OUR FIRST WHEAT CROP.

Press, Volume LXIV, Issue 19217, 25 January 1928, Page 11

OUR FIRST WHEAT CROP.

(WSITTIS JOB TSI FBES3.)

(By W. VT. Dunstcrville.)

When one considers the vast quantity of cereals of all kinds that is grown in New Zealand—more particularly in Canterbury and North Otago —at the present day, it is a little difficult to realise that not very much more than a century ago, this country was absolutely without cereals of any kind. There was no wheat, no oats, no barley, no anything of that sort whatsoever. The natives relied practically entirely on the fern root as the nearest approach to bread stuff that they had, and an extremely unpalatable and unsatisfactory substitute it must have been, if the reports of the early travellers are true and correct, as they probably are. For the rest their menu appeared to be composed of fish, fresh and dried, the dried being dreadful stuff; dogs, rats, birds—when they could catch them—some wild fruits, potatoes, kunieras, and last, but probably not least, a cut off the steak of a defunct enemy. Not a very inspiring bill of fare altogether. . In 1814, however, the Kev. Samuel Marsden, of Paramatta, who had his eye upon New Zealand as a promising place for the extension of missionary enterprise, sent Mr Thomas Kendall and Mr William Hall to the Bay of Islands as a sort of preliminary spying-out expedition and, among the numerous presents for the chiefs that they took over with them in the brig Active, was a bag or two of seed wheat, which they hoped they could persuade the chiefs to have planted. Two of the chiefs, at least, Tarra, of "Corroradikkee" (Kororareka) and Korra Korra, who lived on the south eastern side of the Bay, fell in with the proposal. They carefully listened to the instructions given to them by Kendall and Hall, as to how the job should be done, and promised to have ground specially cultivated and tho seed duly sown. After a brief visit, the two missionaries sailed back again to Port Jackson and, on November 28th, 1814, Marsden's full party set out. It was considered a very hazardous proceeding indeed, and Marsden had worried away at the Government for some years before he could get permission to attempt it. It must bo remembered that the massacre of the crew of .the ship Boyd had occurred only fivo years before and in that dreadful disaster about seventy pakchas had ended up in the ovens of the natives of Whangaroa. On December 22nd, the Active anchored on the north side of the Bay of Islands and the missionaries were very busy for a few days getting all their goods and numerous live stock ashore. Mr Marsden and a friend of his called J. L. Nicholas, made a point of travelling over tho country adjacent to the landing place so as to get acquainted with the various chiefs in the vicinity. Korra Korra they knew well, for he had been to Sydney and had actually come back with the missionaries in the Active to his home; the other big chief, Tarra, who lived at Kororareka, they did not know personally, but about six days after their landing they called upon him and found him a dignified, courteous old fellow of about 75 years of age. He warmly welcomed the white men and spread for them a feast of Maori delicacies, many of which the visitors had to decline with thanks, as they were a trifle too highly flavoured for the effete European palate. When the banquet had finished, Nicholas asked Tarra how the wheat was getting on that he was supposed to have had planted some months previously. The reply was that it was doing very well and, says Nicholas, "we proceeded to view the crop which he had raised from some seed which the missionaries had given him on their former visit. We found it all in ear and apparently in the most flourishing state of vegetation. I must here observe that this Island is highly favourable to the growth of all kinds of European grain and it were much to be desired that a supply were sent out as it would not only afford a superior food to the fern root, but also excite the active industry of the Natives." This is all Nicholas says about the first crop of wheat that he and Marsden inspected, and it is rather a pity that he does not give us some further particulars about it. It would have been interesting to hear what the actual area was under the crop. Probably it was not more than half an acre or so; it could hardly have been much more, at any rate, for all the digging had to be done by the Maoris with the "ko," or digging stick, and it Avould take a long time to get over even half an acre with such a very primitive implement. It was a few days after this, on January 2nd, 1815, to be precise, that the visitors saw Korra Korra's crop. In this case the wheat had been planted in what was apparently a clearing in the bush and the place had been carefully "tabooed," necessitating much argument on the white men's part before they were allowed to go in and have a look at it. Says Nicholas: "We were much pleased with the appearance of this crop. The ears were full and large and nearly ripe, but some few of them were black and infected; arising, most probably, from the place being encompassed with trees which prevented the free circulation of air." It is distinctly interesting to have this record of some kind of wheat disease on the very first crop ever grown in this Dominion. Nicholas's supposition regarding the cause of the trouble is, however, only partly correct. There can be no reasonable doubt that the seed wheat itself must have been infected before its importation into the country, and the probability is that the trouble was a smut of some kind, a disease that we certainly have had with us in some of our wheat fields ever since 1814! On the other hand, Nicholas's idea that that disease had been aggravated by the close proximity of trees is not without some sound ground, for such a situation would be inclined to be damp and shady and therefore favourable for the growth of a fungoid disease. These two notes on what are undoubtedly New Zealand's first crops of wheat are culled from Nicholas's own book, published in 1817, on his travels in the, even then, almost unknown country of New Zealand, in 1814. From what he says, it would appear that the Maoris were very fair agriculturists, accordins to their rather primitive lights. Their main crops seem to have been potatoes and "coomerras," which they grew most successfully. They carefully fenced their crops from the depredations of the pigs, and Nicholas was frequently struck with n genuine admiration at the really workmanlike manner in which they kept their fields most beautifully weeded, a state which does not always obtain at the present time! The amount of ground the natives used to turn over with the "ko" was amazing. We are told of a single plantation that covered "between 30 and 40 acres" and if this estimate is correct, the volume of hard work represented in the digging, cultivation, and weeding with sticks and hands makes one perspire merely to think of.