a lecturer and exponent in butter-making. Before he left us, however, several of the dairy hands had acquired a full knowledge of his business, so that he could be spared well enough. But the action of the Govern-, ment was not kindly !
I may mention that shortly before I visited Denmark a professor of agriculture wrote and published an article warning Danes to beware of New Zealanders as being their most dangerous competitors, and advising his countrymen to decline all information which might assist them in butter-making. There was much truth in what he predicted !
It was only after the introduction of refrigerating machinery that it was possible to ship cheese and butter to England ; and the Company, as is well known, were the pioneers in starting the New Zealand frozen-meat trade, alongside of which came the export of dairy produce.
After my experience in New Zealand in all branches and phases of sheep farming during the thirteen years preceding my appointment as general manager of the
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Dairy Factory, Frozen Meat, etc.
Company, it can be readily understood that I was always on the lookout for some new system whereby the surplus live-stock of Australasia could be profitably disposed of. I had seen the flocks in New Zealand increase from the want of an outlet until the old sheep were unsaleable, and I had vivid recollections of having to erect yards at the edges of cliffs, into which some thousands of these old sheep were driven, so that they might be knocked on the head and thrown over the precipice as a waste product. Then came the modified but unprofitable relief of the meat-preserving and boiling-down works, which left but a poor return to all concerned ; and it was only early in the year 1880 that a streak of real daylight appeared, when, after a voyage of eighty days, a small shipment of frozen meat was safely landed in London from Australia by the steamship Strathleven. This was soon after followed by another successful shipment in the steamship Protos, and the pioneers of the Australian frozen-meat trade thus earned the everlasting gratitude of all the pastoralists in Australasia.
I was at once attracted by the outcome of these experiments, and immediately suggested to my Board that if on further enquiry I was satisfied there was a fair prospect of success, the Land Company should themselves arrange a trial shipment from New Zealand. This, however, was a much more difficult experiment than those made from Australia, as there were no steamships trading direct to New Zealand and we could only employ a sailing vessel. The directors entered cordially into the scheme, however, and authorised an expenditure of £lOOO.
I immediately set to work to make enquiries, and in February 1880 communicated with the late Mr
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I.
Dairy Factory, Frozen Meat, etc.
James Galbraith, a director of the Albion Shipping Company, and he at once entered keenly into the project and became one of the strongest supporters in the establishment of the New Zealand frozen-meat industry. With him I had, on 11th February 1880, my first interview with Messrs Bell, Coleman & Company in Glasgow, this firm being the refrigerating engineers for the Atlantic lines carrying chilled beef from America, all of which was hung on hooks, each piece swinging free of the others.
The problem we had to solve was as to how we were to import from the most distant part of the world frozen carcases of sheep, without steamships to shorten the long vogage and supply steam for the refrigerating engines ; and without refrigerating works on shore to freeze the sheep before shipment; and with the knowledge that if the carcases were all hung up separately, as in the case of the quarters of chilled beef brought in the steamships from America, the space required and the consequent high freight per carcase would at the outset kill the whole business.
Fortunately Mr Coleman was able to say that he had no doubt all the difficulties named could be overcome, and to him was largely due the success of the experimental shipment, as it was under his able supervision that the ship Dunedin was eventually fitted up. He assured us that if the carcases were hard frozen they would suffer no deterioration in the long voyage of one hundred days or more in a sailing ship ; that they could be frozen on board the ship itself without any refrigerating works on shore to assist; and, to our astonishment, assured us that with thorough insulation of the meat chambers in the ship, and with a proper system for the circulation of the cold air, the carcases
41
Dairy Factory, Frozen Meat, etc.
when frozen solid might be stowed in the hold for the voyage as closely as they could be packed without risk of their being crushed.
After being satisfied that the scheme was feasible, the next move was to discover which type of refrigerating engine promised to be most suitable, and until March 1881 I spent much time in making enquiries, and visited several engineering works where refrigerating engines were being constructed.
Amongst the engines brought under my notice was the Haslam, Pictets & Gifford’s, but in the end I decided that the Bell-Coleman cold-air engine was the best to adopt.
Having settled this important point, and after going to Liverpool and discussing with Messrs Bell, Coleman & Company, on board one of the Atlantic steamers, the system of packing to be pursued, I had many meetings with Mr Galbraith and several with his Board (the Albion Shipping Company), a contract being in the end concluded whereby the Albion Shipping Company agreed to fit up one of their best and fastest ships with insulated meat chambers, boilers, and Bell-Coleman refrigerating machinery, the Land Company undertaking to find a cargo of meat (up to 7500 sheep if necessary) to fill the chambers and to pay a freight of per lb. weight, taking all risk of the cargo arriving in a marketable condition.
As regards the latter point, it was largely with a view to encouraging the development of a new trade, and to support the Land Company, that our insurance brokers, Messrs William Suing & Company of Glasgow, courageously agreed to accept what was a totally unknown risk by covering all contingencies
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Dairy Factory, Frozen Meat, etc.
attached to the carriage of the meat, at the moderate premium of five guineas per cent.
After a good deal of consideration by Mr Galbraith the fast sailing ship Dunedin, of about 1200 tons, was selected by the shipping company for the experiment, this vessel being commanded by a specially smart and capable officer. Captain Whitson.
We were also, as it turned out, most fortunate in the selection of the chief engineer to take charge of the refrigerating engine, as he proved himself to be very efficient and reliable during the voyage.
After all arrangements and details were completed for the fitting up of the Dunedin, I wrote on 20th April 1881 to Mr Brydone, the Land Company’s superintendent in New Zealand, telling him all about our intended experiment and instructing him to erect a killing shed in which to slaughter the sheep ; to secure first-rate butchers; and in every way to prepare for the providing of a cargo of the most attractive classes of sheep.
The slaughterhouse was erected on the Company’s Totara estate, and everything connected with the killing and shipping of the sheep was found in excellent order when the ship arrived at Port Chalmers.
At one time we thought it might be advisable to fit up a small refrigerating chamber on shore to freeze the sheep, but as this was estimated to cost about £5OOO, and as the engine to be used would soon be found obsolete, with all the improvements in refrigerating machinery then in the air, the idea was abandoned in favour of freezing on board, more especially as the Albion Shipping Company, who met the Land Company liberally throughout, agreed to allow a month for the loading of the sheep. The freezing of
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Dairy Factory, Frozen Meat, etc.
the carcases was carried out in the ’tween decks chamber of the ship, and for this purpose hooks were fitted up on which to hang the sheep.
After every detail was arranged at home for our experiment I left for the colonies in April 1881, and arranged to meet the Dunedin in New Zealand to see the loading commenced. This started at Port Chalmers on 7th December 1881, when, assisted by Mr Brydone, I personally stowed away the first frozen sheep ever loaded in a ship in New Zealand, and little did we then think that we were laying the foundation of a trade which has since become one of the most important branches of the meat industry of the world, and is now represented by an annual importation from New Zealand alone of about 6,000,000 carcases of sheep and lamb.
The first question we had to settle was whether the frozen carcases should be stowed “thwart ship” or fore and aft, so as best to maintain a free circulation of the cold air. The engineer was determined to give the experiment a fair start anyhow, and had reduced the temperature to considerably below zero in the hold, so that ere long, when the system of stowage was finally settled, we were glad to retire to a warmer spot!
Everything connected with the freezing and loading at once ran quite smoothly under the arrangements settled at home, and the engine worked well until the 11th December, when, owing to a flaw in the casting, the crank shaft broke and the experiment was immediately hung up.
When this mishap took place 641 sheep had been frozen and stowed in the hold, while 360 were in transit to the ship, and all of these had to be sold
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Dairy Factory, Frozen Meat, etc.
in Dunedin forthwith, and the colonists themselves were thus the first consumers of their own frozen meat.
The engine was repaired after considerable delay, and eventually the loading was completed without further trouble, though towards the end this operation became necessarily slower owing to the available space for freezing becoming more and more restricted when the carcases came to be stowed away in the ’tween decks chamber.
Loading was completed on the 11th February 1882, and the ship sailed on the 15th of that month and arrived in London Docks on the 14th May, after a long passage of ninety-eight days.
Having arranged to be at home by this time, I immediately went to London when the ship was reported, feeling very anxious about the cargo, as Captain Whitson on signalling the arrival of his ship on the English coast did not add the arranged private signal to say that the cargo of meat was safe.
However, he came on to London ahead of his ship, in a pilot boat, and I met him, looking very strained and careworn, as he entered the shipping company’s office, and he then told me that he was not quite sure about the condition of the cargo, but thought that most of it was sound. He described to me the vicissitudes of his experimental voyage, his anxieties about the cargo being aggravated by his dread that his masts would be burnt, as the sparks from the boiler funnel set fire to the sails on several occasions.
Then in the tropics the ship was for a long time on one tack, and owing to its steadiness the cold air was not sufficiently diffused amongst the carcases, and in
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fact the temperature in parts of the upper chamber remained so high that the engineer was in despair. At last Captain Whitson determined to alter the circulation of the air, which was evidently defective, and to do this he had to crawl down the main air trunk, and in the process of cutting and sawing fresh openings for the better escape of the cold air he became so benumbed by the frost that he was unable to move, and was only rescued from his perilous position by the mate crawling in behind him and attaching a rope to his legs, by which he was pulled out of the air trunk !
During the voyage the captains of several steamships, thinking the Dunedin with her funnel on deck was a broken-down steamer, ran out of their courses to ask if any towage was required.
On arrival in the London Docks I immediately went on board and crawled down such spaces as existed amongst the carcases, and satisfied myself that practically the whole of the cargo was in sound condition, and might with safety be exposed for sale. I therefore arranged at once to commence selling on Smithfield, and the results of the whole shipment, which embraced 3521 sheep and 449 lambs belonging to the Land Company and 939 sheep supplied by “outsiders,” will be found in the following letter which I addressed to the editor of the Otago Daily Times, and which was published and copied by other newspapers in New Zealand. I give this letter in full, as I consider the initiation of the New Zealand frozenmeat trade was one of the most important steps ever undertaken by the Company, not only ensuring its own success, but also greatly benefiting the colony and the population of Great Britain.
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Dairy Factory, Frozen Meat, etc.
COPY OF LETTER.
29 th June 1882.
“As it is a subject of interest to many of your readers, perhaps you will kindly publish the following details respecting the experimental shipment of frozen meat lately brought to London by the New Zealand and Australian Land Co., Ltd., in the Albion Shipping Company’s sailing ship Dunedin, commanded by Captain Whitson.
“ The Captain reports that the ship experienced fine enough weather, but unfavourable winds prolonged the passage to over 90 days. The vessel was in first-rate sailing trim throughout, notwithstanding the extra weight of the boilers on deck and the gradual lightening of the cargo by the consumption of coals; one or two crack sailing ships left New Zealand about the same time as the Dunedin, but only reached England several days behind her, which proves that the refrigerating arrangements in no way impeded the speed of the vessel.
“The weather encountered in the tropics was hotter than Captain Whitson had before experienced, but by working the engine steadily there was no difficulty whatever in keeping down the temperature.
“ As the ship was becalmed about the line for a considerable time, it is satisfactory to know that the freezing capabilities were thoroughly tested.
“ The engine burnt rather over three tons of coal per day, sometimes being worked only 2 or 3 hours in the 24 when the weather was cool, and this maintained a temperature of several degrees below zero in the lower chamber during the whole voyage. In rough weather the Captain noticed that the temperature was very equal throughout the chambers, because the cold air got tumbled about and mixed up with the warmer air, instead of settling quietly down to the lowest portions of the ship.
O 1 J A “The discharging of the cargo commenced three days after arrival, and the whole shipment was sold within a fortnight, the meat being taken out at night and conveyed to Smithfield market, so that the sheep were hard frozen when butchers came to buy them in the morning.
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“ There being no auction sales of dead meat in London, the carcases were sold at Smithfield in the usual way by placing so many in the hands of some half-dozen salesmen, who made as good prices for them as they could.
“ In the first instance the salesmen were rather doubtful about the venture being a success, especially as it was the first trial from New Zealand, but when they saw the fine big sheep, which, although many of them had been frozen over 4 months, were clean and bright as newly killed mutton, they quickly changed their opinion and pronounced the meat to be ‘ as perfect as frozen meat could be.’
“ I heard of one West End butcher who, although he scorned the idea of ever allowing frozen meat to enter his shop, was at last persuaded by one of the salesmen to try three, with the result that next day he bought six, and the next day nine, and I have no doubt he still further increased his purchases.
“ No shipment of frozen meat has ever attracted such attention, and New Zealanders will see that it was noticed in the House of Lords. Including lambs, there were 4909 carcases on board the Dunedin, out of which 3521 sheep and 449 lambs, making in all 3970 carcases, belonged to the Company, the balance of 939 carcases having been shipped by other pastoralists.
“ The sheep were sold in Smithfield market at rather over 6ld. per lb., and the lambs at about the same price. The net return F. 0.8. New Zealand was for the sheep £l, Os. llfd. per carcase or 3Jd. per lb., and for the lambs 10s. 9d. per carcase or 3£d. per lb. This was an immense gain in value, as with a return from tallow and skins the Company, after paying cost of killing and putting on board in New Zealand, netted £l, Is. 9Jd. for their sheep as against from 11s. to 12s. per head in the Dunedin market at the time of the shipping, so that their value was about doubled.
“ Out of the whole cargo only one sheep was condemned, and its being out of order was easily accounted for.”
After the successful voyage of the Dunedin there was quite a stir in refrigerating circles, and soon several more sailing vessels were fitted as refrigerating ships, and entered the trade only to be followed closely by
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F
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large steamships, which in time monopolised the business.
After landing the Dunedin cargo safely, the Land Company engaged the Marlborough, another fast sailer belonging to the Albion Shipping Company, and these two vessels each brought home very successfully about half a dozen cargoes of mutton grown on the estates, the former ship carrying about 9000 carcases and the latter about 13,000.
The sad part of it is that while still carrying frozen meat for the Land Company, both vessels left New Zealand within six weeks of one another, and neither was ever heard of again, the supposition being that they ran on icebergs off the Horn, these being very numerous at that time.
I happened to be in New Zealand when the Marlborough was loading her last cargo of sheep for us, and I lunched on board with the captain, who was quite pleased with the behaviour of his ship when loaded with meat, little thinking that she was about to sail to her doom.
Thus ended the Land Company’s successful experiment which set a new trade in motion ; which added enormously to the value of land in New Zealand; and which did much towards expediting the better feeding of the population at home. The Times newspaper, in a leader written on the success of the shipment, remarked that “a feat had been accomplished which must long have a place in commercial—indeed in political—annals.”
Looking back on the history of this trade, it always strikes me as being very remarkable that it has been so free from failures as regards the refrigeration of the meat, either on land or at sea. From the
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very earliest days, when the meat had to be frozen on board the sailing ships because there were no shore works, the maintenance of the necessary Arctic cold, which one would have thought was the most difficult problem, was easily carried out, and that without any serious mishap.
Indeed the chief difficulties in connection with the frozen-meat trade have been encountered by consignees like ourselves and agents in this country, who had to sell the meat. While the imports were represented by hundreds of thousands of sheep, sufficient consumers were easily enough found by the Smithfield salesmen, but when the volume of the trade developed into millions of sheep, serious trouble and disaster in the matter of prices followed.
No one had done more than, or I might almost say as much as, my friend Sir Montague Nelson in the way of developing the channels for the distribution and consumption of frozen meat at home and on the Continent, and for years I was closely associated with him in this work. It was a terrible uphill game once the big steamships (which came into being almost as quickly as if by magic) landed their cargoes, even in early days, of 50,000 or more carcases from Australasia, and the consignees had then to fight for a footing and a fair selling value in opposition to the South American meat, which could be sold at a smaller price. I do not know what would have happened had the steamers carried up to about 140,000 or 150,000 carcases, as they do nowadays.
It must also be remembered that there was a great prejudice at first against frozen meat, which had to be overcome, and the number of consumers at the outset was therefore quite limited. The consequence was
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that when these consumers were supplied there were no others to buy the ofttimes overwhelming surplus of shipments. Every now and then the London refrigerating stores were crammed full of meat, and as they could hold no more the ships themselves—especially sailing ships—were retained at heavy cost to keep cargoes frozen until some means of disposing of the meat were discovered. At such times the current prices were heart-breaking, and the returns left for many shipments were no better than the old boiling-down prices of primitive days. There were times when on Saturday nights the East End of London was traversed by hawkers selling the forequarters of mutton for “an old song”—sometimes accepting a sporting price for the whole barrow-load ! The ordinary householder would only buy the hindquarters, as the price was so low and the remainder of the carcase was viewed as a by-product.
These experiences are now gone for ever, as yearly the constant opening of new channels for distribution has had its effect, prejudice is being overcome, and the world’s supply of meat threatens to be short. In all these black days, however, frozen lamb was saleable, and year by year it has grown in the estimation of the public.
When I was assisting to develop the trade at home, I was for years an original director of Nelson Brothers, Limited, and afterwards became an original director of the Colonial Consignment and Distributing Company, which was floated as an agency company independent of all speculative purchases of meat in order to represent owners and shippers.
Nelson Brothers was the first company to erect large refrigerating stores in London, capable of storing about 200,000 sheep carcases.
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When cultivation was in full swing on the estates in New Zealand, the handling of the Company's large shipments of grain, meat, wool, cheese, butter, and rabbit skins was no light job, more especially when markets were dull or bad. I spent many strenuous days in the city visiting Mark Lane and Smithfield Market, with frequent calls on the Tooley Street brokers who sold the dairy produce. For a considerable period buyers were shy of purchasing cheese and butter of a make unknown to the market, but when the Edendale brand established its excellent and reliable qualities, prices improved and a steady demand was created.
The wheat grown by the Company was generally of first-rate quality, and when well saved at harvest time fetched remunerative prices, more especially as New Zealand wheat is valuable for mixing with the hard, dry Indian product.
The mutton was usually of the highest grade, while the large clips of cross-bred wool from The Levels and other large estates were some of the bestknown and standard clips at the London sales, and since they disappeared wool buyers have told me how much they are missed.
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Rabbits
AN account of the New Zealand and Australian Land Company would not be complete without some reference to rabbits, which have cost the Company, one way and another, including the netting fences which had to be erected, hundreds of thousands of pounds sterling.
My first experience of them was in New Zealand, when the old Land Company’s estates in Southland and Otago were well populated by them. Indeed I have always understood that a certain doctor at Invercargill, the chief town near Edendale, is credited with having introduced the pest, which, had it not been for the discovery that the animals could be poisoned wholesale with phosphorus, would undoubtedly have rendered the fine mountain pastures of the colony a barren waste, and absolutely useless for feeding the millions of sheep which now graze on them.
Fortunately the Company had no rabbits on their Canterbury estates for many years, until they worked their way up from the south, but Edendale, Aparima, and Clydevale were always impoverished by them. They were also a costly item on the Kawarau run.
Riding along the downs on Edendale, near patches of bush, in the evenings, I have seen them galloping away in such numbers that their white bobbing tails made almost a line in front of me. After a successful
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poisoning, however, they were few and far between until numbers were quickly bred up again.
Once the pest was checked by poisoning, colonists put their heads together to discover some means whereby the constant and heavy cost of this system of defence could be lessened, and it was decided that natural enemies must be introduced to create a balance in nature. Ferrets, which were easily bred, were liberated in large numbers, and where the climate was warm and dry they did good work. Cats which had become wild were also splendid hunters; but people were not satisfied that the best had been done until stoats and weasels were imported from home and turned out to work their wicked will by destroying all game, many domestic fowls, and the rabbits for which so much was being sacrificed ! I had sent out a large number of ferrets, which were kept on Clydevale and from which numbers were bred and turned down amongst the rabbits, but I then decided that we must also be in the swim and employ stoats and weasels, which hunted for the love of sport, and not merely for a good meal and a prolonged siesta after it.
The Government up till then were the only importers of vermin, and declined to sell the Company any of their pets. I therefore decided we would send out stoats and weasels for ourselves, and to acquire the necessary knowledge to ensure their safe journey I visited a ship in the London Docks which was on the point of sailing with a large consignment for the New Zealand Government. I was immediately taken aback at the great expense incurred. A comparatively small number of boxes clearly indicated their contents by the fetid smell of the animals; but what staggered me was the great number of coops piled in tiers round the
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sides of the hold and containing countless numbers of unfortunate live pigeons, which were destined to be the prey of their voracious fellow-passengers. I was informed by the expert in charge that stoats and weasels could not possibly be kept alive during the long voyage unless they had freshly-killed animals, with their blood, for their food, and I left the ship thinking the expense of such an undertaking almost prohibited a shipment by the Company. The very freight must have been exceedingly heavy, as nearly the whole of the foremost hold was required for the pigeons, along with their feed; and then there were several attendants necessary to look after such a menagerie.
I decided I would enquire and experiment before finally accepting the belief that the vermin, if hungry, would continue to be such epicures. I wrote to the chief official at the London Zoo asking if the brutes would only thrive on the food they had killed for themselves, and his reply gave me but cold comfort. I then went to the ground of a gun club on the outskirts of London and arranged to purchase some of the pigeons killed at their next shooting match, which were delivered to the freezing stores in the city, where they were frozen. On returning to Edinburgh I soon discovered an excellent ally in Mr Tom Speedy, whose knowledge of and taste for natural history immediately gave him a keen interest in my experiment.
He was living at The Inch, near Edinburgh, and I arranged with him to start what I called my “stoat and weasel farm,” he taking in hand to look after the animals and their feeding. I then advertised for a supply of the vermin, and Mr Speedy wrote asking
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assistance from many keepers whom he knew, so that we soon received a sufficient number of live-stock to test my unnatural system of feeding. Every few days a parcel of frozen pigeons arrived by post from London, and when quite thawed were given to the stoats and weasels, with eggs on alternate days. I expected all sorts of trouble in defying what I was told was an inflexible law of nature, and anticipated disease and heavy mortality ; but the former did not appear and the latter only existed when two or three of the animals were penned together and they took to cannibalism, the males consuming females with a Teutonic absence of respect for sex. Later, solitary confinement put an end to these bloodthirsty entertainments, and under Mr Speedy’s watchful eye our farm stock throve splendidly.
Having conclusively disproved, after a lengthy trial, the statement that the vermin could only live on freshly - killed prey with warm blood to suck, I determined to try a small shipment, and in March 1888 sent off nineteen weasels and sixteen stoats—-thirty-five in all—which were safely landed, at a total cost of £5l, 12s. 7d.
In June of the same year, when the New Zealand Government was sending out a further shipment of the brutes, I sent in the same ship our largest consignment, seventy-two weasels and twenty-eight stoats a hundred in all and with the exception of one the whole of these were landed in “the pink of condition.” When I visited the ship just before she sailed to see that everything was in proper order, I found the usual Government extravagance in the matter of pigeons, and the caretaker was amazed to find that all the space our lot required was restricted to the
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cages containing our emigrants, several hampers full of frozen food in the vessel’s refrigerating chamber, and some hampers containing eggs in the cool chamber. In fact the freight was a mere bagatelle by comparison.
I had again enlisted the aid of the gun club in securing the supply of pigeons required, and had a somewhat amusing experience in purchasing the other delicacies for the menu Mr Speedy and I had fixed on. 1 went into a poulterer's shop in Leadenhall Market and somewhat insulted a supercilious-looking shopman by asking if he " had any giblets on hand just now." He replied, with the scorn which was justifiable in the case of anyone thinking that his shop could possibly be short of giblets, that he had any number, and asked if I wanted enough for soup or a pie. I quietly replied that I must have 1500 fowls' necks at once ! His face was a study ; and as I was wearing a tall hat and city clothes, and was unlike a wholesale caterer, he evidently concluded I was a lunatic at large, and his questioning look as to whether I might not be dangerous was converted into anxiety when I added, " And what is more, I want the fowls' heads left on, and every care must be taken to keep them as bloody as possible !" A further request to supply 1600 eggs made him cast a furtive eye around for a policeman, but I then, having scored off him, explained my requirements, and peace of mind was restored ! The total food sent for the hundred animals consisted of 800 frozen pigeons, 1500 frozen heads and necks of fowls, and 1600 eggs. An emigrant was engaged to look after them, with a promised bonus for every one he landed safely in good health. The total expense amounted to £165, 7s. 4d., and as the cost of the previous shipment was £.51, 12s. 7d., the
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whole 135 animals were landed in New Zealand at a price of 325. 2d. each, as against double the cost incurred by Government for their shipment.
These new and ferocious settlers throve apace, and soon spread all over the country, and during their wanderings destroyed game and native birds such as the weka and, I am told, the large green parrots which lived in the forests remote from the haunts of man. It was a sad “ cure ” for the rabbit pest, but it must be remembered that sheep farmers had in the mountains been fighting for their very existence, and sickened by the constant expense they annually incurred they gave no heed to the fact that in balancing nature by the introduction of rabbit-killing vermin, they were settling the doom of much of the interesting and limited fauna of New Zealand, and also condemning to death the English game which had cost much to introduce into a country which at one time promised to provide excellent shooting. The protection of hawks by law was another blow at the unfortunate game-birds.
What with poisoning and vermin of one kind and another, the rabbits can now be kept in check without much injury to the runholders in New Zealand, and trapped rabbits are valuable for freezing.
Before leaving the subject of rabbits in New Zealand I might add a story giving the experiences of a runholder who owned a property about a day’s sail along the coast from an important city, and whom 1 will call Mr Simpleton.
This gentleman was called on by a friend one day, when the very common topic of rabbits was discussed. Mr Simpleton complained bitterly that the brutes would cause his ruin. The visitor enthusiastically
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Rabbits
recommended the introduction of cats, as being the only rabbit-killers worth talking about, and when he said good-bye he had impressed this view so thoroughly on his neighbour that Mr Simpleton determined to act up to the parting advice, “ Get cats, my dear fellow, lots of them ; there’s nothing like cats! ” Mr Simpleton was going to town in a few days, and he thought this a capital opportunity to buy cats, and he drew out an advertisement in advance and sent it to the chief newspaper in the city, asking for offers. On his arrival in town he was disappointed at not finding any replies to his advertisement, but later he was rung up on the telephone by his agent, who informed him that two men wished to see him about his enquiry for cats. He began to see daylight, so he requested that the men should be sent on to him ; and in due time they appeared, in the shape of two ugly-looking scoundrels who declared they could supply any number of cats if allowed a few days to secure them, as there were hundreds of half-wild ones in the hills surrounding the town. A price was fixed on for about one hundred cats to be delivered on board the steamer on which Mr Simpleton was to return home, and he congratulated himself that at last the end of his rabbit worries was in sight. On the evening the steamer was to sail Mr Simpleton was on deck anxiously waiting for his precious animals ; and sure enough, just as the hawsers were about to be cast off from the wharf, the two cat merchants appeared with several large cases on a dray, and requested to have them hoisted aboard. The ship’s captain, in the vernacular of the sailor, asked them why the blank, blank they were so late in bringing cargo alongside, but on hearing it was live-stock for Mr Simpleton he gave the necessary orders, and the cases
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were slung on board. While this was being done our hero was signing a cheque of considerable magnitude to pay for the cats now snugly stowed below deck, after which he went to his cabin feeling a little uncomfortable about his venture, as he did not quite appreciate the amused and rather pitying look in the faces of the cat merchants as they bade him adieu. His great consolation was that the steamer was due to arrive at his destination early next morning, when he could get his cats quicky conveyed to his station before there were inquisitive people about to ask questions. The steamer was “ right on time ” and the cases were quickly transferred to the waiting waggon. It was a longish journey to the run, so the cases did not arrive there till dusk, but Mr Simpleton and his man decided that it would be best to turn out the cats at once on a hill about half a mile away, where the rabbits were very numerous. Night was pussy’s time for hunting, and as, judging by their plaintive cries, the creatures were extra hungry, it was thought there would be a good kill of rabbits by morning. The waggon was therefore bustled on towards the hill, and Mr Simpleton rode on ahead and was ready to let loose his carnivorous army when they arrived. He was, however, surprised that on opening the first case these wild creatures did not bound away, delighted at last to be liberated. On the contrary, they demonstrated much affection and purred whilst they rubbed themselves against his legs. The second case contained similar animals, and when he had the hundred cats all seeking his companionship his forebodings were realised, and he felt sick at heart as, jumping on his horse, he rode home as quickly as the dark night permitted him. However his dinner and an extra allowance of whisky and soda revived him,
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and to get quit of feline thoughts he turned to an interesting book he was reading, sitting beside an open window in front of which was his lamp. It was getting late when his wits were suddenly brought to earth with a start on hearing what he thought was the mew of a cat. He listently intently, only to hear with horror many mews, some close at hand, others further away, while, again, there were more in the far distance. Then, before he fully appreciated his position, a splendid cat with glossy coat leaped on to the low window-sill and landed in the room, and it was followed closely by a dozen or more before Mr Simpleton jumped up and, with many execrations, shut the window, to the discomfiture of numerous other applicants for admission. He then realised, too late, that many of the homeless strangers he had left to their fate on the hill saw in his lamp a beacon guide to hospitality and home comforts and, consequently, had made a bee-line to his house. He extinguished his lamp and went to bed, but not to sleep, as he was a kind-hearted man and was afflicted by sad thoughts of desolated homes and broken-hearted old ladies ; while night was rendered hideous by the caterwaulings round his house.
Next morning he was up earlier than usual, but failed to hunt away a number of his conscience-striking victims ; so after devouring some breakfast, brought by a rebukeful-looking housekeeper, he rode off to the furthermost end of his run. He thought cats all day, and eventually decided on the course he would follow to relieve himself of his haunting trouble.
When at dusk he returned home he found that his kind-hearted housekeeper had welcomed fresh arrivals of cats as they dropped in during the day, and had distributed much milk and a vast amount of mutton to
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Rabbits
the famished animals. They were, consequently, rather more peaceful and restful. So much so was this the case that when he went to prepare for dinner he found about ten or a dozen cats calmly slumbering on his bed. There were cats under his bed and on his chairs—there were cats everywhere. At dinner he was watched by many of the purring animals, which appreciated the food he felt too miserable to eat.
After dinner he put his plan in motion. He ordered his housekeeper to bring all the lamps in the house, which, much to her amazement, he lighted and placed in the windows with the blinds drawn up. He ordered her to bring in the meat and milk she had available, and he then sat down to await happenings. Very soon these were rolling in on him in the form of cats, more and more cats, as they were attracted by his illumination, and they pleaded hard for entrance. Then when he thought there was a sufficient number of fresh arrivals he opened the door, and there was a rush of incoming starving animals, which sat staring at him while he fed them with meat. Before dawn came to save him he was on the verge of losing his reason, as any sensitive, highly-strung man was liable to do when shut up in a room all night with about a hundred reproving-looking animals glaring at him. Every fresh lot piled up his discomfort, and it was only daylight and the escape from his surroundings that brought back his mental equipoise. His man was awakened right early and instructed to get the cases ready in which the cats had arrived, and these were in due course once more filled with cats and loaded on the waggon, and then started to catch the steamer which called that evening en roxde to the town whence they came. A telegram was despatched to the “two
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robbers ” announcing that the cats were found unsuitable and were being returned to them free of cost. He added that his morning paper advertised the loss of many such animals, for which handsome rewards were offered, and these they might possibly secure. Mr Simpleton’s countenance resumed a somewhat more normal placidity as the waggon with its mewing load disappeared ; but unfortunately the story leaked out and prevented his attendance at the city’s annual racemeeting, and for long after his kind friends were in the habit of blanching his countenance by suddenly mewing behind his back. Such was the legend that reached us at Timaru !
While in New Zealand the rabbits are pretty well “ collared,” they continue to be an expensive item and a constant anxiety in Australia. They require as much watching as a smouldering fire remaining in a partially-burnt building. Leave them to themselves for a year or less and it is amazing how their numbers will increase, and a runholder who has not a sufficiently long purse to destroy the harbour they shelter in, and is unable to subdivide his large paddocks with wirenetting, must just make up his mind to accept the cost of rabbit destruction as an annual addition to his rent.
In the Company’s case the rabbits on their freeholds are fought with the intention of stamping them out so far as this can be done, and no reasonable expense is grudged to accomplish this. Bundure was once threatened with an invasion, but I gave instructions and sent netting to have it netted with the least possible delay, and this was only just managed in time to block the army of rabbits that was moving towards it. Some of the leading lots of the invaders
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II
Rabbits
were indeed enclosed in the netting and “ dug themselves in,” but Mr M‘Larty with much energy soon had them dug out, and dogged them so constantly that one man can now easily cope with them and keep them out of sight. Next door a neighbour did not take similar steps to save his property, and I do not like to quote the huge sums that later on had to be expended to secure a fair hold over the pest.
I have already alluded to the battle our manager, Mr Feehan, has had against the brutes on Wingadee, where at one time they could be seen in large droves, and it has only been a long purse, long lines of netted fences, the clearing away of harbour, and untiring energy and watchfulness that has saved the estate from being ruined for grazing purposes. This case was exceptional, as there was a sudden migration of rabbits, which swarmed in thousands from an adjoining unoccupied forest and, striking a netted boundary fence of Wingadee, travelled along it until they came to a point beyond which the previous owner had not erected netting, the. result being that the countless legions poured round the corner on to the unfortunate property.
Walhallow, with all its bush and broken country—had it been in less capable hands-—would have proved another most difficult freehold to keep clear of rabbits had they once established themselves ; but Mr Croaker has exercised the most careful vigilance from the first appearance of a rabbit, and with the aid of netting has rendered the pest almost harmless, beyond a trifling annual expense for killing. Midkin has in a like way been kept free from the pest, and also Edgeroi and Orandunbie.
Seeing that they are not freeholds, the Company
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have not seen their way to expend the large amount of capital necessary to clear away the harbour on some of their runs, where a constant fight for mastery has to be maintained. For instance much of Goondoobluie is littered with fallen trees and branches, resulting from the ring-barking of the trees on thousands of acres, and it would be costly and unwarrantable, under a mere lease, to sink capital in the way of clearing and burning off the fallen timber, from which only a temporary benefit would be derived. Under the lease “tenant right” in improvements, approved by the Crown officers before introduction, is promised at the expiration of the leases, and the Company’s books are being carefully kept with this in view, but, notwithstanding, I should not like to see the recovery of exceptionally large amounts of capital resting on this.
Goondoobluie was once one of the most rabbity runs the Company had, and a camp with poison carts and outfit for destroying our enemies and prickly pear plants used to start at one point, and by the time the property had all been gone over, the pests were found to have increased so much at the original starting-place that a recommencement had to be made and the operations repeated. Fencing in the sandhills and constant attention has now reduced the numbers of the rabbits to such an extent that they can be kept in check at a cost of about £4OO per annum, as against over £l2OO which was spent in 1907.
Bangate has been dealt with in similar fashion, and lately the cost of vermin destruction has been only about £2OO per annum, as against £1350 in 1908.
Most fortunately the active steps taken to keep the rabbits out of the most of Queensland have had
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the effect of limiting their ravages to certain districts, and in this respect it is wonderful what netting fences —public and private—have done in stopping the waves of rabbits which in their migrations come up against such fences and die from heat in millions. 1 have no reason to doubt the statement made by a man who told me he had driven alongside one of these boundary fences for many miles, when his buggy wheels scarcely ever ceased crunching over the dried bones of the rabbits which had perished during past years. At one time I was very anxious in case rabbits reached Wellshot, and when I heard they were making their way north I obtained the sanction of the Board to erect netting on the boundary fences, and the netting was actually at sea for this purpose when the Queensland Act was passed extending the leases to such Crown tenants as netted in their runs. The Company was therefore early in being able to secure an extended lease of Wellshot.
I may mention that some squatters hold the opinion that rabbits cannot thrive in the heat of Northern Queensland.
I am thankful that, beyond interest in the cost ot hundreds of miles of netting, the Company’s rabbit bill on their Queensland estates is nil. It is still heavy enough, however, on the New South Wales estates, and vermin destruction may be estimated to cost nearly £4OOO per annum, including the destroying of dingoes and foxes.
Some years ago the Pasteur Institute allowed Dr Danyz to go to Australia, where he was given an island and a variety of domestic animals on which to experiment. Much assistance was afforded in every way, including a salary for himself and his assistants,
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and he was promised a very large reward if he could supply a disease which would kill rabbits only and be innocuous to all other animals. The doctor worked hard but failed to discover a microbe which Government considered could be let loose with safety, and in the end, if 1 remember rightly, the cold water thrown on the scheme by the authorities and many of the public, backed by the rabbiters, drowned it completely ; so we have still to pin our faith to poisoned pollard, jam with poison spread on sticks, fumigating and trapping, etc.
In districts within reach of freezing works, and where poisoning is not resorted to, the rabbits are caught, frozen, and exported to this country for food, and it is astonishing to find that in 1914 there were no fewer than 23,812 tons of rabbits imported in this way from Australia and New Zealand. In 1910 the total importation reached 30,188 tons, so that they are an important article of food.
The Colonial Governments owe much to the Company for protecting the large areas of Crown lands they occupy from the destruction which might have been created had the rabbit plague been loosely handled or neglected.
The blow-fly pest has lately taken the place of the rabbit plague in the minds of squatters, and unless the small wasps which are said to destroy the pupa? of the flies come to our rescue, this comparatively new plague will be more damaging than the old one, because meantime it cannot be controlled. However, the recent drought seems to have reduced the flies to an extraordinary extent, and this will give the wasps an opportunity to increase in numbers, assisted as they will be by scientists.
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Rabbits
In addition to rabbits and blow-flies, plagues of locusts, grasshoppers, caterpillars, rats, and mice periodically overrun some of the estates, and from where and why they come no man can say. The grass-consuming pests are, of course, exceedingly destructive to the pastures, and a run is sometimes stripped almost bare of feed by grasshoppers or caterpillars. Bundure is a great sufferer in this way.
The Company also sometimes spends thousands in seasons favourable to the growth of Bathurst burrs, as these must be cut at all cost to prevent their spread. The clover burr is very damaging to wool with its corkscrew seeds, but it affords much excellent feed for stock and no attempt is made to check its growth.
I may safely say that no estates in Australia are better guarded against vegetable and animal pests than those occupied by the Company.
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Stock-Feed and Meat-Preserving
THE introduction of cross-bred sheep brought in its wake the cultivation of root crops, as these were necessary for fattening the surplus stock and also for relieving the English grass pastures in winter. During the process of introducing English grasses thousands of acres were annually sown broadcast with turnips, the crop varying greatly in quality in accordance with the seasons. A fair crop would feed and fatten ten sheep per acre. Later on the soil became dirty with sorrel and weeds, so that it was found more profitable to adopt the home custom of growing the roots in drills.
About the year 1870 a representative of a new company called the New Zealand Meat Preserving Company, supported by Messrs James Wotherspoon & Company, arrived in New Zealand with the object of starting boiling-down and tinning works. I took him to the different estates and had some sheep killed for him, which he boiled down in a wash-house boiler to try and ascertain what amount of fat might be expected. In the end he chose sites at Timaru, on the edge of The Levels estate; at Oamaru; and also at Woodlands, on the “Big Company’s” Edendale estate. Soon our two Land Companies were very glad to deliver many thousands of sheep to this Meat Company, and the introduction of this industry was an excellent stop-gap until the frozen - meat trade practically killed it.
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Shortly before the meat-preserving works came to our rescue as an outlet there was such an overstock of old merino ewes on The Levels and Deep Dell that we actually had to erect temporary yards on the edge of cliffs, into which these old sheep were driven to be knocked on the head and then thrown over the cliffs, there to decay in course of time. We destroyed some thousands of sheep in this way, simply because there was no market or means of disposing of them. When boiling-down works were erected we could always get something for our discarded stock, and for good sheep prices were obtained which, I am aware, were not profitable to the Meat Company. In 1871 the Canterbury Company delivered about 50,000 sheep to the works, and I remember after delivering a large mob one day I suggested to the manager that a present of pickled tongues would be very welcome at The Levels. He at once cordially assented, and soon after a dray arrived with a hogshead containing about two thousand tongues or more, so that every man, woman, and child on the station ate tongues ad nauseam for many days. I never asked for any more 1
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Horses and Cattle
11 7"HILE motors are now to a large extent ousting * * the historic horse from his pride of place as a necessary companion in a pastoralist’s long journeys, we have still to depend on the noble animal for the working of the stations, and without his aid an Australian run would be much like a big ship without fuel to keep the machinery in motion. All the sheep are mustered on horseback, and owing to the heat it is impossible in most places to use collies, as is done in New Zealand. An Australian “boundary rider” in the bush is quite a distinct type from the stolid and slower-moving New Zealand shepherd with his two or three dogs following him. The former races with a cracking whip after the galloping merino sheep; while the latter need never go beyond a walk, as his dogs do the galloping, and generally he is working with quieter cross-bred sheep.
At March 1914 the Company had 5808 horses, of which 160 were in New Zealand ; and amongst such a host it can be readily understood that there is a variety of qualities—good, indifferent, and bad. Notwithstanding my instructions to secure good mares and suitable stallions, there is still room for improvement in the horse-flesh on some of the stations, more particularly on those which have not been long in the hands of the Company. Much depends on the manager’s taste for and knowledge of horses.
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Horses and Cattle
The best lot of station hacks, taking them all over, I ever met with was the mob purchased with The Levels estate in New Zealand in 1864, which were directly descended from mares imported from Australia —the cost of the voyage doubtless preventing the importation of weeds. Later on their quality deteriorated by using too light-boned thoroughbred sires, and the whole colony suffered from this cause.
The Canterbury Company once endeavoured to import a very fine thoroughbred horse called “ Zambesi,” which, I think, ran second in the “ Two Thousand,” but, unfortunately, the sailing vessel on which he was shipped was caught in a heavy gale on entering the Bay of Biscay and the horse became frightened and, through bad management, was allowed to kick until he fractured a hind leg. Alas! our fine horse was thrown overboard. “Zambesi” was described as an exceptionally well-made and heavily-boned horse, and just such a sire as was required to breed good saddle - horses. His loss was a misfortune to the Company and to the colony.
On the same ship and voyage the Company had another stallion called “ Ivanhoe ” —a very highly bred Clydesdale —with a specially competent man in charge, who brought him safely through the storm and landed him in excellent condition. “ Ivanhoe ” left splendid draught stock, and his descendants were greatly valued in the district. He was very active, and some of his progeny from saddle-mares proved excellent light vanhorses. He was a savage brute, and it was only by tying him up to a strong ring in his box now and then and giving him a good whipping that his caretaker could retain a mastery over him. No one else ventured into his box. Indeed “ Ivanhoe ” very nearly
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Horses and Cattle
ended my life when one day I was walking across a small field into which he was turned for exercise and, thinking about something else, I had not noticed him, and only became aware of his presence when I heard galloping behind me, and turned round to see the brute coming to me open-mouthed. I was about sixty or more yards from the gate, and though I won a number of races at our amateur athletics, my running in these was not to be compared with the record time I made in getting to that gate! I threw myself over the five bars, and on landing on the other side heard “Ivanhoe’s” chest come crash against the gate, which, fortunately, was an unusually strong one and resisted the blow. I had often to cross that field, but never again without looking into all the corners of it 1
The large numbers of draught-horses on the New Zealand estates were of excellent quality and fetched capital prices when sold. In Canterbury tliey ran outside all winter, covered with strong felt-lined canvas rugs to keep them warm, and they throve splendidly. On the estates in Southland horses were generally stabled in winter, at greater expense.
Personally, I always bought with my own money the hacks I rode, as I had a great love for a good horse and a good sheep-dog, and bought the best I could find.
When I was sub-inspector at The Levels I managed to buy a pair of horse-clippers and clipped my two hacks. Mr M'Lean was absent at the time, and on his return was quite overcome on seeing my racing-looking animals standing in the stable comfortably rugged. He looked at them out of the corner of his eye, but said little to me about my
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Horses and Cattle
“ shaved horses,” as he called them. I could see, however, he considered them quite beyond what was right and fitting on a sheep station. They were the first clipped horses he had seen, and were, I believe, the first in South Canterbury. It caused me considerable amusement when Mr M‘Lean told the groom to borrow my clippers and clip his horses about ten days later, after he had seen the immense advantage it was in the way of health and the fitness of the animals for hard work.
In Australia I place Wellshot first as the property having the best class of horses, taken as a whole. Mr Hopkins, being a horsy man, devoted particular attention to collecting well-bred mares when he was manager of the run. There are, of course, many useful horses scattered over the properties, but exceedingly few high-class and well-broken hacks such as are seen in a hunting-field at home. The fact is, most of the people who ride them view them much as a man views his bicycle—as a machine which carries him and little else. The station horses are seldom shod, and when one becomes footsore or is ridden out, it is turned into a spelling paddock to recover and get ready for the next turn of riding. There being hundreds to come and go on, the same interest is not taken in these horse machines. The mustering of sheep and cattle on the big runs means long and hard days, especially in hot weather, for both men and horses.
Mr Croaker had good buggy-horses and always gave me a pleasant hack to ride. I have not forgotten a favourite and handsome chestnut called " Stockings." I believe it was his affection for his horses that for long prevented his taking kindly to motors to cover his long journeys, and I sympathised with him.
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Horses and Cattle
Ruck-jumping, with which Australian horses are credited, is generally, in my opinion, caused by too rapid handling and breaking—or rather want of breaking. For this reason I rather preferred a horse-breaker who was not able “to stick to anything with fur on,” as he was careful to get his pupil pretty quiet before he risked his neck in the saddle.
The cleverest buck-jumper I ever saw was a splendid and powerful well-bred hack which a cadet of mine called Newton purchased for an old song when I was on The Levels at the Cave out-station. The man who sold him had for long treated him as an outlaw, and was delighted to be rid of him. My cadet was quite a fair rider, and being a plucky young fellow, he was determined to conquer “ Rigmarole,” as his new acquisition was called. The horse was not difficult to mount, probably because he was well aware that he could easily unseat anyone who was intrepid enough to have a tussle with him. The horse’s cleverness lay in his style of bucking. His head, as usual, disappeared between his forelegs and his tail was well tucked under him, while the arch in his back would have made a cat envious. He would then start bucking in grand style, but quite straightforwardly, until his rider began to fancy he could keep his seat all right; but when this stage was reached, “Rigmarole” used suddenly to make several tremendous bucks and plunges to one side and, seeming to drop his shoulder at the same moment, his hapless rider shot over that shoulder with more or less grace. Newton had so many spills that I ordered him to give it up, as mustering was coming on and 1 did not wish him to be incapacitated. Then an Australian appeared on the scene who said he could ride anything. We offered him a sovereign if he could
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Horses and Cattle
sit " Rigmarole." He jumped at this, selected and beeswaxed a saddle, made a " kid" of supple willow branches to strap in front of his saddle to prevent him taking a header over the pommel, and in every way prepared himself to do battle with the giant. All hands mustered at the usual ploughed field to see the fun, but, like many who pay guineas to see wellcontested boxing matches, they came away disappointed after a very short bout. " Rigmarole " simply played with the new aspirant in his usual artistic style, and after giving him three spills the horse stood quietly looking at a beaten competitor lying prostrate with his wind knocked out. He was led back to the stockyard, and when unsaddled probably looked forward to a further spell of ease. However an intimate and horsy friend of mine, Mr F. J. Kimbell, who owned a run about twenty-five miles away and who in his earlier days had studied for a medical career, called on me soon after "Rigmarole's" latest triumph and told me that he had been thinking over a plan whereby buck-jumping might be stopped. His view was that if the sinews were tightened along the back a horse could not get himself into the arched position which made bucking such a difficult motion to sit, and that if the end of the tail was tied to the crupper D of the saddle the muscles of the back would be contracted with the desired effect. This sounded a fair conclusion, and as his owner was quite game to get into the saddle once again, "Rigmarole" was soon driven into the yard and preparations were made to test the new theory. After saddling, a knot was securely fastened, making a loop at the end of the tail, and then a saddle strap was run through this loop and through the crupper D on the saddle, and the tail was pulled more
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Horses and Cattle
or less sideways, as well over the back as could be done without injury to the sinews. “ Rigmarole ” was then led to his playground and, as usual, quietly allowed Newton to mount him. Then came an astonishment to us all, and most especially to the horse, as he could not put himself into his fighting posture and for once showed real temper, soon becoming covered with sweat and foam. He was quite unable to buck and had to fall back on the ordinary form of “propping,” which did not trouble the plucky rider on his back. Whenever in his anger he made a tremendous attempt to buck, his plunge immediately had the effect of tightening up his tail attachment, and doubtless gave him a very painful twinge in that appendage! After this Newton permanently fastened a small iron ring to the end of “ Rigmarole’s ” tail, and whenever he rode him, which he did very constantly, he ran a saddle strap through it and the crupper D and, pulling over the tail, sallied forth quite securely and comfortably on a completely conquered horse. When he had ridden for some miles he used to slacken the tail strap, but never risked taking it off altogether.
I regret to say that since this experiment, which proved so successful, I have never had an opportunity of seeing it repeated. With the idea of further testing the “cure,” I remember once asking Mr Hopkins, when visiting Wellshot, if there was a really first-rate buck-jumper on the station, and he replied that there was one quite good performer; but I prevented a trial because I found that the horse-breaker, who was the only man available to mount the horse, was a married man with a wife and family 1 This perhaps did not vouch for my faith in the system, but all I can say is that it was entirely efficacious in the case
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Horses and Cattle
of “ Rigmarole,” who was immediately converted from being an outlaw into a very useful hack.
Instructions have been given that on the Australian estates attention must be devoted to breeding horses suitable for army purposes, and this is now more than ever desirable, as the wastage during the present war will require to be made good.
The sires used on the stations are selected with much care, both as regards breeding and build.
The Company have now a much larger interest in cattle than they had some years ago, as it was only in 1912 that the purely cattle runs, Dalgonally and Bogarella, were purchased and, still later, Wurung and Canobie were bought. There are thus four cattle runs, and, including the herds on the other estates, about 100,000 head are grazed in ordinary seasons. The principal reason for going more deeply into cattle is that enormous tracts of country are being resumed for grazing farms on the different sheep runs, and it was only by purchasing other runs that the Company could maintain their stock at anything like the numbers they required to make full use of their capital. Good sheep-runs being almost unprocurable in outlying districts, the Company had to fall back on cattle stations situated (with the exception of Bogarella) in the north of Queensland, and these they are rapidly developing with fencing and bores, whilst every attention is being paid to the improvement of the herds. Another strong reason for buying some cattle stations is the marked improvement in the value of beef. Store beasts now cost considerably more per head than was obtainable for the best fat bullocks eight or ten years ago, and there is every reason to expect
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Horses and Cattle
that the value of beef will be maintained. The very fact that Messrs Swift, the well-known firm in Chicago, have come to Australia and invested an enormous sum in meat works at Brisbane is a sure indication that on taking a careful measure of prospects ahead they are convinced that the world’s supply of meat will be limited, and that some of the Australian surplus will be required for America.
Mr Howe, a representative of Messrs Armour of Chicago, visited Australia some years ago, and I travelled over a considerable portion of Queensland with him, including visits to Brisbane, Gladstone, and llockhampton ; also taking him up to Wellshot. He was impressed with what he saw, but considered that, even at the low prices then ruling for cattle, values were too high, and the risk of drought too great, to attract his firm. Now the •world’s conditions have altered so much, and the drift of the meat trade has adopted such different channels, that, notwithstanding a great rise in the value of meat, Messrs Swift have thought it worth their while to invest a large amount of capital in Queensland, and in consequence are watched with a jealous eye in case any attempt is made towards securing a monopoly of the frozen-meat trade. For my part I think the Swifts have yet to learn what the effects of an Australian drought are, and I daresay the drought which prevailed over a large portion of the State for many months, and is not yet entirely ended, will give them their first lesson. However, I have much confidence in the future of cattle prices in Queensland, as, even apart from the frozen-meat trade, large numbers of bullocks are annually required in New South Wales, and thousands of the Company’s
73
K
Horses and Cattle
cattle are driven south to be fattened on their own estates.
Steps are taken to improve the quality of the cattle on the Company's properties and high-class stud herds are kept at Walhallow, Mount Cornish, Maxwelton, and Eddington. Most of the cattle are shorthorns, but a fancy has lately arisen for red polled cattle, and three stud bulls of this breed (two of which were prize-takers at the Royal and other shows in England) were lately sent out to raise the standard of the polled stud herds lately established on Walhallow and Maxwelton.
81
The Estates belonging to the Canterbury Company
ATyHILE acting as Mr M‘Lean’s assistant I ’ * inspected all the estates frequently, and now and then Mr M‘Lean accompanied me, on which occasions we drove. When alone I usually rode, leading a second horse to carry my valise and afford a change of mount. The only drawback to these trips was the likelihood of being “ stuck up ” now and then by flooded rivers.
When one passes through New Zealand nowadays in a train, and over long bridges, it requires an effort of memory to recall the early days when one approached a river wondering if the hot nor’-wester blowing had melted the glaciers sufficiently to make the stream dangerous. The rivers in Canterbury being mostly snow water, are bitter cold and run very rapidly, with constantly changing fords. A good many lives were lost, not so much in the largest rivers, such as the Waitaki, where boats were used, but oftener in less formidable-looking rivers, such as the Rangitata, which men were tempted to try and ford when it was really unsafe.
The Acton estate was always remunerative, for although the soil was light it was very generous, and the grasses and crops flourished well so long as the rainfall was sufficient. The feed was exceptionally nutritious and sheep fattened easily. Being dead flat
82
Canterbury Company Estates
all over, the terrible nor’-west gales which blew down the gorge of the Rakaia River frequently worked much mischief by blowing away the light soil and injuring crops. The story goes that a man once had three fields adjoining, and in a line ; one was fallow, one was sown in oats, and the other sown in wheat. After one of these gales the fallowed field produced oats ; the field sown in oats produced wheat ; and the field sown in wheat produced nothing!—this being the result of the wind shifting the soil and seed ! It was a joke in this locality that only laced boots were safe, as shoes were liable to be blown off!
The Pareora estate was an excellent block of land six miles to the south of Timaru, and intersected by the main line of railway. There was practically no waste country and it produced first-rate grain and root crops ; also English grass pastures.
The Hakateramea estate in South Canterbury is one by itself, as it is a combination of very high mountains, snow-capped in winter, with a large area of agricultural land lying on the spurs at the foot of these ranges. For a considerable time the Canterbury and Otago Association were left in peace to work the entire holding, which originally embraced about 115,000 acres of leasehold. But in 1876 the Agricultural College Reserve, which included the lowest-lying and best of the land, was thrown open for sale at £2 per acre, under the same conditions as regulated the sale of all Crown lands in Canterbury. Then came a rush for this land, and as it was most important for the Company to retain the low-lying country which is the key to the successful working of the estate, as it provides pasturage for the sheep in winter, 1 was early in the field and surveyed the blocks it was most
83
Canterbury Company Estates
desirable to purchase. There was only a rough survey map of the country on a small scale in the hands of the Government, which rendered it much more difficult for applicants to fix and describe the exact boundaries of the land they desired to purchase.
On the morning of the day named for the opening of this country for sale I was waiting at the Lands Office with an exact plan of the land I wished to apply for, and in competition there was a land surveyor who was acting for several outside buyers. This surveyor tried to get the better of me by securing proxies from a number of people to apply for land, so that he should have extra chances when the land came to be balloted for, which was the course adopted when more than one person applied for a section at the same moment. I allowed my opponent to be the first to complete his applications—which were made in the names of a number of people—for the several thousand acres within our stud paddocks, these being the very blocks I wanted for the Company. I confess being considerably taken aback by this crafty move, but when he had finished I proceeded to enter the Company's applications, but instead of applying for the land in large blocks I cut the whole area into about one hundred and fifty small sections of between twenty and thirty acres each and informed my opponent that, under the Land Act, I would insist on a ballot for each section. He thought he had jockeyed me with the aid of his proxies and having many more chances in the ballot than I had for the Company, but his clients could not risk getting only a small piece of land here and there as against the large areas wanted. Having gained this position, I offered not to oppose outside purchasers if they confined their buying to the land outside the stud paddocks,
77
Canterbury Company Estates
which was quite good, and this they eventually agreed to do. In this way I secured, at £2 per acre, about 4500 acres of the most valuable and low - lying agricultural land on the estate, which was immediately cultivated with advantage and was sold within recent years to small farmers, for whom the country was thoroughly prepared, the prices obtained being satisfactory. Much of the leasehold country adjoining having been resumed, there was not the same necessity to retain this farm block.
I have mentioned that, speaking generally, land selection and buying was as important and responsible work as any I undertook for the Company, and in this connection I had some rather exciting experiences on Hakateramea. In those days land-buying appeared to be decidedly infectious, especially amongst speculators, and there was a sudden rush for the lands in the valley when they were thrown open for sale. I was, as usual, hampered by the limited supply of cash available but I continued to beg for more to allow me to secure the most valuable land on the low country, as if the run had lost this there would have been no place of safety from snow for the sheep in winter and the value of the mountain pasturage would have been enormously reduced. Fortunately, when the Company finally closed their purse and declined to buy more land, the resourceful general manager found a friend who agreed, under certain conditions, to supply money to purchase such area as I recommended up to 15,000 acres, which meant an advance of £30,000. This relieved the situation and really went far towards saving the estate.
On the Hakateramea I was also fortunate in being able to keep ahead of outsiders in securing the country essential to the well-being of the stock, although on one
78
Canterbury Company Estates
occasion I nearly lost one of the most important blocks. I met Surveyor X in Timaru one day, when he took occasion to crow over me in that he had bought for a client 1000 acres in the "Roman Swamp," being, as he described it, the best and warmest block in the upper portion of the valley. I had postponed applying for this attractive land, as the agents protested against finding the money, and feeling very sore at the loss I went and looked at the Government map to see in what shape it had been applied for. Within a very few hours after this I was on my way to the Hakateramea, and on reaching the run made a careful survey, and in due course returned to Timaru and applied for about 1500 acres, which really did include the "Roman Swamp" land! I made a point of "dropping across" Mr X and casually advised him that when he selected land for his unfortunate employers he should avoid forcing them to buy rough rocky spurs in a frigid climate at 40s. an acre. He at once guessed that there was something wrong with his application for the block, and only too late discovered that he had mistaken the creek on the Government sketch-map and was about two miles out of his reckoning when describing the land applied for. It was such a palpable mistake that the Land Board permitted the buyer to select another block of equal area within a limited distance.
Even highly qualified surveyors are not always to be trusted, and a professional man I once took to assist me in laying off a few sections when the rush for land was at its height on the Hakateramea afforded me some very unhappy hours. We were camped out and I started my friend in the morning to survey some additional blocks to those I had already bought, and I requested him to check the compass-bearing of a long
86
87
Canterbury Company Estates
straight fence which I had adopted and laid down on the Government map as a foundation for a number of scattered sections embracing three or four thousand acres which I had selected and bought. I went in an opposite direction to survey some other blocks, and on meeting the surveyor in camp in the evening I asked him if he had checked the magnetic bearing of the fence. He replied in the affirmative, and horrified me by telling me his reading of the compass, which was quite different to my observation. He assured me that he was correct, as he had tried the bearing most carefully in several places, and on comparison I found our compasses agreed exactly, so there was nothing wrong with my compass. I did not sleep that night, as I was thinking how completely the position of the different sections I had purchased to secure only the good land would be thrown out, in country where the quality was exceedingly varied. It was a serious matter, and at daylight next morning I saddled my horse and rode off about three miles to the fence, and getting on some rising ground beyond the end of it I found my compass-bearing to be absolutely correct, and I was immediately relieved of a ton-weight of anxiety. I returned to camp and, having an idea of what he had done, asked the surveyor where he had placed his compass when he took the magnetic bearing, and he—becoming red in the face—had to confess that he had thoughtlessly rested the compass on the top of several wooden straining posts in the fence. The wire, of course, affected the compass seriously, and. hence his mistake. He did not hear the last of that blunder for many a day!
Another glaring mistake made by a surveyor was on The Levels. 1 met a farmer one day who told
Canterbury Company Estates
me that he had just purchased 250 acres at the foot of the “ Sugar Loaf” Hill, and wished to fence it in at once. I agreed about the fencing and then informed him that I had purchased every acre of ploughable land in that locality for the Company, and could not understand why he had selected a farm there when there was good land available. He declined at first to believe me, but knowing me well he in the end was pursuaded that the surveyor had blundered in trying to discover the outside boundaries of the Company’s land ; and I entirely sympathised with the poor man in his rage, while his ornate language and threats against the surveyor did full credit to his Irish blood. The sinking of £5OO in the purchase of a steep hill was indeed a serious blow, and his only consolation was that the natural grazing was good; but at best the country was worth only 20s. per acre, as against 40s. paid.
To complete the history of the Hakateramea. I managed to secure, section by section, the pick of the land without serious interference from outsiders, until a halt was called in 1879, by which time 23,125 acres had been bought. Then the whole scene was suddenly changed by a civil engineer, Mr M‘G , who walked into the Lands Office in Timaru one day and made application for all the inferior lands—embracing about 20,000 acres—which I had carefully excluded from the Company’s blocks after much hard surveying work. The Company was thus left as the proprietors of a number of large blocks of good quality and some smaller sections, lying like large and smaller islands in the sea of M‘G ’s inferior land. This action took place just when a land boom was at its height, and when a man had only to enter a bank or the office of a lending company to be received with open arms
HI
hj
Canterbury Company Estates
and supplied with abundant means to purchase land almost anywhere. M‘G , who was a speculator with friends, had already bought the adjoining Hakateramea Downs run, after frightening the owner into selling by purchasing as freehold all the desirable low country in front of the big mountain range, and we soon discovered that M‘G——’s game was to acquire the whole Hakateramea valley, including the Company’s entire holding. Under these circumstances, and as he was a generous buyer, we decided to meet his views, and in the end he agreed to give £120,000 for the Hakateramea estate, with 21,800 acres of freehold and 62,500 sheep. This would have left a handsome profit to the Company, but, as matters eventually turned out, the falling through of the sale was, on the whole, fortunate. Even before he had paid the £5000 deposit required by the sale contract, the financial companies took fright and refused M‘G and his partners the further money they required to complete their extensive programme. These speculators thus disappeared from the scene and the lending company was “ left to nurse the baby ” in the shape of the Hakateramea Downs run and about 25,000 acres of second-class land interspersed with the Company’s good freehold. We made a temporary working arrangement so that each could use the freehold, and, as I expected, the lending company soon found the investment an unprofitable one—so much so that when I asked the Head Office in London in 1901 if they would sell out all their interest in the Hakateramea valley, they, after some hesitation, agreed to accept the moderate price I offered for the 27,214 acres, with all improvements included, which purchase was confirmed by my Board. This land originally cost 40s. per acre, so
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Canterbury Company Estates
that the Company saved considerably in the price and had the value of all improvements. The Company thus changed position with M‘G , and themselves became possessors of almost the whole of the Hakateramea valley, with 57,728 acres of freehold and 97,700 acres of leasehold, carrying from 60,000 to 70,000 sheep. The Hakateramea has all along been fairly remunerative, except now and then when snow caused a specially heavy mortality in the flocks, sometimes reaching 20 per cent, or even 30 per cent. The freehold has on several occasions been reported on, but has been pronounced as being unsuitable for close settlement, largely on account of the severe winter climate.
In August 1872 I came home on leave of absence after seven years’ residence in New Zealand. I had thus the advantage of being able to discuss the Canterbury Company’s affairs with Mr Morton, the general manager, and the directors. I visited Mr Morton at his house in Elderslie, near Glasgow, and my hours of slumber during the two nights I spent there were very limited, as, not content with discussing New Zealand and the affairs of the Company all day, he came to my bedroom “to see that my fire was burning well,” and he there commenced such a prolonged review of the present and future possibilities of colonial sheep-farming that I seemed to get into bed only shortly before it was time to get up for breakfast, which included prayers, porridge and buttermilk, etc. I was told that sometimes a psalm was sung, from which every vestige of tune was eliminated. He was certainly a very wonderful man who talked in thousands and hundreds of thousands of pounds, and seemed to me to think in millions! He was very excited about the time I visited him as to the possibility of bringing fat cross-
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Canterbury Company Estates
bred sheep alive from New Zealand for sale in this country, and he had experiments carried out in his stable, I believe, to test the feasibility. He failed, however, to introduce the tropical heat and heavy storms which a sailing ship would specially suffer from, and I did much, I believe, to set aside the unworkable scheme. Mr Morton’s marvellous and active brain could not entertain insurmountable obstacles in thinking out such ventures, and there was a want of practical knowledge to counterbalance his theories.
I returned to New Zealand in 1873 and resumed my duties as inspector and assistant to Mr M‘Lean.
In the year 1875 Mr M'Lean, having purchased a large block of land for himself, resigned his position as superintendent of the Canterbury Company and I was appointed to take his place, and held this position until in 1876 the scheme to amalgamate the Canterbury and Otago Association with the New Zealand and Australian Land Company was initiated. I had then only a very rough idea of the intrinsic worth of the “ Big Land Company’s” estates, but judging by what I had seen and heard of those in New Zealand, when I visited a number of them with their superintendent, the late Mr Thomas Brydone, I grieved to think that our healthy, sound, and remunerative Canterbury Company, with its splendid prospect of a large increment in the value of the freeholds, was to be swallowed up and joined with a land company which to a very large extent owned properties in the swamps and wet, inhospitable climate of Southland—a company, too, which in the earliest days had a name for wasteful extravagance, until Mr Brydone came from home in 1867 and put a check on such expenditure.
As an example of how loose the control was thought
Canterbury Company Estates
to be, the story was told that one day one of the many Scotch station managers in Southland called on the Land Company’s agent in Invercargill, and after discussing the weather and what not he got up to leave, but, as an apparent afterthought, said, “By the way, I’ll be wanting some money the day.” “How much do you want,” asked the agent, to which the manager replied, “ I’ll tak’ a thoosand,” and, after a pause, added, “Ah weel, as you have gotten your pen in your hand you can mak’ it twa thoosand ! ”
I knew nothing of the estates in Australia, and the appointment soon after to the general management of the combined companies did not reconcile me to the thought of amalgamation. It mattered little to those who happened to hold shares in both companies, as what they lost on the one hand they gained on the other; but for the very few who held shares only in the Canterbury Company, the scheme seemed to me to be distinctly unfavourable.
Going back to the early history of the old Land Company, I understand that there were, between the years 1860 and 1865, as many as fifteen separate Associations, composed of private syndicates in London and Glasgow, which entered into an arrangement to acquire pastoral property in Australia and New Zealand. The earliest purchases were made in Australia, followed later on, in 1863 to 1865, by the buying of large properties in New Zealand, which were afterwards sold to the New Zealand and Australian Land Company, or the “Big Company” as we called it, which was really created to take over the numerous Associations mentioned, in order to bring the management and development of the estates under one control. The Canterbury and Otago Association was not created
92
Canterbury Company Estates
until later, and, as already stated, I joined it at its initiation in 1865.
Looking back on the history of the original New Zealand and Australian Land Company, I have always been impressed with the fact that it was a terrible misfortune and, one might say, " downright bad luck " that the first Associations, out of which grew the Land Company, selected about the most unsuitable and unprofitable land in New Zealand for a company to work, when they bought estates in the province of Southland. Even though the country was chosen by Scotchmen who were accustomed to a speciallv wet climate at home, it has always been a marvel to me how practical men should have selected such cold soil when 150 miles or so further north there were millions of acres of sweet productive land open for purchase and suitable for working on a large scale. Had the agents of the Associations and original Land Company visited Canterbury ; or, better still, had they visited and inspected the country in the North Island, in such localities as Napier, they could have secured estates from which an excellent and certain profit might have been derived from the very start, and this with a comparatively very small outlay in the way of development and improvements, while the land would have increased annually in value. As against this the Company spent sacks of gold in the attempt to grow English grass on many thousands of acres of sour land in Southland, where the climate was so unhealthy for young stock in winter that the mortality absorbed nearly all the profits which should have been derived from breeding. Then in a very few years the English grasses, introduced at such heavy cost, died out and the land reverted very much to its original wild condition.
93
Canterbury Company Estates
Large sums, too, had to be spent in making roads, and crossings over the deep creeks, where many and many a beast met an untimely end. When riding over the numerous estates in Southland it made one sad to reckon up the fruitless expenditure which had taken place, and my climax was reached when I saw a large shed filled with a number of steam-engines for working ploughs and harrows, the original cost of which was enormous —such a system of cultivation being entirely unsuitable to Edendale. It cost a considerable sum to get this heavy machinery along the boggy tracks from the port of landing to the estate, and the attempt to employ the engines and cultivators when they reached their destination settled their future, and they were soon consigned to the shed in which I saw them, where they remained until the engines were sold off one by one, chiefly to drive saw-mills.
While I say that the Company wasted vast sums of money on their Southland estates, they were at the same time doing much towards the development of that part of the colony, in so far that they, by the employment of labour, circulated large sums of money at a time when it was scarce. By ploughing the land they were also paving the way for its easier occupation twenty years later by small farmers, who now chiefly carry on dairying and, by liberal applications of lime, persuade the soil to produce profitable crops. It was about the worst class of country for a company to hold and cultivate, and it was only suitable for close settlement by labouring farmers, who take no account of the hard and constant labour they devote to their small holdings.
From March 1867 till March 1872, I understand, the New Zealand and Australian Land Company was
94
Canterbury Company Estates
worked under a guarantee of dividend by the vendors, and for the four years 1873 to 1876 inclusive, previous to the amalgamation, the shareholders in that Company received on a capital of £1,184,125 a dividend of 6 per cent, in 1873, per cent, in 1874, 6 per cent, in 1875, and 5 per cent, in 1876. The Canterbury Company, without any such guarantee, actually earned and paid the following dividends
In 1873, 8 per cent, on a capital of £433,333.
„ 1874, 8 „ „ „ £466,666
„ 1875, 6 „ „ „ £500,000.
„ 1876, 5 „ „ „ £500,000.
I do not pretend to know where the money to pay the guaranteed dividends on the old Land Company’s capital came from, but I am certain it was not made on their New Zealand estates under any system of book-keeping which properly defined what was revenue and what was capital expenditure from a practical point of view. Indeed when I became general manager I had to insist on many alterations in and additions to the estate accounts, so as to prevent charging against capital items of outlay and expenditure which should always have been charged against revenue.
The only property held by the Association outside the province of Canterbury was the Deep Dell run, situated in the gold-fields area of Otago. It consisted largely of high, rocky country, with some danger from snow in winter. It was, however, a paying investment, as the flock consisted largely of half-breds. The lease expired in 1882, when Government subdivided the property and released it to small graziers.
There were a number of gold-diggers on this run. and many sheep were lost in the deep holes scattered
95
Canterbury Company Estates
over the country, made by prospectors when searching for gold. One day after heavy rain I found a prospector working in a hole on the top of a high range, and was surprised when he told me that even at this high level he found quite a good strike of very fine gold, but it was only after heavy rain that water was available to wash the dirt. Some time after when inspecting the run, and my work was delayed by a continuous downpour, I thought I would try my hand at digging, so taking one of the milk dishes from the house I climbed the hill to where I had interviewed the digger and commenced to wash the dirt he had exposed in the hole. I found the colour all right, but it amazed me to see the specks of gold actually floating out of my dish instead of remaining behind as properly constituted gold should have done ! Puzzling over this phenomenon, I suddenly looked up and saw the grinning face of my friend the gold prospector, who had arrived to take advantage of the rain and had been amused in watching my efforts as gold-digger. I informed him that his gold was the most refractory metal in creation, and he then told me to try his dish and see what happened. I did this and was delighted to find a paying amount of gold dust left in the bottom of the dish after the dirt was washed away. The digger very kindly lent me his dish, and 1 worked hard all the rest of the day and was very proud of my winnings in the evening. He explained that “new chums” were often caught as I had been in trying to wash very fine gold in a greasy dish. The specks of gold when liberated in the water sink to the bottom of the dish and, moving back and forward, become coated with sufficient grease to float them away. A household dish must be well scoured and roasted before it is fit for gold-digging!
89
M
The Amalgamation
TN 1877 the amalgamation of the two companies -*- took place under a special Act of the Imperial Parliament, and in 1878 the following were the estates involved and their general character. Although the amalgamation dated from 1877, it was not until 1879 that the new valuations were incorporated in the accounts.
The estates belonging to the old New Zealand and Australian Land Company were as follows :
Bundure, in New South Wales. A splendid freehold estate held to this day.
Till Till, in New South Wales. A first-class ran held to this day.
Wellshot, in Queensland. At the time of amalgamation this run had been sold by the Company, but, fortunately, was afterwards recovered. This is one of the best runs in Queensland and is still retained, but much of the country has been resumed by the Crown.
The above were the only properties in Australia suitable for a company to hold and work and one of my first duties as general manager was, under the authority of the Board, to arrange for the disposal of the following unsuitable properties, which were sold at prices considerably less than the sums standing against them in the books: Yawong Springs, Chinchilla, Cardbeign, Greendale, and Humula.
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The Amalgamation
Such were the properties in Australia, and coming now to the estates belonging to the old New Zealand and Australian Land Company situated in New Zealand, I classify them as follows:
Totaha, in Otago. A most valuable estate per acre, with splendid soil so rich that it could only be economically kept clean and free from noxious weeds by small farmers. Now and then the Company made a handsome profit from some of the magnificent crops of grain harvested in favourable years, but on the whole it was not a profitable place for a company to work, and it was much more suited to intense farming in small holdings. It contained 14,464 acres of freehold and yielded only a small return. This estate is sold and is occupied by farmers.
Aedgowan, in Otago, was a property containing 6260 acres of fair land adjoining the town of Oamaru, and it was one of the very first estates purchased by the New Zealand Government for closer settlement. Being so close to Oamaru, much of the land fetched high prices as suburban sections.
Moeeaki, in Otago, with 8413 acres of freehold and 25,000 acres of leasehold, was more suitable for a company and was remunerative. A portion of it is still retained and is now the home of our Lincoln and Corriedale stud flocks.
Clydevale, in Otago, was a large and “taking-looking” property of 30,581 acres, but the cold, wet winter climate caused heavy mortality in the young sheep. Rabbits were also a great scourge and expense. It was not a first-class property for a company to work, as it was too far south in Otago and the large area of root crops required to winter the stock, irrespective of fattening, rendered the working too costly and the returns, consequently, were small. It is now in the hands of farmers.
Kuiiow was a healthy run containing 47,360 acres on the borders of Canterbury, but it was resumed for closer settlement soon after the amalgamation of the two companies, so that the present Company derived little benefit from it.
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The Amalgamation
Kawarac was also a paving run in the highlands of Central Otago. where, however, the flock was periodically subject to heavy losses from snow. I was fortunate in obtaining the offer of a neighbouring run called Hawkesburn from a friend in London, and when I concluded the purchase it added considerably to the value of the combined holding, which carried between 50,000 and 60,000 sheep. Rabbits were a great scourge and expense on Kawarau, but latterly the natural enemies were an immense assistance in keeping down the pest. At one time about half a million rabbits were killed annually, at a cost of about £6OO, but notwithstanding this the run paid handsomely.
Merrie Creek was a poor place in Southern Otago containing 2734 acres of freehold. It was a costly holding, as it hardly paid working expenses and was unhealthy for stock.
Waitepaka was another isolated small property, containing 3165 acres, in Southern Otago. It was distinctly superior to Merrie Creek and was for some time used as a breedingplace for stud Border Leicester sheep. I was very pleased, however, when it was sold, in subdivisions, at fully valuation prices.
Edexdale, in the province of Southland, was the largest of the freehold estates in New Zealand and embraced 124,666 acres. Perhaps 30,000 acres represented the good and fair soil, the remainder of the estate being for the most part inferior and cold in character. About 17,000 acres in the Mataura valley, being the pick of the country, were laid down in English grass and supported most of the stock on the place. Besides this block, other 16,000 acres were sown out in grass, but most of this in time returned almost to its native state. I find that according to the 1878 balance £57,500 had been spent on Edendale for fencing and buildings, and no less than £219,000 on cultivation and English grasses. The 34,130 acres under cultivation and in English grass at that time had therefore cost the capital account, along with buildings and fences, the huge sum of £276,579, or fully £B, 2s. per acre, irrespective of the valuation of the land! Against this, in 1878 the fences
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The Amalgamation
and buildings on The Levels in Canterbury had cost £22,341 and the 28,703 acres of cultivated lands and English grasses had cost £36,734 —the total cost, therefore, being only £2, Is. per acre as compared with £B, 2s. per acre on Edendale ! My conclusion is that the system of accounting was bad on the latter, and that very little was charged against revenue for cultivation. Edendale, with the assistance of costly supplies of roots, carried 62,000 sheep and 5700 cattle on the 124,666 acres; while The Levels, with only 73,000 acres of freehold and 13,000 acres of hill leasehold, carried 113,400 sheep and 225 cattle. Hence my regret that the old Land Company had the misfortune to buy properties and start operations in Southland, where the land could only be worked economically and profitably by dairy farmers or other small settlers. The whole of this estate is now occupied by settlers.
Apakima was an attractive property, containing 7041 acres, situated in the most southern portion of Southland, and as it was sheltered by forest country and faced the sun, it was warmer than Edendale. It was accessible, but was too small a place to be worked profitably by a company. It had much natural beauty, which helped towards an early sale to small settlers at above valuation prices.
Such were the eighteen estates held by the old New Zealand and Australian Land Company, and these were amalgamated with the five profitable and very promising estates held by the Canterbury Company.
To put the matter in a nutshell, the old Land Company, out of eighteen estates, brought into the new amalgamated Land Company only seven good properties, in addition to Wellshot, which had been sold as shown in table on p. 95.
After the amalgamation I strongly recommended the sale of the ten inferior properties, and these were disposed of as quickly as possible, though it was a
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The Amalgamation
lengthy business getting quit of the large territory on Edendale.
When the amalgamation was decided on in 1877, the capital of the new company was fixed at £2,500,000, divided into £1,000,000 4 per cent. “A” Preference Stock and £1,500,000 Ordinary Stock. At that time the
capital of the old Land Company was . £1,184,125
and of the Canterbury Company . . 500,000
Making together . £1,684,125
The directors believed that the estates of both companies had increased in value by 815,875 And therefore it was claimed that the
capital of the amalgamated company might fairly be made .... £2,500,000
In 1878 valuations of all the estates were therefore made by independent valuers, and were adopted and entered in the Company’s books. The valuers, in
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addition to fixing the cash value of the lands, were requested to state what additional price might be expected if the estates in New Zealand were subdivided into suitable farms and sold on deferred and easy payments. This additional expected value they fixed at 25 per cent, extra, which, however, was really too high, though at the present time (1918) it would not nearly represent the increased market value which has resulted from closer settlement and detailed farming during the past forty years.
Including all the assets of the amalgamated company, the valuators’ estimates of their value in 1878 were as follows :
New Zealand estates, with stock, etc. . . . £3,014,299
Australian „ „ „ . 562,318
Hakateramea, as per sale made but not completed . 124,356
Total valuation of the assets of the Company) n,» mm , after amalgamation . . . .' '
At this time (1878), including leaseholds and freeholds, the Company held about 3,000,000 acres, carrying about 12,000 cattle and 700,000 sheep, yielding an annual clip of 10,500 bales. The English grass pastures and cultivated lands in New Zealand covered fully 125,000 acres, enclosed by about 3000 miles of fencing- —-chiefly hedges. The working horses and implements also represented a very large sum, which will be better understood when I mention that in 1878 a plant had to be maintained capable of cultivating 36,500 acres then under the plough.
No valuations could have been more carefully and honestly made by unbiassed and reliable valuators, but, personallv, I was not in favour of the addition of the 25 per cent, named by them to represent the expected increment in selling values during the process of the
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gradual realisation of the land in farms to suit settlers. However, had this addition not been adopted, the valuation of the assets would not have met the full amount fixed for the capital of the new amalgamated company, and at the time this was a matter of much importance in consequence of the panicky and disturbed condition of the financial Avorld in Scotland, following on the failure of the City of Glasgow Bank.
On the amalgamation of the two companies I was appointed general manager in room of Mr James Morton, who had resigned, and I took up the reins in Glasgow on 16th January 1879 and then submitted to the Board a long and detailed report on all the estates in Australia and Xew Zealand, which I had carefully inspected in 1878.
Recognising the introduction of a gambling element in the new company by the inclusion of the Australian estates, I at once took exception to the high valuation of the live-stock there, which was so liable to heavy mortality from drought; and in 1880, on my representations, the Board decided that the capital should be reduced by £250,000, which brought down the Ordinary Stock to £1,250,000.
After this was done I felt more comfortable as regards the values of the sheep, but soon found that as the Company’s financial position was weighted down by the very large amount of money borrowed on debenture—which at one time practically reached the limit of £1,250,000 —it was most important that land sales be made as quickly as possible in New Zealand, so as to relieve the situation. This was rendered more urgent by the increasing demand for land by small investors who wanted farms, and who were backed by the shopkeepers in the towns adjacent to the Company’s
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estates. The Company had also made it a rule not to block settlement, and we were willing to sell farms on any estate so long as the sales did not interfere with the working of the balance of the property. Another reason for selling land was the knowledge that the Company could never undertake the farming necessary to extract a full profit from their now highly-valued estates in New Zealand. For instance taking the Canterbury estates, The Levels, Acton, and Pareora, containing, say, 100,000 acres of agricultural land, it would only have been a proper proportion to grow fully 25,000 acres of grain crops each year—not to mention the land cultivated for sowing out and root crops—and this would have been much too risky a venture in view of the labour difficulties alone.
Do what we could we could not make more than about 3\ per cent, net profit on the New Zealand freeholds, handicapped as they were with the immense holding in Southland, which yielded only about per cent, on the large capital represented. It was, of course, these unproductive lands we pressed for sale, also offering to lease them with purchasing clauses and in every way holding out inducements to small farmers to take up blocks.
By reducing the areas of the estates we could also devote more attention to the cultivation of the remaining lands, and thus secured a better return; while the interest on the instalments due for land sold gave us about 5 per cent, per annum, which was much better than working the land ourselves on many of the estates. Land taxation also rapidly increased and still heavier impositions loomed large.
Altogether there was every inducement to sell extensively and quickly for the Company’s own sake,
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besides which I felt that its useful life in New Zealand was drawing to a close. We had pioneered the country and prepared it for the increasing number of immigrants and settlers who wanted to “get on the land,” and many of whom had saved and amassed their capital from the excellent wages and cropping contracts granted by the Company. Then at the time of the amalgamation the great public works inaugurated in New Zealand, including railways and roads through the Company’s estates, quickly rendered the colony one of the most attractive farming countries in the world. The railways in such districts as those in which the Company’s estates lay were remunerative from the day they were opened, and notwithstanding the periods of depression which have periodically alarmed investors, New Zealand has never really “looked back” in its career.
After my inspection of the estates and close study of the prospects in Australia for sheep farming on a large scale I was also quite convinced that in that country there was a much more suitable field for a large and enterprising company to work in, if proper caution was exercised in making provision to meet droughts. This feeling acted with me as a spur to urge on land sales in New Zealand, so that the capital thus procured might be transferred as quickly as possible to Australia for the purchase of runs there.
The influx of coin to the Company’s coffers, however, was slow, as when selling freehold land we only required about 25 per cent, of the price to be paid in cash, leaving the balance to be paid in instalments extending over about five years or even more, with interest at about 5 per cent.
Even before I left the colony to take up the
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general management at home, we had commenced selling farms and had sold 4420 acres on Pareora by auction. Following this, 27G4 acres of Totara were sold by auction, including some of the most valuable farming land in the South Island, which fetched the exceptional price of £22, 16s. 3d. per acre. On the Southland estates, too, 11,000 acres were sold at about £4 per acre, and further large sales were annually made.
There was, however, a book loss on these sales, as the prices realised were not up to those fixed by the valuations made for the amalgamation in 1878, and I felt convinced that we could not continue selling on the wholesale scale we wished to adopt without disclosing a very large shortage in the value of the freehold estates.
The directors, recognising this position of affairs, instructed me, when leaving on one of my inspection tours in 1885, to make a new valuation myself of all the Company's freeholds and assets in the colonies, as it was agreed to be of the first importance to push on with sales of land, which could not well be done when in each year's balance sheet we had to publish a constantly increasing "deficit on land sales." This valuation was one of the most important undertakings I ever took in hand for the Company, and it occupied much time and careful work.
In New Zealand, where I was accompanied by Mr Brydone, the Company's superintendent in that colony, I subdivided each estate into sections and valued the land in detail, making proper allowances for waste and unploughable country. Mr Brydone and I each put our own independent prices on the various subdivisions when inspecting them, and in the
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evenings we compared our valuations, which differed exceedingly little, and I then finally settled the price to be placed on each block. I had the advantage of knowing the country and its capabilities intimately, and was also cognisant of the sale prices of farms in the different localities, so that I had a wider knowledge than the outside valuators who acted for the Company in 1878 and who saw the estates for the first time.
The outcome of my valuation was rather startling I In New Zealand there were 225,437 acres of freehold and eleven town sections, which were standing in the books at the prices fixed by the valuators in 1878, the
total amounting to . . . . £2,112,024
Whereas my valuation reached only . 1,520,540
Leaving a deficiency in New Zealand alone of £591,484
In addition to the above reduction, sales already made had left a deficit of £28,160, so that, in accordance with my valuation, there was a total deficit of, say, £620,000, being equal to a reduction of nearly per cent, on the whole value of the Company’s freeholds in New Zealand.
I also valued the properties in Australia, which then consisted of only Bundure, Till Till, Humula, and Wellshot; and feeling that it was most important—especially at this stage of its history—that the Company should be placed in a position to pay even moderate dividends, it was advisable that the runs should not be expected to set aside annually out of their profits large sums to write down what I considered to be the inflated valuation of these as they stood in the books.
There had also recently been adverse changes in the land laws affecting leaseholds, so, viewing matters all round, I put the knife pretty deeply into the
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valuations and recommended that £85,570 be written off Till Till, Humula, and Wellshot.
This brought my proposed total reduction of valuations to somewhat over £700,000, representing about 24 per cent, on the total assets of the Company, and the Board finally adopted that figure as the amount to be written off the ordinary capital. The sanction of the Court was obtained, and the capital was reduced for the second time within ten years, the total reductions since 1 became general manager aggregating £950,000, as against £815,875 added at the time of the amalgamation on account of the increased value it was expected would be found in the estates when revalued. Instead, therefore, of there being an increment in the value of the estates at the time of amalgamation, there was, according to my valuations, an actual shortage of £134,125, and it would have been much better to have retained the capital of the new company at a figure representing the combined capitals of the two old companies.
It was the inferiority and over-valuation of a number of the estates of the old New Zealand and Australian Land Company which created this deficit, as my valuation of that company's assets was less by about £400,000 than the sum standing against them in the books previous to amalgamation ; while my valuation of the Canterbury Company's assets showed a surplus of about £273,000 beyond the amount standing against them previous to amalgamation. It therefore required much more than the whole large increment in the value of the Canterbury Company's estates to make good the deficiencies in the old Land Company's assets. In short the conditions attached to the amalgamation were the reverse of favourable to the few shareholders
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who had, like myself, shares only in the Canterbury Company.
Now that the Company has sold out all its estates in New Zealand, with the exception of portions of M-oeraki and Hakateramea, which are retained and stand in the books at fair prices, I think I may claim that my valuation of 1886 was very near the mark, as in 1904, after most of the estates had been sold, there was a deficit of only £95,046 on the land sales account. This cannot be considered much of a shortage in the valuation of the Company’s huge and varied estates, representing £1,520,540, in a young country. It is also the case that, in order to make sales of land quickly, the Company latterly were willing to meet any bona fide purchaser as regards price, which tended to increase the shortage. The whole of the deficit of £95,000 was met and written off out of profits: £45,000 in 1904 and the balance equally in the years 1905 and 1906. The prices I fixed for the different sections of the freeholds were adopted as selling values for farms when offered.
When submitting my new valuations to the Board at the end of 1886 I pointed out that it was impossible to place reliance for any long period of years on any valuations made in a young country such as New Zealand, as development and the course of prices for produce were likely to effect the value of land to an extraordinary extent. This prediction has been fulfilled, for had the Company been in a position to hold on to their freeholds for a further period of ten to fifteen years they would undoubtedly have obtained considerably higher prices for their estates ; but the policy adopted was undoubtedly the right one, and I was immensely relieved when we reached a position wherein
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the Company was released from a hide-bound condition and we could sell land freely at book valuations, and thus secure capital to lighten the heavy burden of debenture debt, and later on to supply the means for purchasing the estates in Australia, which have since proved so profitable.
During the time the Company continued to hold their estates in New Zealand, either in whole or in part, every effort was made to obtain a fair profit from the lands, and to do this very extensive agricultural operations were carried on, with the primary object of maintaining the English grass pastures in good heart and condition, as these required renewing about every five years. There were usually about 40,000 acres under the plough each year, and from 12,000 to 15.000 acres were annually sown down, at a cost of about 225. per acre, to maintain the quality of the 100.000 or more acres of English grass. Each year I had to select very large quantities of clover seeds to send out for use on the estates, the cost being—along with the turnip seeds bought —upwards of £3OOO per annum. Latterly a considerable quantity of the clover seed required was purchased in the colony, as by that time bumble-bees, which were necessary to fertilise the clover flowers, had been successfully introduced, and indeed they found such a suitable home in New Zealand that they increased to a marvellous extent and actually in some districts brought the ordinary honey-bee to starvation point by taking possession of all the honey in the flowers.
To assist the English grasses in keeping the young sheep healthy during winter and to fatten stock the Company generally grew about 15,000 to 18,000 acres of turnips. About 8000 acres of wheat and oats were
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also cultivated at the Company’s own risk, in addition to which large areas were let to cropping contractors at rentals amounting to £IOOO or so per annum. Notwithstanding that I cut down the extensive agricultural operations in Southland to a minimum when I became general manager in 1877, our annual farming bill was still a heavy one, amounting usually to £52,000 or thereabouts ; but this we calculated on meeting in good years by the proceeds from grain, rents from cropping tenants, and the returns from feeding root crops. In addition the real net gain of these extensive undertakings was the improved condition of the English grass pastures and the consequent increased numbers of stock carried, and the larger clips of wool grown.
To carry on all this responsible work, energetic and reliable managers were, of course, required, and on the whole the Company was very fortunate indeed in securing capable and loyal officers to look after their interests. The labour market was capricious and the ripening of thousands of acres of grain was always an anxious time in case of shortage of harvesters or strikes. Indeed the lot of a farmer in the often over-vaunted climate of New Zealand is on a par with a farmer at home, and he frequently finds himself “between the devil and the deep sea.” Hot nor’-west gales in spring scorch and dry up the germinating turnip seed, which we had sometimes to resow two or three times ; while prolonged spells of wet or dry weather frequently disturbed our farming operations. On the whole, however, the Company worried through as successfully as might have been expected, and the wool, fat stock, grain, and dairy produce exported were a credit to all concerned.
When I became general manager, Mr Thomas
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Brydone, who was sent from home in 1867 to look after the old Land Company’s affairs, was appointed superintendent in New Zealand of the amalgamated company, and he was well qualified to fill this position, especially after his extensive experiences in connection with the estates in Southland, where there was such an adverse climate to deal with. He held this position successfully until he partially retired in 1900, and during the time he acted for the Company he took a prominent part not only in superintending the Company’s affairs, but also in promoting the agricultural and pastoral interests of New Zealand. He also had many responsibilities in connection with the land sales made by the Company, which he faithfully carried out. He died in London in 1904.
On the partial retirement of Mr Brydone in 1900, his assistant, Mr Pattullo, became superintendent in New Zealand, and, having a full knowledge of the estates and the work, he carried out his duties exceedingly well until he resigned in order to start on his own account.
Mr Charles N. Orbell occupied for very many years the responsible position of manager of The Levels, which was the most arduous work undertaken by any one estate manager in New Zealand. He generally had about 12,500 acres of cultivation to look after, besides a flock of from 80,000 to 100,000 cross-bred sheep. Mr Orbell had one fault, and that Avas that he always wished to do all the work himself! He was one of the most active men 1 ever met, and was untiring in carrying out his multifarious duties, which he would not delegate to others. His conscientious work on The Levels secured the large and steady profit which was derived for many years from that property, and I am
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glad to think that he is now a prominent landowner and prosperous farmer on a portion of the estate which he managed so loyally and well.
On one occasion, in Sydney, I was discussing the management of estates with the head of a large pastoralist company, and he could not understand how managers in New Zealand could find sufficient work to occupy them when the properties—from an Australian point of view—were so comparatively small. He was on the point of visiting New Zealand, and I gave him an introduction to Mr Orbell, requesting him to let me know what he thought of the work on The Levels. I saw him on his return, when he informed me that he had entirely altered his views about the duties of managers in New Zealand, and assured me that if he was offered £5OOO a year he would not undertake the responsibilities resting on Mr Orbell’s shoulders !
On the other estates the Company had also firstrate managers, Mr Macdonald on Edendale being one of the most prominent —along with Mr Mitchell on Clydevale and Mr Macpherson on Totara. All of these were long-service officers who eventually settled down on land purchased from the Company on the estates they had previously managed. The Government were large purchasers of land from the Company, and they took over the residue of The Levels and Totara estates after the larger proportion had been disposed of to small farmers. In this way the immense area of land once held by the Company in New Zealand has been reduced to portions of the holdings of Moeraki and Hakateramea.
The accounts, which were complicated and very voluminous in consequence of the extensive agricultural operations, were always well kept at Dunedin by a
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small staff which for many years was under the control of Mr John Angus. Indeed Mr Angus ranks third as regards long service with the Company, and has for some years past acted as the Company’s superintendent in New Zealand. He has sufficient practical knowledge to supervise the working of Hakateramea and Moeraki, and he has proved himself a most reliable and faithful recorder of the enormous number of land sales made by the Company, and which represented a huge sum of money. In bygone days, until practical superintendents were appointed, agents acted as the Company’s representatives, and for many years Messrs Russell, Ritchie & Company occupied this position, both of these partners holding powers of attorney for the Company.
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AFTER a close examination of all the estates in Australia as well as in New Zealand, I came to the Head Office at Glasgow in January 1879 to assume my position as general manager, to which I had been appointed about a year previously.
At that time there was much bitter feeling amongst the public in connection with the failure of the City of Glasgow Bank, and the Company was deeply involved, because Mr James Morton, the general manager and director, had pledged such a large proportion of the Land Company’s stock as security against his enormous advances from the bank. The liquidators of the bank, when they reviewed its assets, therefore discovered that it depended to a considerable extent on the value of the Company’s estates as to what return the unfortunate bank shareholders would eventually receive from the liquidation of the bank. At this time the Company was viewed with suspicion, as being tarred far too much with Mr Morton’s speculative brush, and I recollect that one indignant sufferer wrote to the newspapers saying that he felt sure the Company’s estates were all “on paper.” I remember, in my indignation, wishing that I could take that gentleman for a ride over a few of the properties, when, if he did not collapse, the skin on certain parts of his body would either have disappeared or have become a good deal thicker than the paper on which he declared
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the estates rested! I wrote a full report on each estate, which was printed along with maps, and copies were sent to the people most interested. I think it was the Glasgow Herald that wrote an article referring to this report, saying that amongst their properties the Company possessed “ a Garden of Eden with a dale ” (Edendale)!
Soon after my arrival Mr G. Auldjo Jamieson, one of the bank liquidators, asked me to dine at his house in Edinburgh, to meet his colleagues Dr M‘Grigor and Mr William Anderson, with a view to hearing about the Land Company ; and when I said good-night, after a very long description of the estates, I remember Mr Jamieson saying that he was convinced the Land Company’s shares held by the bank would eventually prove about their best asset —and in this prediction he was correct.
The trial of the City Bank directors commenced not long after I arrived, and I was summoned to attend the Court in case my evidence was required regarding the value of the Company’s properties. However, after attending for several days, I was informed that my evidence was not wanted.
A propos of this trial, one of the stories which amused me most was in connection with Mr Morton’s examination. Dr M'Grigor, who was cross-questioning him as regards his advances from the bank, kept building up the stupendousness of his transactions, while Mr Morton “ never turned a hair.” But the Doctor had in reserve a question which he felt certain must upset even this great financier’s equanimity. He asked Mr Morton, “Is it not the case that you very frequently went to the bank and, by signing an I O U on an envelope or on a piece of paper picked
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up off the counter, obtained, on the strength of such informal documents, 'very large sums in casli which you carried away with you' ?" Mr Morton's reply was, " Yes, that was certainly the case." Dr M'Grigor then delivered his dumbfoundering question, "Mr Morton, are you aware that between the following dates" (mentioning dates) " you received in this irregular way no less a sum than five millions sterling ?" Mr Morton replied, after a moment's deliberation, ••Well, I thought it would have been more than that!" Dr M'Grigor collapsed.
At this time the Company’s credit was by no means beyond question. I attended a meeting of the Company’s bankers along with Mr Stewart, our chairman, when the general manager of one of the banks said that his bank would not advance another shilling. He had the security of Preference Stock against his advances and he was indifferent as to what happened ! Fortunately the other bank came to the rescue when a bill fell due as part payment of the price oi Till Till. A little later we were able to borrow some money on debenture, but had to pay 6 per cent, interest.
As time went on people gained confidence, and the Company was before long able to borrow £1,249.796 on debenture at about 4|- or 4 per cent., the borrowing limit of £1,250,000 being thus practically reached. To obtain money, however, the Company had to give a mortgage over the New Zealand freeholds, which charge, in view of the intended rapid sales of land in that colony, was got quit of as soon as possible, and in the end Debenture Stock was floated at 4 per cent, and even per cent., without any specific charge on the estates. At this date (1915) the Debenture Debt
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has been reduced to £681,850, as against £1,249,796 at one time borrowed.
In 1877 the Queensland runs belonging to the old Land Company had been sold to Mr W. Glen Walker, but after the stoppage of the City of Glasgow Bank the amazing fact was discovered that, to assist towards retrieving its fortunes, this purchase had actually been effected on account of that bank ! Mr Walker's acceptance for the first instalment of the price having been dishonoured, the Company entered into possession of the properties as mortgagees just at the time I took charge in Glasgow. The liquidators repudiated the purchase as ultra vires of the directors of the bank, and it was one of my first important missions at home to persuade the liquidators that they were bound to pay a fine for non-fulfilment of the sale contract, it being a condition that the Company took back the properties. Week after week I called on Mr Auldjo Jamieson when he came to Glasgow on liquidation business, and time after time I was informed that the bank could not agree to give the Company the £lO,OOO I named as the bed-rock figure we could accept. Fortunately I knew Mr Jamieson personally, he being a family friend, so I think he was specially long-suffering with my troublesome visits. After impressing on him how important it was to the bank that the Land Company should prosper, and how it was impossible to raise sufficient money at the moment for the development of Wellshot, he suddenly, to my surprise and delight, agreed to pay the £lO,OOO, leaving the Company in possession of the runs.
These Queensland runs having been sold when I made my first tour of inspection, I had not visited them, so to ascertain their value Mr John Turnbull,
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a manager and squatter with long experience in Queensland, was employed to report on them, the result being that we decided that Wellshot was the only property suitable for the Company to develop and retain. As stated in my remarks about the amalgamation, the other runs, Greendale, Cardbeign, and Chinchilla, were sold at prices vastly below the sums standing against them in the books.
Mr Turnbull was then appointed the Company’s inspector in Queensland, and the development of Wellshot was immediately started. It was practically in its native state; and as the run embraced no fewer than 1,178,480 acres, with only one permanent waterhole on one of its outside boundaries, I knew well that it would require a very large sum to develop it.
In 1881 I paid my first visit to this run, when to reach it a coach or buggy journey of 280 miles was necessary, as the railway had only reached Withersfield, 203 miles from Rockhampton. The carriage of wool cost over £3O per ton, while now, with the railway to the station, this is reduced to about £l2.
By this time some improvements had been introduced and there were 96,000 sheep on the place, including a large number of ewes I had directed to be sent up from Till Till and Bundure; also some outside ewes purchased in Queensland. Altogether it was then possible to muster about 60,000 breeding ewes, which gave us an excellent start to stock up.
Mr Turnbull accompanied me on this inspection, and in place of the manager then in charge I appointed Mr Hopkins, who has been responsible for the whole development of the run, which he carried out with much credit to himself.
On this visit I went closely into the cost of all the
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necessary water and fencing improvements, authorising an expenditure of £65,000, but since the addition of artesian bores this outlay has been greatly exceeded. However the game was well worth the candle, as even when the area was reduced to 800,000 acres a flock of over 400,000 sheep and lambs was carried in a good season; but now that resumptions have deprived us of half the run, it has only been carrying upwards of 220,000 sheep and lambs. Soon a further resumption will necessitate the reduction of the flock to about 180,000.
It has been mainly due to the introduction of the splendid water improvements that Wellshot has been such a profitable holding, as naturally it is very badly watered. It was in 1881 that I arranged for the first two bores to be sunk, rather in fear and trembling, as it was quite a gamble whether or not water could be struck in an untried district, and it was predicted that the sinking would be deep. I offered the boring company a large sum—l forget the amount—to sink three bores—on the condition that if there was no water there would be no pay ! It was a liberal offer, which the chairman was inclined to accept, but his colleagues were not of a sufficiently sporting turn of mind to take the risk. Eventually a fair, but not a large, supply of 216,000 gallons was struck in the first bore, at a depth of 3500 feet, which gave confidence in sinking further bores, which now number six, one having failed. The sinking on Wellshot has been costly and deep, No. 4 bore being 3700 feet in depth, but notwithstanding this, and the moderate flows, the water secured has been “cheap at the money.” The first bores cost nearly £5OOO each.
The head borers were chiefly Canadians from the
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oil-wells, but even under their experienced guidance tools were frequently lost down the holes, when it sometimes required six months’ constant fishing before they were recovered ; and sometimes they were never recovered at all, necessitating the abandonment of the bore. I heard of one deep bore in which the tools were lost, and I think the manager of the run told me it had cost £12,000 by the time the last contractor had in vain tried to get rid of the block. It is a difficult business fishing in a six- or four-inch tube to catch a heavy iron tool 2000 to 5000 feet below the fisher !
At first, with the deep sinking on Wellshot, I was anxious about the risk of failure, so with the Board's approval a sum was set aside as a bore insurance fund. Later on a larger bore insurance fund of £20,000 was established to meet such risks, and the failure of flows ; but when the Company was able to set aside a very liberal sinking fund to meet the lapse of tenure and all depreciation on leaseholds and improvements, this special amount was added to it. The Company has been very fortunate in its bore-sinking operations, which have been free from serious accident, and only one deep bore on Wellshot and one on Boatman have, so far, stopped flowing. Several comparatively shallow bores have failed, and these are easily renewed with little or no risk and at comparatively small cost.
Mr Hopkins, as practically the original manager and developer of Wellshot, with the advice of the able inspector, Mr John Turnbull, to guide him, was responsible for the proper construction of the numerous tanks and dams introduced, and while carrying out these works he had for long Mr James Inglis as principal overseer.
Later on Mr Inglis was appointed to be manager
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of Eddington, but when Mr Hopkins resigned and was employed as inspector of the Queensland runs in place of Mr Turnbull, Mr Inglis returned once more to Wellshot as manager. He has thus had a very long experience in the Company’s employ, and is well worthy of the full confidence placed in him as a firstrate manager, and his opinion is greatly valued on all questions concerning Queensland properties.
It was on my tour of inspection in 1903 that I very nearly succeeded in securing as freehold a block of 200,000 acres on Wellshot. When in Brisbane in June I discovered that the Queensland Government were much in want of cash, and were quite willing to sell a coming resumption of 200,000 acres at 10s. per acre. This price, in view of a late drought and the risk of taxation, I considered rather too high. Australia had also begun to feel the Argentine competition in meat, and altogether the outlook seemed a little too uncertain to buy three acres (which was our allowance) at 10s. per acre, to carry one merino sheep in the heart of Queensland. It meant an outlay of 30s. a sheep for land without taking into account the cost of improvements and expense of working.
I had several interviews on the subject with one of the Ministers, and after refusing to give the 10s. (which the Government declined to reduce) I proposed that the Company should purchase the 200,000 acres at 6s. Bd. per acre—cash—with the condition that the Government had the right to repurchase the land at the same price at the end of our run lease—say in thirty-two years —on giving one year’s notice of their intention to do so ; unless otherwise mutually arranged, the whole block or none to be purchased. This proposal was approved by the Premier, and everything
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settled subject to confirmation by my directors. 1 then immediately communicated the proposal to Edinburgh. I was in Sydney when 1 received the cablegram, giving the sanction of the Directors to the conclusion of my bargain, and I immediately telegraphed to Brisbane that I would start next day for Brisbane to carry out our agreement. What was my disgust and disappointment may be imagined when I picked up my morning paper next day and read, “ Resignation of the Queensland Government! ”
Thus was the Company deprived of the great benefit which, as matters have since turned out, would have attached to my arrangement. The new Government appointed declined to entertain my proposal, as they said the Labour Party would not approve of it.
My Board always honoured and trusted me by providing me with a very comprehensive power of attorney, and I have often since regretted that I had not acted under it on this occasion, which I had full power to do ; but I felt it desirable in such a transaction, representing upwards of £67,000 for a new departure in the purchasing of freehold in Queensland, that I should receive the special concurrence of my directors. Wellshot has been a wonderfully remunerative investment, but the returns would have been even better with the additional area, as I calculated that the rental of the 200,000 acres as freehold would only have cost 3id. per acre.
Every visit I paid to the Commonwealth convinced me more and more that Australia, with its boundless areas of more or less unimproved country, was a much better field than New Zealand for such as the Land Company to work in. The latter was a most suitable
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country, both as regards soil and climate, for close or even dense settlement, and the rapidly increasing population hankered more and more after the agricultural estates which had been pioneered and broken in by the Company. But there was plenty of elbow room in Australia, and in my opinion a large and strong company had a much better chance than individuals had to extract the best results from squatting on an extensive scale in a climate about which there was only one certainty, and that was that it was absolutely uncertain ! It requires a long purse to fight Australian droughts, and if an individual sinks all his capital in a run and has to face disastrous seasons at the outset of his venture, he is very likely to be wiped out before he can accumulate the necessary reserve fund to keep him afloat until better seasons put him on his legs again.
I once lunched with a squatter who had just purchased a run near Wellshot, and I was informed he had sunk £60,000 cash in it; and about three years later, on my next visit to Queensland, I met the same squatter leaving his run as a bankrupt! Drought had been rapid in its work on this occasion, and all his sheep had quickly perished. When I reached Wellshot on this occasion I found it absolutely devoid of feed, although a late fall of some rain promised renewed growth. Ninety thousand sheep had lately died, and I saw several hundred cattle belonging to a neighbour lying dead around one dried-up waterhole. Altogether everything looked the picture of misery, while the flies were terrible. Such are the difficulties which have to be reckoned on, and I sometimes think that the big risks the Company undertakes on its many estates in Australia are much akin to the risks accepted by the
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gambling company which owns the tables at Monte Carlo, and which with a big contingency fund at its back can afford to have a bank broken now and then at one or more of its tables, while in the end, with only fair gambling odds in its favour, a large profit is annually realised. With scattered estates, and with the frequent possibility of one run being able to assist a less fortunate property in a dry time, our Company secures considerable odds in its favour, and it now has a large contingency fund to back it up.
With these feelings I constantly advocated the purchasing of estates in Australia in lieu of those sold in New Zealand, and although I believe that several of my directors thought now and then that I was somewhat rash in recommending the buying of one property after another, the Board nevertheless, as a whole, favoured and adopted the policy.
The experiences during “ the big drought ” certainly destroyed the confidence of very many squatters for a time, and I remember when I was in Australia negotiating for the purchase of several estates, one wellknown general manager of a large pastoral company asked me if it was really true that I was recommending my Board to buy more estates in such a God-forsaken country, where it was the wish of most pastoralists to get their capital back, so that they might abandon their risky business! In answering in the affirmative I told him our experience of the drought was exactly what gave me confidence, as the average return from the properties we had already been working was not alarmingly poor, even after the late terrible seasons, and I felt sure it would be excellent when better times came. At that time the Land Company was practically the only big buyer in the market, and
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several estates were purchased at decidedly favourable prices.
On my next trip to Australia, later on, the very people who expressed surprise at the rashness of the Company in buying after the drought congratulated me on the good investments the Company had made, and I hope I was credited with more sense than they thought I had!
As the proceeds of land sales in New Zealand came in, so was the Company provided with capital to pay for the estates bought in Australia, and when these were purchased, a large expenditure was always necessary to bring their equipment, both as regards improvements and sheep, to the high standard insisted on by the Company.
After the amalgamation, and after disposing of the inferior runs, the properties held to work in Australia were Bundure, Till Till, and Wellshot.
When I first visited Bundure it was only partially improved, and it was suffering from a dry season, large numbers of boree trees being felled for sheep feeding. This was my first introduction to a drought, and I remember being amazed at the cutting down of the boree trees when I heard that in most cases they would never grow again. I immediately stopped this most wasteful extravagance, as the manager said it -was possible to whip or rake the leaves off the trees without injuring the stems, which system has ever since been adopted. We now enclose considerable areas to allow young boree seedlings to grow up, and this edible foliage is one of our best stand-byes in drought.
The stud flock on Bundure in these early days was of a very mixed character, but the late Mr M'Tarty was doing his best to improve it by purchasing a good
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ram here and there. I soon discovered that if we wished to breed high-class rams in numbers, it would be desirable to concentrate our expenditure and energies on creating one large stud flock of a pure specified type, which I insisted was not to be departed from.
Bundure was the outstanding estate for this purpose, and when Mr M‘Larty, jun., became manager on the death of his father, the Company fortunately secured the services of an expert capable of carrying our wishes into effect. He was well supported in the way of expenditure and, having selected the Wanganella type as the style of sheep to suit our requirements best, we were exceptionally lucky in being able to make some large purchases of pure ewes of that breed to add to the flock.
Helped in this way the numbers of the stud sheep increased rapidly, and by buying high-class rams periodically, and by heavy culling, the standard of the flock has been raised to such a high point that the Bundure stud flock, I believe, now compares very favourably with any stud flock in Australia, when quality and numbers are taken into account.
Mr M‘Larty deserves the greatest credit for the excellent way in which he has handled this business, and for his success in being able to supply the thousands of the Wanganella type of rams required for the Company’s estates each year in Queensland and elsewhere.
The original general flock on Bundure was, fortunately, of the big-framed, coarse-wooled type of merino sheep introduced by Mr Fisher, a well-known squatter in early days, and the Wanganella type was an entirely suitable cross.
On my visits of inspection I made a point of being on the station when Mr M‘Larty was “going through ”
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and classing the stud sheep, when I joined him at his work and much enjoyed the handling of these highclass merinos, with every now and then a friendly argument over the merits of some particular ram. I was thus able to satisfy myself of the constant improvement in quality and in numbers, and one thing that struck me more than another as regards the breeding was the extraordinary way in which one specially outstanding ram could transmit his good qualities to his descendants, so that his progeny could be easily detected, even amongst a high-class lot.
Till Till is situated in a specially dry r zone, but it is a healthy run, the feed being largely salt-bush. It once carried about 100,000 sheep, but nowadays only about 30,000, as much of the run has been resumed. It often has a drought of its own when other places are flourishing, but notwithstanding this it has proved itself a profitable place.
Wellshot I have fully described
Such were the estates in Australia after the amalgamation.
The next estate purchased by the Company was Walhallow, which was bought in 1890.
In 1889 the Company’s chairman, Mr llobert Stewart, accompanied me on one of my inspection trips to the colonies, he being at the same time the chairman of the Assets Company, which had been created to take over and work the best of the live assets falling into the hands of the City of Glasgow Bank in liquidation, amongst which were the large blocks of the Land Company’s preference and ordinary shares, the estate of Walhallow, etc.
On several occasions it had been suggested that Walhallow should be purchased by the Land Company,
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but on examining the map of that estate and finding the freehold very scattered, with much more land to buy in order to consolidate it, I threw cold water on the proposal. At this time the property was being managed by the A. M. L. & F. Co., from whom I heard that it was not at all a good property for lamb breeding, and that to make it pay well large numbers of sheep had to be bought in each year for fattening. In fact it was described as a speculative place.
When in Australia Mr Stewart desired to see Walhallow, as chairman of the Assets Company, and asked me to accompany him, which, of course, I was delighted to do, especially as I wished to see the place which had been the subject of so much comment. At the same time I said the idea of purchase did not at all appeal to me, as I would never recommend the buying of a place on which lambs could not be successfully bred.
With this feeling I went to the property, when we were accompanied by Mr William Drysdale, one of the Land Company’s directors resident in Australia, and Mr Lascelles, our Company’s agent in Melbourne. After driving over the estate for several days, and after hearing all Mr Croaker had to say (he being then the manager), I told Mr Stewart that I considered Walhallow a magnificent estate full of possibilities, and I was keen to see it secured for the Company. Mr Lascelles strongly supported this view, we being quite convinced that there was no obstacle to prevent the breeding of lambs if the place was properly subdivided and watered. In the hope of finding a purchaser Mr Stewart before leaving home had received from the Assets Company a full power of attorney to sell the property, as it was the desire of that
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company to get quit of the place as soon as possible. Mr William Drysdale on this occasion was acting for the Assets Company, he being a manager of the A. M. L. & F. Co., which had charge of the estate. After our inspection we all proceeded to Sydney, where I opened negotiations with Mr Drysdale (representing the vendors) with a view to purchase, and we had much bargaining about prices, especially of the freehold. Mr Stewart held entirely aloof from these negotiations, and it was only after we had all agreed on a market price for the whole property, including stock and plant, that he informed us that—at the figure named—he had power to dispose of the estate. Acting for the Land Company—Mr Stewart still standing out—l therefore drew up a sale contract and purchased Walhallow, subject to confirmation by the Board. I then cabled to Edinburgh asking for this approval, and very soon Mr Stewart and I were greatly disappointed on receiving a reply to the effect that the directors desired to see us before confirming the purchase. Mr Stewart was the reverse of pleased at this decision, but on our return to Edinburgh everything was quickly settled satisfactorily and the Assets Company were well pleased to receive a fat cheque for £250,000, the Company coming into possession of one of its most profitable estates; and in addition we were most fortunate in securing the services of Mr F. J. Croaker, who now holds one of the most important and responsible positions in the Company. As an authority on pastoral matters he has, in my opinion, no superior in Australia, while his actions in practical matters, and more especially in combating adverse seasons, exhibit an extraordinary blending of caution and boldness. I look back on my long drives
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and rides with him, when inspecting the estates, with the greatest pleasure.
After purchasing Walhallow a very large amount of capital was spent in buying land to consolidate the various blocks, and ere long the map assumed quite a “respectable” appearance. Large sums were also spent in clearing off dead timber and on the introduction of water improvements and fencing.
A considerable proportion of the Walhallow land has of late years been sold at values yielding a good profit on the original purchase price. As time goes on and further development of the country takes place, more and more of this fine estate will find its way into the hands of small settlers, but meantime the Company is making full use of it as a pastoral property, and also annually has a large block under wheat on the share system. It is worked for all it is worth by Mr Croaker, and sometimes carries such an extraordinary number of sheep and cattle that under a less accomplished manager I would feel nervous in case dry weather caused a “ smash.”
The next property purchased by the Company was Eddington, in the Flinders district of Queensland. It fell into the hands of a Writer to the Signet in Edinburgh in 1890, when I heard of it and concluded a purchase for the Company on the very favourable terms of 30s. per head for the 26,026 cattle, the run being included.
I consider that this was the cheapest property ever purchased by the Company, even though it was devoid of improvements. The large number of horses on the run were a very mixed lot, many of them never having been in a yard. The best of these were selected to retain, while the culls—numbering about 600—were
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sold at 10s. per head, the purchaser, after much hard riding, actually losing money on them, as he was caught in a dry district and many died. A number of wild horses on the run had also to be shot.
It was decided to carry both sheep and cattle on Eddington, which was soon developed by hundreds of miles of fencing and the sinking of a large number of artesian bores, water being found at about 1000 feet. Ewes were sent from Wellshot and soon the run was made profitable. Mr Wilson, the manager, is another very excellent and valued officer who has been for many years in the Company’s service.
Two years after—in 1900 — Bangate and Goondoobluie were purchased, and Mr William Drysdale in Australia gave valuable assistance in acquiring these first-class leasehold runs in New South Wales. On one of my trips I was able to arrange the purchase of two large additions to Bangate, which is now an extensive holding. It is rather unfortunate in the way of seasons, and losses would now and then have been much greater but for the able management of Mr James Mitchell, who is an excellent example to other managers in the way of growing and storing up artificial food, with which the rams, a few of the most valuable ewes, and what is very important the working horses can be fed in dry seasons.
When the Company’s flocks were hard pressed for feed in 1902, the Orandunbie freehold was bought, mainly to relieve Walhallow. It is a good, though comparatively small, estate in New England w r hich has been promoted rather beyond mere relief country and is now, along with Upper Tia, worked largely in conjunction with Walhallow.
I was inspecting the estates in 1903, and -when
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travelling in the “sleeper” going from Wellshot to Brisbane I heard one passenger say to another that a friend had tried to rent a block of Mount Cornish as relief country, but the owners said they would only sell the run. At the time we wanted grazing for Wellshot sheep, and as soon as I got to Brisbane I wired to Sydney and secured the offer of Mount Cornish. I then tried to buy the whole of the Bowen Downs holding (which included Mount Cornish) for £160,000, as I discovered that the drought had dried up the cash of the company owners. On cabling home, however, the owners declined to sell more than Mount Cornish, which was inspected, and, after receiving the cabled approval of the directors, was closed for and has since proved a paying property.
While on this trip in 1903 I also started negotiations in Sydney for the purchase of the very valuable freehold Edgeroi, which estate I knew intimately, having previously inspected and valued it carefully for some investors in Edinburgh who had lent money on it. Mr J. Davies was the manager of the company owning this estate, and day after day I met him and discussed the value. In the end, as we could not come to terms, we agreed to leave the matter until I reached home and saw his principals, he meantime writing his views fully.
After my return to Edinburgh the price was soon amicably settled, and being approved by my Board, the Land Company came into possession of one of the best fattening estates in New South Wales, although, owing to the speculative nature of the necessary buying and selling of scores of thousands of sheep each year, it can only be worked to the best advantage by a proprietor with the command of an ample supply of money.
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Fortunately the Company, in Mr Shields, has a manager who suits the post to perfection, as he is a born dealer and an excellent judge of stock. He deserves much praise for the manner in which he assists in the buying and selling of the many thousands of sheep fattened on Edgeroi each good season. He is also most successful in storing up ensilage made from the variegated thistles and natural grasses and herbage, which in dry periods feeds a large number of stock.
Edgeroi is an estate which can be worked to the very best advantage by the Land Company, as they can quickly supply a very large number of sheep in a good season from their other estates, and also by purchase, so as to stock the place up to the hilt while the rush of feed lasts and then, by selling the fat sheep at a proper time, reduce the flock to quite a small number during the summer.
Edgeroi cost the Company £240,385 in 1904, but including the extensive improvements made, and a large addition to the acreage, it now represents a capital of over £400,000.
It was in 1903 and 1904 that the full tide of capital rolled in from the sales of land in New Zealand, and the total freehold sold in that year represented almost £500,000, of which the New Zealand Government had to pay in cash £359,000 for land purchased by them on The Levels and Edendale estates.
Then a large amount of cash was derived from the displenishing sales of the stock and plant on the properties sold—the auction sale of sheep, horses, and cattle on The Levels being in itself a great undertaking, as the thousands of sheep had to be classed and penned in separate yards erected for the purpose, the whole of such work being admirably carried out by Mr Orbell.
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Then there was a very large sale of stock and plant on Edendale, well handled by Mr Macdonald, the manager there. Altogether I see by my notes that in March 1904 the Company was to receive in cash for land, livestock, etc. no less a sum than £494,384.
After these large realisations the freehold in New Zealand was reduced to about 100,000 acres ; and when in that colony in 1907 I was glad to confirm the sale of Totara to the Government; and I also negotiated and carried out the sale of Clydevale, with 27,000 sheep, to a syndicate for the sum of £190,000. Acton also sold well at auction; and the Kawarau run was resumed by Government, for closer settlement, at the termination of our lease, so that by the year 1907 the Company had disposed of all its estates in New Zealand with the exception of the Hakateramea and Moeraki, which are still retained.
The money coming into the Company’s coffers in 1904 and 1905 from New Zealand exactly suited the Company, as it met the cost of some of the extensive purchases of estates in Australia.
After Edgeroi the freehold estate Wingadee, in New South Wales, was purchased in 1905. This is a magnificent estate which now and then yields a specially good profit, but its promises are frequently better than its performances, as it is so quickly affected by changes in the seasons. It is very highly improved with artesian bores and much fencing. There is also a wool scour and exceptionally good homestead buildings.
Immediately after the Company bought this place there was an alarming invasion of rabbits, and had the owner been a private individual he would probably have been ruined. The long purse of the Company, however, saved the situation, as immediate action was taken to complete the unfinished enclosure of the estate with
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wire netting; and then by netting a number of the subdivision fences the manager had the opportunity of attacking the pest piecemeal, and thus gained a mastery over it to an extent which now limits the expenditure on rabbit destruction to about £lOOO per annum. Even this would not have been accomplished if the timber and harbour for rabbits had not been cleared off the lands. Upwards of 100,000 acres have been cleared in this way, at a cost of about 2s. 6d. per acre, and, when the grass is fresh and green, to drive over the level lands of Wingadee is like driving through a beautiful park with fine trees scattered here and there.
Mr Feehan, the manager, made a splendid fight against the rabbits, and the saving of the property is largely due to his constant exertions, backed as these were by instructions to spare no expense within reason to accomplish our object.
Immediately after Wingadee was acquired, Midkin, another large freehold estate in New South Wales, was purchased. When I was negotiating for Edgeroi in Australia, the trustee for Midkin estate pressed me to inspect it with a view to purchase, but I thought the former was a sufficiently large mouthful for the Company without further consultation with the Board; so it was only bought after I returned home, and after it had been inspected and valued by the Company’s representatives, including Mr Lascelles.
I rank Midkin very high indeed in the scale when comparing it with the Company's other Australian freeholds. It is well improved with fencing and artesian water ; and as the country grows beautiful wool in an ordinary season, I have instructed that finer-wooled sheep than those on the other estates be maintained in the flock. The pasturage is also sufficiently varied
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to provide good paddocks for fattening. Much has been done in the way of clearing off timber, and, most fortunately, rabbits have always been kept under, and it is only now and then that one is seen.
A most valuable adjunct to the working of Midkin is a block of 50,000 acres of leasehold consisting of low-lying “ watercourse ” country, the lease of which, I am glad to say, continues until 1934. This leasehold was bought for £7OOO, since which a further sum of about £5OOO has been spent on fencing and ring-barking the trees. It is wonderful country for cattle, and the Company has fattened and sold large numbers off it, greatly to their profit.
From the foregoing it will be seen that while in New Zealand in 1904 and 1905 money was being rapidly paid to the Company—almost half a million sterling at one time—it was being spent in Australia equally quickly, as, for instance, the cost of the three freehold estates Edgeroi, Wingadee, and Midkin alone amounted to £782,000.
Then when in Australia in September 1907, after much bargaining with the trustee, I concluded the purchase of Marathon leasehold run, in the Flinders district of Queensland, for £88,750.
After this the following leasehold runs were purchased in Queensland :
In 1909, Maxicelton, in the Flinders district
„ 1910, Oak-wood run, in the Charleville district.
„ 1911, Boatman run, south of Oakwood.
„ 1912, Bogarella cattle run, south-west of Oakwood
„ 1912, Dalgonally cattle run, adjoining Eddington
„ 1913, Wurung cattle run, in the Gulf country, north of Dalgonally.
„ 1915, Canobie run, lying between Dalgonally and Wurung.
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There were also purchased in New South Wales the following comparatively small properties, for relief purposes in times of drought
Yathong in 1908.
Quabothoo in 1913.
Dromore in 1914.
The latter property differs in character from any of the other estates, in so far that it is a comparatively small freehold alongside a river, from which water is drawn to irrigate a large area of land for the growing of lucerne, which will be stored up as hay until required in times of drought. Already, during the late drought, it has rendered much assistance to Bundure, and in many ways it promises to be a valuable addition to the Company’s holdings.
The seven leasehold runs purchased in Queensland during the last six years represent a large outlay of capital, but it has to be remembered that very large resumptions of country have been made periodically by Government under the conditions of the leases in Queensland, and in reality the acquisition of these new runs does not increase the numbers of stock carried much beyond the numbers previously grazed. The class of stock carried has, however, been largely altered in favour of cattle, which now number considerably over 100,000 head, whereas in 1905 the Company had only about 28,000 in Australia.
The policy under which the Company has been worked, and which I have endeavoured roughly to describe, is clearly seen from the following table of figures stating the numbers of sheep and cattle carried in New Zealand and Australia respectively at different periods during the past thirty-five years. This table indicates, by the numbers of sheep, the years in which
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the transfer of the huge amount of capital was made from New Zealand to Australia, until the Company has now changed from being mainly an agricultural and pastoral company in the former to being a purely pastoral company in the Commonwealth.
In March 1902 the Company’s lands, stock, plant, etc., in New Zealand stood in the books at £1,258,926, as against the assets in Australia valued at £1,132,095, the total amount of capital represented being thus £2,391,021.
In March 1914 the assets in New Zealand stood in the books at £176,570, as against the assets in Australia standing at £3,346,229, the total capital represented being £3,522,799.
It will thus be seen that the Company’s assets have, as at March 1914, increased by £1,131,778 beyond their value in March 1902.
Against this increment in the value of the assets, the Company’s capital was increased in 1910 by £450,000, the Ordinary Stock being raised from £550,000 to £1,000,000. This first increase of capital was entirely due to the accumulation of surplus profits
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derived from the working of the estates and carried to a reserve fund, which was then capitalised.
Two years later—in 1912 —a revaluation was made of all the freeholds in Australia, under the Act by the Commonwealth Parliament which imposed the Federal land tax, and these valuations discovered that the sums standing against the estates in the books were less than their then estimated market value by about £500,000. The Board therefore decided that it was desirable to again increase the capital of the Company by this amount, and in 1913 new Ordinary Stock for £500,000 was distributed amongst the shareholders. This, along with the previous increase of £450,000, raised the capital of the Company to the amount fixed at the time of amalgamation, viz., £1,000,000 “A” Preference Stock and £1,500,000 Ordinary Stock. The new valuations of the freeholds made for land tax assessment were thus adopted in the books, as against this second increase of capital.
It is a remarkable fact that it has been again possible to raise the capital of the Company to the figure originally fixed for it, this being due to the profits derived from the properties purchased in Australia since the amalgamation, plus the increase in the value of the freehold estates which were advantageously bought at the close of the “ big drought,” when investors were more than sceptical about the wisdom of holding and working pastoral properties in Australia. The increased capital has therefore not been a restoration, but an actual addition of entirely new capital. The statement of dividends paid (as shown on pp. 134-135), along with other notes, gives an abstract history of the Company which reflects the different episodes it has passed through.
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The foregoing record clearly indicates the troubled times the Company has passed through, commencing with the days when the over-valued and unprofitable freehold lands in New Zealand hung like a millstone round the Company’s neck, and when bad seasons in Australia and exceptionally low prices for produce periodically pulled down the returns to such an extent that dividends had to be passed. To show the working out of the Company’s policy of selling their New Zealand estates in order to purchase properties in Australia, I have in certain of the years mentioned the comparative numbers of the flocks in New Zealand and Australia, and it will be seen that the profits improved after 1890, when the numbers of sheep in Australia began largely to exceed those in New Zealand. Onwards from that date the reduction of the Company’s capital to bring the valuation of the New Zealand freeholds to market prices quickly had its expected effect, as these freeholds were rapidly sold off and the proceeds employed in the purchase of properties in Australia, and in developing them fully by improvements and the introduction of better stock.
During the past years, however, it has by no means been a continuous time of plenty for the Company, and the statement given on pp. 138-140 concisely shows the most important experiences met with during thirty-eight years.
An analysis of the seasons shows that the Company experienced—during the thirty-eight years referred to in the foregoing-—twenty-one good seasons; nine patchy seasons, in which some of the runs suffered considerably ; and eight really droughty seasons, causing heavy mortality and serious loss.
The switchback character of the Australian climate
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is brought home to one on looking over this weather record ; and the liability to great losses in droughts is fully exemplified by the Company’s experiences with Wellshot, which is their best run in Queensland. There the profits have sometimes reached about £60,000, while in another year drought has caused a loss of over £-tO,OOO, there being thus a difference of £lOO,OOO in results. Other runs are liable to like variations, in proportion to the numbers of stock carried on each. The Company fortunately had the courage to buy properties notwithstanding the crushing losses pastoralists sustained from about 1899 to 1902, and they have been rewarded for their prompt action by making large profits during the favourable seasons which have prevailed for the past eleven years. First-rate properties were bought at a favourable time, and the system adopted of selecting places when possible so as to create connecting links between the fattening estates in New South Wales and the runs in far-away Northern Queensland has proved of much advantage in the shifting of hundreds of thousands of stock to the different stations in accordance with the feed available.
I have always held the opinion that a large pastoral company, if well and cautiously managed, has a much better chance of making profits than private individuals in Australia —if a number of estates are held scattered over a wide area, but still within reasonable reach of one another —if possible by railway —so that one property can assist another by supplying store sheep for fattening, or by affording relief when patchy seasons cause shortage of feed in one locality but not in another. Much very advantageous shifting of stock takes place every year amongst the Company’s holdings, and in this way, during the late run of favourable
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seasons, the well-grassed stock routes have made easy the constant march of the many thousands of stock which have been bred on the northern places, and which were eventually fattened on the New South Wales estates for export or local consumption.
While I strongly recommended the purchase of such estates in Australia, I never ceased to advocate the building up of a large contingency fund as an insurance against drought losses or other calamities overtaking the live-stock ; and I am thankful to say the exceptional profits lately realised have enabled the Company to set aside for this purpose the considerable sum of £720,000, and this I hope to see added to in the future. At the same time a sufficient sinking fund has been established to meet the lapse of tenure on the leaseholds, while the value of the sheep and cattle has also been brought to quite a moderate level, so that from all points of view the Company is in an excellent position to withstand the shock of a severe drought.
According to the law of averages, adverse seasons are due to recur ere long, and even in the present year (1915) we are having a sharp reminder in the serious losses the Company and many pastoralists have sustained. It appears to me that people in the recent prosperous times had almost forgotten the overwhelming disaster which overtook the Commonwealth in the drought which lasted more or less severely between 1898 and the end of 1902. No one who has not experienced or seen its effects can possibly realise what misery is brought to man and beast by a severe drought in Australia ; and while the unfortunate stock wander about aimlessly looking for something to lessen the cravings of hunger and thirst, the pastoralist responsible for their welfare usually suffers great
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mental and bodily strain, and sometimes breaks down altogether. The Company's managers are now and then driven to their wits' end in the battles they have periodically to fight against dry seasons, and any officer worth his salt cannot be otherwise than terribly anxious when he has perhaps 50,000 to 200,000 sheep starving and dying by hundreds, or perhaps thousands, on the property under his charge. I have visited several of the properties just after the break-up of drought, and I have seen Wellshot, Wingadee, and Till Till entirely bare of feed. It is a melancholy sight indeed, and makes one enquire within whether man is justified in challenging the laws of nature in his attempt to keep live-stock in a district and climate which periodically causes the death of millions of sheep and cattle. In the year ending March 1900 drought caused the death of no fewer than 230,000 sheep on Wellshot and Eddington, and 14,000 cattle also died. To meet the exceptional mortality in this drought, which was most severely felt in Queensland, it was necessary to set aside £70,000 out of the profits, but now we have the contingency fund as a safeguard against the depletion of profits from such calamities.
When in Australia in 1903 I drove with Mr Croaker from Xarrabri to Goondoobluie —a distance of about 140 miles—and our route was across splendid country, most of which was well watered by bores and largely settled on by comparatively small graziers ; and although the feed was most luxuriant and up to the horses' girths, I did not see a single mob of sheep or cattle. All had succumbed to the drought; and such settlers as I spoke to were most despondent, as they were bankrupt, and even had money been available, there were no sheep or cattle to purchase to restock their farms. I think
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this drive impressed me as much regarding drought destruction as seeing a bare run with carcases lying all about.
I remember once being on Till Till in a bad drought, when I saw a mob of moving objects made up of skin and bone wandering along looking the very picture of misery, and when I remarked on their pitiful plight the manager, who was an Irishman, thoughtfully replied, “ Sure, the poor devils are quite dead, but they don’t know it.”
It is, of course, the case that in districts where there is an ample supply of water, and especially bore water, sheep will pull through quite a long drought if they can find any “pickings” at all, assisted perhaps with a supply of some edible foliage; but the time must come, if there is a continued absence of rain, when nature will no longer hold up against such starvation fare, and then a rapid smash ensues and the losses are stupendous. It is undoubtedly the case that a pastoralist with a property intersected with many miles of running water from his bores is tempted in a good season to load up his run with as much stock as the pasturage will carry, and then when a drought suddenly overtakes him he is caught with many more sheep than he ought to have if he is to successfully combat a prolonged dry time, and most probably when the pinch comes he may fail in securing relief country to lighten his stocking. In such cases the result is inevitable. It has to be remembered that no amount of water will maintain stock during a prolonged “grass drought” after a certain limit is reached. Indeed I once heard an experienced squatter argue that bores were by no means an unmixed blessing, as they induced people to try and carry far more
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stock than was prudent. For the Company I prefer to have the reliable bore water in any quantity, so that in favourable seasons every hoof possible may be carried, and then when a drought comes we must risk being able to relieve the properties by sending sheep to some of the other stations or by securing relief country, failing which we must hope that the drought losses will not be nearly so great as to wipe out the extra profits made by stocking heavily in good seasons.
I look on Australian sheep farming as being a decidedly speculative business, and one in which a run of good luck must be taken the fullest advantage of—so long as there is a contingency fund to meet a run of bad luck.
The record I have given shows that the dividends paid by the Company since the amalgamation in 1877 have varied to a remarkable degree. For the first twelve years the unprofitable and over-valued freehold estates in the south of New Zealand water-logged our good ship and prevented the payment of any dividend on the Ordinary Stock except on four occasions, when the trifling dividends of from \ per cent, to per cent, were distributed. The throwing overboard of £550,000 of the Company’s deadweight capital in 1889, however, at once lightened the vessel, which has since sailed away more or less buoyantly until the present time. There have, of course, been ups and downs caused by drought and low prices for produce. For instance, in 1895 the clip amounted to almost 16,000 bales, which the big drought brought down to 12,386 bales in 1901 ; but after the fortunate purchase of further sheep runs the good seasons and bigger clips have lifted the Company into a very safe and sound position, which has enabled it for the past
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Australian Estates
twenty-six years to distribute constantly improving dividends to its ordinary shareholders. During the past five years, indeed, the dividends have been considerably more than at first meets the eye, as in 1910 the shareholders received an addition of nearly 82 per cent, to their holdings of Ordinary Stock, which was created by the capitalisation of accumulated profits, and on this new Stock the shareholders have since received good dividends. Then in 1913 the ordinary capital was again increased by 50 per cent, in consequence of the enforced revaluation of the Australian freeholds, so that anyone who held £lOO of Ordinary Stock in 1909 is now the possessor of £272 of Stock, on which he has lately received high dividends. Further appreciation might be claimed from the fact that lately the value of the Stock on the Stock Exchange has been over 190 per cent., so that what was £lOO of Ordinary Stock held in the year 1909 is worth to-day about £520 in the market.
The high value placed on the Ordinary Stock by the public is doubtless largely attributable to the belief that the Company has been run on conservative lines, which have secured the building up of the contingency fund and the placing of a moderate valuation on livestock and runs.
How far the Company was right in adopting the land-tax valuation of 1912 as the true worth of their Australian freeholds remains to be seen ; but even now the Government of New South Wales are haggling over what we considered a full valuation—with a view to increasing it. Against this new burdens in the shape of increased taxation are well in sight, and if unbridled licence is given to the bursting-up policy of the Labour Party, a considerable drop in land values
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may ensue, which will only be recovered when increased population and closer settlement again raises the value of freehold. In New Zealand the effect of such closer settlement could be relied on, as the country and climate assured the introduction of a prosperous farming class; but in Australia so much depends on the unreliable seasons that predictions in this direction are really futile. If a sequence of about ten or a dozen good seasons, with remunerative prices for produce, such as we have recently experienced, could be relied on, a different aspect might come over the scene; and as small settlers are highly favoured in the matter of taxation, they might be inclined to buy blocks of country such as the Company lately offered to sell on Wingadee. In the meantime, while so many doubts blur the future the Company must just go on working their freehold estates in the present efficient manner.
In the tables recording the chief events in the history of the Company I have stated the number of bales comprising the clip for each year, as wool, after all, affords breath and life to the Company. Roughly speaking, the wool returns have been approximately as follows:
Bales per Annum. Per bale. Per lb.
First ten years to 1888 yielded 10,300, averaging £13, 11s. Id. and 9'4d.
Second ten ,, 1898 „ 14,500, „ £11, 18s. 2d. „ 7'8d.
kjvwuu. vou 55 )» 1^) uuv ) 5J -VA. ,, < Next six „ 1904 „ 13,100, „ £12, 9s. 5d. „ 8‘5d.
— 11 11 — J I II / II Next ten „ 1914 „ 25,700, „ £15, 8s. 3d. „ ll'Od.
From the above it will be seen that prices were exceptionally low for wool during the ten years between 1888 and 1898, and it was during this period that the record minimum price of 6 - 4 d. per lb. and £9, 16s. 6d. per bale was touched, as against a maximum price of 12’4d. per lb. and £l7, 14s. 3d. for the 1879-1880 clip. The
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next highest record was for the 1912-1913 clip, when a price of 12 - ld. per lb. and £l6, 12s. 2d. per bale was realised.
In considering these figures it must be remembered that they are only an approximate guide as to the exact prices obtained, as the values per lb. have been considerably affected by the amount of wool scoured each year. However, the conclusions arrived at are fairly near the mark.
The amount of money received for the wool grown during the past thirty-six years in each of the periods I have named is rather an interesting feature of the Company’s working.
During the first ten years to 1888 the clips fetched in cash . £1,395,932
„ next ten „ 1898 „ „ „ . 1,718,631
„ next six „ 1904 „ „ „ . 982,442
„ next ten „ 1914 „ „ „ . 3,964,890
Total sum received for wool since the amalgamation . £8,061,895
It is a remarkable fact that the Company during the past ten years has grown wool worth almost as much as the clips sold in the previous twenty-six years, and if I traced out the value of the meat produced during the last decade the contrast would be even more striking. I think it says much in favour of the policy adopted in working the Company that it has accomplished what it has done without requiring the introduction of any fresh capital; but on the contrary it has been able to increase its capital from its reserved profits, and from the increased value of its freehold lands, which is largely due to the vast sums which have been spent annually on water improvements, fencing, and clearing.
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Western Australia
IT was in the year 1910 that the Company decided, after making many enquiries, that the State of Western Australia was so juvenile in the way of development, and was credited with such a favourable climate, that it offered a promising field for the Company’s enterprise and a profitable return for the outlay of some of its capital. Before purchasing any property an experienced manager was employed to spy out the land and decide on the locality best suited for the Company to start in ; and after inspecting a very large portion of the State, and reporting fully on the climate and characteristics of the different runs he examined, it was finally decided to enter into negotiations with the Midland Railway Company of Western Australia for the purchase of a large block of freehold which was still in its natural condition and embraced 52,415 acres. I finally arranged the price with the railway company’s Board in London, and the Company made its debut into Western Australia by becoming possessed of the Tootra estate. The land had been reported on most favourably by some of the Company’s most experienced and reliable officers in Australia, and all agreed that there was much promise of its proving a very valuable estate after it was developed. There was also the expectation that in years to come it would grow into greater value, and would some day leave a large profit if subdivided and sold to small farmers.
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Western Australia
Work was at once commenced on this block and it was soon enclosed with fencing; buildings were erected and much money was spent on securing a water supply; many thousands of acres were ringbarked, and in every way development has been pushed on rapidly.
From the first it was decided to make Tootra, if possible, the best stud stock farm in Western Australia, and to carry this into effect 2371 very high-class stud ewes and rams were sent round by sea from Bundure, and these form the nucleus of a stud flock which should some day be capable of supplying all the rams required by the Company themselves in the western State and leave a considerable number to be sold to outsiders.
With a view to ultimately supplying first-rate draught horses to agriculturists, forty of the best draught mares proem-able in New Zealand were purchased, with a couple of exceptionally good stallions, and these, with the exception of one mare, were landed safely after their long sea journey and have since done much work on the place; but otherwise this horse-breeding branch has been rather unlucky, and has been attended by misfortunes of one kind and another. However, better results may be expected in the future.
In the year 1911 the Company also purchased the Beringarra run in Western Australia, embracing about 800,000 acres of leasehold, with the intention of working it with Tootra, this latter estate being a suitable depot where fat sheep from runs can be held until they are sold to the best advantage in the Perth market, which is not far away. Beringarra has been greatly improved by the introduction of fencing and
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Western Australia
wells since the Company entered into possession ; but as no first-rate breeding ewes could be purchased in the west, two large shipments were sent from the Company’s New South Wales estates, which has added 10,250 high - class breeders to the Beringarra flock. The sea passage was costly and risky, as it was across the rough Australian Bight, but the Company were fortunate in losing very few sheep and only one horse. The action of the Company in establishing a stud farm at Tootra, and in the introduction of high-class stud ewes on Beringarra, is of importance to the State, and should later on have some influence on the improvement of the more or less inferior stock now in the country.
Before the Company ventured into the domain of Western Australia the reports they received of that State were such as to make one think that it was a Promised Land flowing with milk and honey, where devastating droughts were unknown, and where the so-called “ top feed ” supplied any extra food necessary to carry stock safely through a dry time; but the Company’s experience has been in the opposite direction, and the years of drought they have experienced there since starting have dried up all the milk and, instead of honey, large areas of poison plant have had to be fenced off to save the stock from death, while the top feed was soon consumed. Lately good rains have at last come to the rescue—after all the sheep and horses were removed from Tootra to save them from starvation, and after Beringarra had lost a very large proportion of its flock. Indeed the continuous drought must have cost the pastoralists in Western Australia dearly, and I am pleased to think that the Company was not tempted to buy another
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Western Australia
very large run which was at one time under consideration. I spent an afternoon in London negotiating with the owner (who happened to be at home) for this place, but his idea of value was so high, and so much beyond any figure I could think of, that I left him feeling that I had not yet fathomed the wonderful faith residents of Western Australia seemed to have in the future of their pastoral undertakings. Since then the squatter referred to may have altered his appraisement, as I hear he has lost during the recent drought most of his large numbers of stock.
Perhaps good seasons in the coming years may quite change the experiences hitherto met with by the Company in this portion of Australia, but personally I shall always be rather anxious about runs which require from thirteen to twenty acres to carry one sheep, and this more especially if rabbits at any time lay hold of the country. What are considered our second-class runs in Queensland will carry a sheep to four acres. However Ido not wish to finally condemn Western Australia as being possibly a profitable field for the Company to work in, as surely the enthusiastic reports we originally received regarding the climate of the State must have sufficient foundation to justify one in expecting better seasons in the future.
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IT is almost needless to say that unless the Company had been provided with an efficient control and a suitable system of management, it could hardly have survived some of the trying vicissitudes it has successfully surmounted, and it certainly would not have attained its present prosperity had it not been staffed with loyal and capable practical managers.
If I may be so bold as to criticise the actions of my directors, I would like to place on record my appreciation of their constant and never-failing broad-minded-ness, which, without much expert knowledge to guide them except in the case of three or four members who sat on the Board at different times, enabled them to grasp and deal with large questions which would have puzzled or frightened many directors.
Mr Robert Stewart was chairman of the original New Zealand and Australian Land Company, and was also chairman of the Canterbury and Otago Association, so he quite naturally occupied the chair of the amalgamated company, which he retained until he died in January 1909. He was the first chairman with whom I was brought into close contact, and he it was who was at the helm during the anxious times when the City of Glasgow Bank failed, and no one could have steered a more judicious course so that the many ugly rocks threatening the very existence of the Company might be safely passed.
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Then when it came to dealing with the unpalatable desirability of reducing the capital of the Company on two occasions, he was quite ready to meet the disappointed shareholders. Later on, when the capital liberated by the large sales of land in New Zealand fell to be reinvested, he always gave a sympathetic support to my recommendations to the Board to purchase one property after another in Australia, although I confess he once gravely consulted my wife as to whether she did not think I was seized with a buying mania which I could not control! In every way the Company could not have had a more efficient or a more interested chairman.
It was a great pleasure to me to conduct Mr Stewart round the Company’s estates when he visited Australasia in 1889 for that purpose, and I often admired the pluck and great good temper with which he philosophically accepted the rough travelling and accommodation, including bodily discomfort, when we were “ out back ” in Australia, to which he was quite unaccustomed. No one could have desired a more pleasant and genial travelling companion, whether the conditions were fair or foul, and he was at all times most interested in all he saw and keen to get an insight into the practical working of the Company’s estates, which he afterwards made good use of. Altogether I look back on my close association with Mr Stewart with unmixed pleasure, whether viewed in his position as chairman of the Company or as a friend who, I have reason to know, honoured me with a large measure of his confidence.
The Company’s present able chairman, Dr David Murray, is intimate with all the business, as he has been connected with the Company from its earliest
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Management
days—first as legal adviser, when he attended the Board meetings, and then in 1895 and onwards as a director, until in 1909 he succeeded Mr Stewart as chairman.
The Company has to thank the Drysdale family, of Kilrie, Fife, for the practical knowledge of Australian pastoral affairs which three brothers in succession brought to the Board. Firstly Mr William Drysdale joined in 1881 as a representative of the Assets Company, which then held such a very large block of the Company’s Stock, and later on, when he went to Australia, he continued as “director resident in Australia.” On his death in 1903 Mr George R. Drysdale, who had had much experience in Australia and was a recognised authority on the practical working of estates in that country, was elected a director, and held that position until he also died, in 1909. And now the third brother. Dr Arthur Drysdale, fills the place of his late brother; and as he has a natural understanding of and liking for pastoral affairs, he devotes much attention to the Company’s business during his frequent and lengthy visits to Australia, when he visits a number of the stations, greatly to the advantage of all concerned.
The Board is placed in a peculiarly advantageous position, in so far that each director receives excerpts from the inward letters and cablegrams from Australia and New Zealand and copies of the outward correspondence, so that when a meeting is attended the directors are well posted with an up-to-date knowledge of all that has taken place.
In the Head Office there has always been an able secretary, but none more able than my valued friend Mr William Bonnar, who has, like myself, practically
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Management
spent all his business life in the service of the Company. After learning his duties in more subordinate positions in the office, he was advanced to the position of secretary in 1885, since which time his responsibilities have multiplied as the Company’s undertakings have increased. Keepjng watch and ward over the Company’s Stock Exchange securities is in itself no small business nowadays, besides which the very large sums dealt with and passing to and from the Sydney office require close attention. Mr Bonnar is also much appreciated by the shareholders, and in every way he merits the complete confidence he inspires and deserves the highest praise for the admirable manner in which he fills his important position. What he does not know about the Company and its working is not worth knowing, and it is always a pleasure to me to discuss with him all matters of importance. He is well supported in the Edinburgh office by efficient clerks, some of whom have been in the Company’s employ for many years.
Mr J. C. Thierens, who was appointed inspector of estates in 1898, has also done excellent work for the Company, the periodical and very thorough inspections he makes of all the estates keeping the Head Office in touch with what is taking place in the colonies, while his reports often include valuable suggestions for the improved working of the Company.
At one time the Company's Australian business and finance was looked after by agents in Melbourne, the first firm occupying that position being Messrs Holmes, White & Company, followed in 1883 by Messrs White, Alford & Company, who sold their business in 1889 to Messrs Dennys, Lascelles, Austin
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& Company. The first two firms handled a purely mercantile business, but the latter firm were stock and station agents, and both Mr Lascelles and Mr Austin were practical sheep farmers, so that the change of agency to their firm was of much advantage to the Company, and took place when an expansion in the Australian undertakings commenced. As these assumed larger and larger proportions I reported that the time had come when it was desirable that the Company should have an office of their own in Sydney, under a practical superintendent of estates, which view was adopted by the Board, and in 1908 an office was opened in that city under Mr S. M'CallM‘Cowan. Mr William Anderson was appointed secretary, and all the station accounts are now focussed in that office, and are checked and audited before being sent home. Mr Anderson is most indefatigable in his department, his chief aim in life being to do the best possible for the Company, and his long experience of the accounts renders him a most efficient and valuable officer.
Mr M'Call-M'Cowan as superintendent in Australia brought with him a practical knowledge of squatting in Queensland, where he had been a runholder, after which he acquired a still wider experience when occupying the position of station inspector for a large company. He also gained some general information concerning the work at the Company's Head Office in Edinburgh, when for a short time he had a seat on the Board.
While Mr M'Call-M'Cowan has these valuable qualifications, he is fortunate in having the Hon. James Ashton, the Company's attorney in Sydney (with an office under the same roof), to consult on
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important matters, and no one could desire a more capable and knowledgeable adviser. Mr Ashton is a member of the Legislative Council of New South Wales, was once Minister of Lands, and is a politician trusted by all parties. He also has an excellent knowledge of pastoral affairs, so that with him and our long time and trusted attorney Mr Lascelles, living in Melbourne, the Company is exceedingly well off in the matter of most competent and reliable advisers.
Then come the inspectors of the estates, who supervise, with constant visitations, the practical working of the properties by the managers, and who report to Mr M'Call-M'Cowan how matters are going on, and submit their recommendations.
I have already alluded to Mr Croaker's most valuable work in connection with the handling of the New South Wales estates and their stock, and in droughty seasons no better general can be found in Australia than he is. A certain amount of inspection work is also done by Mr M'Larty, who visits and reports on Till Till and Yathong.
The Queensland estates are inspected by Mr Hopkins, who has filled this position most satisfactorily since he resigned the management of Wellshot, which he had developed so successfully. Mr Hopkins has also been in most cases employed to report on the runs offered for sale to the Company, and on his reports the ultimate decision to buy or decline have largely depended. Fortunately Mr Hopkins has apparently discovered how to defy time, as he has remained about the same age ever since I first met him, which was thirty-four years ago!
The station managers rank next in the Company’s staff, and I do not believe more capable, reliable, and
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Management
loyal officers could possibly be obtained than those now in charge of the Company's estates. Some of them have been in the service for very long periods—such as Mr M'Larty, managing Bundure; Mr Inglis at Wellshot ; and Mr Wilson at Eddington.
It is really on the managers of the estates that the Company has mainly to depend for the actual success of the operations, as no amount of superintendence or inspection will prevent catastrophes in seriously bad seasons if the managers are stupid or negligent. A blunder made in handling a flock may cause the loss of thousands of sheep in a day when water is scarce and the animals are weak. It is in adverse times that a manager's good qualities stand out.
In really favourable seasons in Australia, on the other hand, it might almost be said that, apart from culling the flocks, making fire-breaks, and such necessary work, almost any manager could control a station with his pipe in his mouth and sitting on his homestead verandah until shearing time roused him from his reveries. lam glad, however, to think that matters are not run on these lines on the Company's properties, as even in the best seasons there are a hundred and one things which an energetic manager can find to do in the way of repairs and maintenance of the improvements up to the high standard of equipment insisted on by the Company.
From the superintendent downward it is therefore the case that the Company is now equipped with what I consider to be as perfect a system of management us could well be devised, and one of the chief recommendations is that the whole machinery works exceedingly smoothly and all concerned are anxious to do their best for the Company as a whole, even though
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now and then a manager is requested to sacrifice the special interest of the property under his charge by relieving another station of starved-out sheep and giving them pasturage which he was reckoning on for his own flock. The Company are liberal to their officers, as they require the very best procurable, and they are rewarded by the loyal and efficient manner in which they are served.
The policy of purchasing runs so as to create connecting links in a chain of properties reaching from the far north of Queensland to the centre of New South Wales has facilitated the removal of many thousands of sheep and cattle to the fattening plains of New South Wales, from whence they have been sold for local consumption or for the frozen-meat trade.
During the past long run of favourable seasons the stock routes have been well supplied as a rule with grass and water, which has facilitated the shifting of stock, and this advantageous position has been taken full advantage of under Mr M‘Call-M‘Cowan’s superintendence. Altogether the Company has never enjoyed so many years of exceptional prosperity, both as regards the seasons and prices for wool and sheep, and I am thankful that the opportunity has been seized to place it in an enviable position both as regards reserves and the values standing against livestock and runs.
While this is a very comforting thought to me in this my jubilee year of service, there is nevertheless a black cloud hanging over the Company in the shape of the heavy increased taxation already imposed and the still heavier taxation foreshadowed.
In the year 1906, when the Company held their large estates in New Zealand, the colonial taxation
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Management
amounted to only £13,460 as compared with £59,679 for the year ending March 1915. What with the heavy war taxes we may expect at home, coupled with the increased taxes abroad, it looks as if the Company will soon be annually deprived of almost half their profits.
It is small comfort to feel that if a strong company such as the Land Company is burdened to an unbearable extent, it will be a still blacker day for Australia generally. Meantime nothing can be done but “wait and see,” and continue to extract every shilling of profit it is possible to obtain by working the estates at high pressure, and this can be done, as no money has been spared in developing and equipping the twenty-five properties held in Australia.
The Land Company is not a syndicate of capitalists speculating in land, but is composed of about two thousand shareholders for the most part with small holdings of Stock, while the estates are worked to their full capabilities.
With some notable exceptions it has never struck me that Australia was a land of monopolists, and irrespective of private sales the laws generally provide for a supply of grazing and agricultural farms to the small men wishing to settle on the land.
My allusion to large holders of country reminds me of a very interesting evening I spent with the late Mr James Tyson, one of the wealthy pastoralist princes and pioneers of Australia. He told me that he originally surveyed and took up Till Till, and gave me a graphic account of some of his explorations in the early days. He was a tall, remarkable-looking elderly man when I met him, and was of eccentric character in many ways, if all the stories I heard about him are true.
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Management
He told me that on one of his many exploring trips he very nearly came to a sad end. He was searching for good pastoral country far outside the limits of occupied runs, and, accompanied only by a valued black boy, he penetrated into unknown lands, sleeping one night near a blacks’ camp, where he heard of a distant water-hole which he thought he could reach next day if he pushed on quickly in that direction. Making an early start, and after riding all day in a blazing hot sun, evening fell, and found Tyson and his boy on horses, completely knocked up by their journey and the want of water, which they relied on finding in the water-hole they had endeavoured in vain to discover. It was impossible to return, and without water Mr Tyson made up his mind that his fate was sealed, and decided to meet his end as calmly as possible. They dismounted their exhausted horses, and he and his boy sat down at the foot of a tree, believing that their days were numbered. He told me that the one thing that disturbed his serenity and reflections was the cawing of the crows which sat on the tree above them and loudly discussed the ghastly meal they looked forward to enjoying very soon. When it was growing dark the black boy, who had for long been silent, suddenly jumped up and ran as quickly as his tired legs would carry him in a certain direction, and Tyson, thinking the lad’s brain was affected, struggled after him as rapidly as he could. After some distance had been covered he caught up the boy, who explained that he had seen a bird fly past their tree which he knew was never found far away from water, and having ascertained its line of flight they had not very far to follow it before they found the water-hole, and soon their faces were buried in the water which saved their
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Management
lives. They then returned to their horses and led them also to the water, and all secured a new lease of life.
Mr Tyson was described to me as a woman-hater who went out of the back door of his house if a woman entered at the front door! When I was in Australia on one of my trips, a very clever lady correspondent for a leading London paper was making a tour in Queensland to acquire information for the publication of articles on Australian squatting. Of course she heard of Mr Tyson, and, notwithstanding his wellknown antipathy for her sex, she was determined to make the acquaintance of this celebrated pastoralist, His friends gave little hope of this being possible, but she was determined on the subject, and at last a plan was concocted which was crowned with success. It was known that on a certain day Mr Tyson intended to leave Brisbane by train for Sydney, and the stationmaster at the former was taken into the confidence of the conspirators and promised to aid them. At train time Mr Tyson duly appeared, and was courteously shown into a compartment, the door of which was locked against other intruders. The lady was meantime quietly waiting on the platform with her friends, but on a sign from the station-master, just as the train was on the point of leaving, she ran to Mr Tyson's compartment, the door of which was quickly unlocked for her entrance. The starting sign was givem and away sailed the train with the woman-hater safely trapped, and at the mercy of this exceedingly Cleveland fascinating woman. It would be most interesting to know how she broke the ice, and what strategy he employed to overcome her victim, who, when their destination was reached, stepped from his carriage
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Management
carrying with him a profound admiration for this clever fellow-traveller who could talk land, sheep, cattle, and horses to his heart’s content, notwithstanding that she was of the opposite sex !
Still another legend I heard tells how Mr Tyson was once asked to subscribe towards the building of an up-country church, and to this he responded liberally—on the distinct condition that the committee were not to run into debt and that he was not again to be applied to for further funds. The church was built, and in doing this all the funds were exhausted before the finishing touch in the shape of a lightning conductor was added. As no more money was available, and as the cost of the conductor was comparatively trifling, it was hesitatingly decided to again appeal to Mr Tyson to complete the good work. He was decidedly annoyed when this further request was made, and reminded the applicants of the distinct condition under which he originally subscribed. As a final reason for declining to pay for the lightning conductor he said that the church had been built and dedicated to the Almighty, and if He could not protect His own property from lightning, it was no business of his to do so !
I have written these reminiscences of some of my experiences in the service of the Company by fits and starts, without any attempt at method or system, and they can only give a rough idea of the important part the Company has taken in doing valuable pioneering work in the colonies and in promoting the industries on which these countries depend for the success which has attended their development. The unearthing of old remembrances has interested me personally, but my memoranda cannot be otherwise than deadly dull to
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anyone who has not in some way been concerned in the Company's affairs.
A history of Australia and New Zealand would until lately have been mainly an account of goldwinning and the agricultural and pastoral enterprises which have always been the backbone of the Commonwealth and the Dominion ; but lately the sons of these young countries have, at Gallipoli, for ever established a record for magnificent valour which must always be written of in letters of gold in the history of the British Empire. It shows how the hardy bushman, living in the back blocks of the colonies along with men following other peaceful pursuits there, can suddenly lay aside their ordinary business and, taking up arms, establish an undying name for themselves as regards splendid courage, determination, and tenacity. The fighting qualities of their forefathers, though dormant, seem to have remained very much alive, and only required kindling to astonish the world.
When I landed in New Zealand in 1865 the Maori War was still going on in the North Island, and the English regular troops were having such an unfortunate time of it against their gallant foe, who were masters in the art of guerilla warfare, that in the end the welldrilled regiments, with their red-book formations, were withdrawn, and the colonists, including many old soldiers, took up the cudgels themselves, and fighting the Maoris in their own style, eventually conquered them. The chivalry shown by the Maoris in those days as clean fighters is marvellous to think of, as compared with the " frightfulness" of the so-called "kultured" Germans.
Who in the year 1865 could possibly contemplate that, even in the space of half a century, such
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tremendous changes would take place in the world, and that to-day what appears to be the battle of Armageddon would be fought by millions of men under murderous conditions of warfare such as never entered the brain of any human being !
The Company is not out of reach of the modern inventions for carrying on the war, as the success attending the operations of enemy submarines and aircraft has to be provided against, and wool and other produce are now covered by costly war insurance when at sea and afterwards when stored in London. Such expenses, in addition to abnormally high freights, add materially to the cost of working the business.
I now close these recollections, the earliest of which appear to belong to a bygone age when there was still some primitive simplicity in a world which had not then given itself over to the adoption of everything utilitarian, usually accompanied by ugliness in some form or another!
Those who guide the Company in the near future will, I fear, have new difficulties to face with all the tangle that the War, heavy taxation, and adverse legislation may bring into existence, but the shareholders have always given full support to the Board and doubtless will continue to do so if troublous times recur.
After one of the annual meetings an old shareholder was heard to remark to a friend that while he came year after year to the meetings, and had a mass of details shot at his head, he came away very little the wiser, as he could not make much of the figures even in the printed accounts. His friend, who evidently received no more enlightenment, turned to him with a laugh and remarked, “ Ach ! let them alane; they’re a gey lang-heided lot! ”
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PRINTED BY OLIVER AND BOYD LTD. EDINBURGH
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Bibliographic details
APA: Davidson, William Soltau. (1930). William Soltau Davidson, 1846-1924 : a sketch of his life covering a period of fifty-two years, 1864-1916, in the employment of the New Zealand and Australian Land Company Limited. Oliver & Boyd.
Chicago: Davidson, William Soltau. William Soltau Davidson, 1846-1924 : a sketch of his life covering a period of fifty-two years, 1864-1916, in the employment of the New Zealand and Australian Land Company Limited. Edinburgh: Oliver & Boyd, 1930.
MLA: Davidson, William Soltau. William Soltau Davidson, 1846-1924 : a sketch of his life covering a period of fifty-two years, 1864-1916, in the employment of the New Zealand and Australian Land Company Limited. Oliver & Boyd, 1930.
Word Count
44,418
William Soltau Davidson, 1846-1924 : a sketch of his life covering a period of fifty-two years, 1864-1916, in the employment of the New Zealand and Australian Land Company Limited Davidson, William Soltau, Oliver & Boyd, Edinburgh, 1930
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