FRIAR TUCK.

Press, Volume XLVII, Issue 7469, 7 February 1890, Page 2

FRIAR TUCK.

Wβ take the following picture of a Canterbury celebrity from WakfeflelcFa ";N«w Zealand after Fifty Years." It is twenty years since we heard Mr Blaett hold .divine service followed by an auction, sale in the way described below, and we wish to add to Mr Wakefleld's account our testimony that we never attended a more impressive service, nor one more valued by and spiritually beneficial to ■ those caking part in it. Mr Blaett was a great benefactor of his country, hie province, and his district; not only was he the father of our grain trade, but he effected vast improvement in the live stock of the colony by Jlis importations of pedigree • shorthorns and other breeds of cattle, and this in the early, days when such importations were not easy to accomplish, bnfc required the expenditure of much time, j labour, and money. It was . with regret; < that we Heard some little time ago from a Selwya farmer that there was not even a i stone, to mark the spot where so gQpd a man is laid, but we believe that some memorial is now, or is about to be, erected. Ms Wakefield writes:— .

For many years New Zealand imported all its breadstuff's from Chill or South Australia, and, after this import ceased, grew no more than was required for its own consumption. At length aMr Bluett prof>unded a theory of exporting grain to urope. ' v This Bluett deserves a word to hie memory here, as the father of the New Zealand grain trade. He was a Devonshire man of good family, a young clergyman who was brought oat by the Bishop of Christchurch as specially suited for Colonial work; and so he proved, to be, though in a different sense from that in which the worthy prelate regarded him. Commissioned to the cure of souls in the Selwjna district, in Canterbury, oae of the best farming districts in the colony, and having the command of considerable means, he bought land, acquired flocsks other than the nock committed by the Bishop to his care, and devoted himself to high farming. He became, in fact, what. Sidney Smith 'calleda/'squarson* , —across, that is, between a squire and a parson—and, being a jolly fellow, was universally known throughout his country-side, and far beyond it, as Friar Tuck. Hie ideas of the proper combination cd the functions of a clergyman and of a farmer, however, did not coincide with those of his spiritual tsupeidors. For instance, it was a common thing for him to drive to church on the bop of a cartload of sheepskins, and, after conducting the service m a most Impressive manner, administering the Sacnument, baptising the babies, and doing all that was necessary within the sacred edifice, to hold ft sore of market outside, dispose-of his skins, make a deal for a colt or a calf, advise the farmers about their crops, hire a ploughman or some reapers, and, in short, do all the agricultural business for the week. The simple country folk saw < no harm is this, but, cm the contrary, j became strongly attached to their farmer* ■priest and very much influenced by him in their worldly as vrsll as in their spiritual affairs. The Bishop did not see -things in the same liglet. His Lordship recommended Mr Bluett: to resign his cure and stick to his sheepskins, which he cheerfully did. from tteat time until his death In 1888 he applied Mmaelf exclusively to rural pursuits, sitting for some years as the representative of Selwyn in the Colonial Parliaments where his burly figure, still attired in clerical black, with the straight-cut Oxford collar and white " choker," was always prrominentwherever a Fencing Bill, or & Cattle Bill, or a Thistle Bill, or any ofcfeier measure afiecting the agricultural industry was before the Hoose.

It was he who first; made the calculation, and proved ifc fcjy experiment, that .wheat might be shipped to England at a profit. The first quotation of ISTew Zealand wheat on the London market was treated as a joke. It was supposed to refer not to wheat from New Zealand, bat

to a new wheat from Zealand, wbieh la quite a different thing. Bluett, however, knew very well what he was about, and under his strenuous advice the Selwyn farmers, believing, yet hall afraid, pot great areas of grass land Into wheat;, and sent it to England. The results were perfectly satisfactory, and within a very few years the export had risen to three or tour hundred thousand pounds a year. The quickest and best method, * moreover, had been arrived at of converting the native tussock grass land into permanent artificial pasture, carrying three times as many stock as the tussock carried before ; and also of securing a rotation of crops. The grateful farmers gave their beloved friu , a banquet and a splendid service of plate ; and to the end he was their guide, philosopher, and friend. This one man's intelligence and foresight changed the whole character of a great part of the colony, and influenced the future of its commerce in an incalculable degree.