CONFESSIONS OF AN IMMIGRANT.
_ (3PBCIALLT WHITISH FOS IBM P&BS8.)
[By "CANTAB.* i
It was clearly difficult to got a permanent position in town. I had no ready capital at my own disposal, though some small business had occurred to me as perhaps as good an investment as any in New Zealand. It did not appeal to me particularly. I again enquired for work in the country. I had just been able to keep myself in town Avith what I earned and the aid of previous savings. I now signed up (rather rashly, in the light of further events) tor a job for three mouths during the temporary absence of a teamster. A relative of the owner made the paper out and asked me to sign. Perhaps it bad n» legal value; but it was a promise, at least. He intimated that it was general farm work, with a little "about twenty acres, as far aa I know. 1 discovered, after a day or two of my arrival, that there were at least fifty acres of grain crop and about twenty of clover. My wages were twenty-five shilliugs a week. At curreut harvest wages th.3 harvest work alone would have equalled the total weekly wages during my stay there 1 Sledges were used for loading sheaves on hilly country. While there I spent considerable time in cultivating tururps with a small cultivator; and it was there I had the first opportunity of team work with a full Colonial equipment, skim-ploughing a seven acre stubble paddock with sis horses, and discing, cultivating, and harrowing with four or five horses. I also ploughed fifteen acres or &o with a, three furrow disc plough. The aoiaising increase in the price or the land during the last twenty years was evident. Some very rough mountain land, almost completely covered with bush, was being offered, at five pounds an acre. The same land twenty years ago. I am told, was bought far ten shillings an acre. Have land values risen to this extent? My employer, who had farmed in England and seemed to possess a sound knowledge of farming, would state that the Old Country was fifty years behind the times in farming methods. A relative, who is president of a county braneh of the National Farmers LniQH in Great Britain, and who also knows American farming, once said that in the matter af marketing agricultural, produce America is in advance or Great Britain. This would seem to confirm and qualify my employers reMy' employer would also gJWBhle afiout comparatively good land—land worth from £ls per acre—being used only for sheep grazing, ''That would keen a family," he would say, pointing to a large paddock, A foreign visitor of some distinction has stated that the plains of Canterbury alone would comfortably support a population the size of Belgium. It has been the policy of New Zealand, I believe, not tp have a peasant population on the land, euch as »s found in some of the older countries; but there is Burely room for closer settlement. On the return of the ploughman 1 went out, after arrangements, into another district to see the possibilities of establishing a small piggery. This wa ? on the land of a sheep-owner who had been a tailer. (What amaawg adaptability colonials have!) Pigs were unfortunately at a very low price, and after carefully estimating probable profits within the period of twelve months I came to the conclusion that at the end o§ that time I would be twenty pounds in debt! The idea wa* to build styes from timber on the place and procure galvanised iron for roofing. Feed for the first six months (while my own crop was growing) was to be obtained Ideally, turnips from farms as nearby as possible and pollard from the mill; but I seriously doubt if the proposition would have paid on the first year at the time, even with food on the premises ready grown- The continued low level of pig prices for a considerable time afterwards made me very glad that I did not iake it up. The land was to have been leased for about a pound an acre. It seemed that a position near a large town would have been more suitable; but land was so expensive there. While in town I had been over a "model piggery," with styes of concrete, |he feed being chiefly the waste of hotels and restaurants. Such an establishment would be able to weather temporary fluctuations in the market. The pig market in Great Britain has the same variable reputation—strange that the pork and bacon market does not vary so mueh — but in a large country the home markets are safer, generally speaking. There is not the acute risk of overproduction. Particularly is this so in a manufacturing country, though perhaps it is not generally reeognised that even in Great Britain farming is the principal industry, employing more labour than any other single industry. After three weeks in which I rendered certain services for board ana lodging, I obtained through the manager of the stock company, who had befriended me before, a position as a rouaeabeut on a sheep run. The following enlightening remarks passed?— "I must thank you for your oner; but where will it lead?" "Oh, it won't lead anywhere; put there'll be plenty of good tucker!" Verilv, ambition was being quenched —or was it only being seduced? However, theTe was no alternative; and one can do worse than accept a good home and steady work, leading nowhere! Hamilton Fyfe, in a recent article in the "Spectator," has written of human vegetables of men who have worked on the same place for fifty years, and how this type is fundamentally antagonistic to the adventurous, the traveller, the explorer, the soreher after new truths. I wts beginning to find the countryside at last not a little dull; for J modestly count myself in the latter category. A new truth, particularly in art or science or any field of intellectual endeavour, thrills me la there no room for the intellect in agriculture, apart from sheer ability or "brains," as that term is generally understood? Is there no room for the "dreamer" P I had been dubbed such by a very practical farmer once; yet I cannot help asking, why do not the men ou the land take more interest in the furtherance of agricultural research? Po they not have time? They would seem to, during the winter months. Yet I have never seen a biochemical laboratory on a m ' a countryman invent the tractor or work out the relative values of mineral manures? A distmguished Indian scientist, Sir Jaga- -- v • e ' ,lns invented an instrument which immediately records the effect of various solutions on plants by a system °l ma gnifieation running into millions of diameters. This may or may not hav« a practical purpose for the agriculturist} but whether it has an immediate use is surely not altogether material. Here is room for the dreamer, obviouslv, but h* should be paid. The steady ou'tPU vu° f Geman scientists of the first calibre is not only due to native talent: science is better lubrieated in that country than elsewhere. We have to depend on a few stray geniuses. The sheep run I was now to work on for the next six months was in the back eountry, but not so far back as that on which I had served an apprenticeship for trapping. It was quite a model—about three thousand seres of light land carrying two thousand sheep, with the flats sown in English grass, Tns gullies w«r* full »f scrub; and I
was told that « great de»l of other land in the run had once been cleared. The yards were of timber and symmetrical. The shearing shed, though small, was modern; but an oldfashioned woolpress was still in use, though soon to be displaced. A few cattle were allowed the run of the land, and there were fiockß of wild turkey. It was one of my duties to milk three cows, morning and evening. I also daily grubbed matagaurj. A symbol of pioneering! Why not a machine for it?—-Because pioneers should hoe into it! I did some team work with two horses—turnips being grown for winter feed and lucerne to be dried —and fence repairing. I also learned to drive a car. I left after six months, of .my own aeeord, as the idea of establishing myself on « sheep run in the eountry waa clearly out of the question for the next few years. A pleasanter, healthier mode of life, with a correct amount of leisure, it would be move difficult to imagine. The idea of gome type of small farming such as poultry, or rab-bit-breeding, was becoming more indicated, if I wished to be my own man during the best years of life: but whether in New Zealand er elsewhere waa » moot question. (To to aeneluda*.}
Permanent link to this item
https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/CHP19290928.2.67
Bibliographic details
Press, Volume LXV, Issue 19736, 28 September 1929, Page 13
Word Count
1,492CONFESSIONS OF AN IMMIGRANT. Press, Volume LXV, Issue 19736, 28 September 1929, Page 13
Using This Item
Stuff Ltd is the copyright owner for the Press. You can reproduce in-copyright material from this newspaper for non-commercial use under a Creative Commons BY-NC-SA 3.0 New Zealand licence. This newspaper is not available for commercial use without the consent of Stuff Ltd. For advice on reproduction of out-of-copyright material from this newspaper, please refer to the Copyright guide.
Acknowledgements
This newspaper was digitised in partnership with Christchurch City Libraries.