PROBLEMS FACING SETTLERS

Press, Volume LXXIV, Issue 22432, 20 June 1938, Page 10

PROBLEMS FACING SETTLERS

SNOW IN MOUNTAINOUS AREAS IMPROVED CONDITIONS TO-DAY [THE PRESS Special Service.! GERALDINE. June 19. The pioneer settlers who brought stock to the Mackenzie Country as early as 1859 were soon called to face the problems of snow, and each year in tjie mountainous areas, the sheep are depastured on the higher country in the summer and on the lower or sunny country in the winter. There has been no housing of stock, but artificial reeding is necessary in severe winters. Only in phenomenal winters does snow now cause trouble in the occupied back country, but when these unexpected falls occur in areas difficult of working, “snow-raking,” one of the most arduous labours of tne sheep-man, must be resorted to in order to shift the sheep to safer country. About half a million sheep are pastured in the Mackenzie, but it is the custom of many runholders to winter their young sheep down country. This year two factors have lessened the numbers that have taken part in this annual exodus of sheep. Wet seasons and worms have caused hundreds of sheep to die -in South Canterbury during the last autumn, and this has made many runholders prefer the risks of snow to the worm mortality of the lower country. The other factor in keeping more sheep in the Mackenzie has been the abundant supplies of feed. The last season has been exceptionally good and until the recent sudden snowfall the winter was very mild.

Better Equipped To-day

Although the present snow is severe, Mr T. D. Burnett, M.P., a well-known Mackenzie runholder, considers that it cannot compare with the falls of 30 years ago. “It is remarkable that in the last 30 years there has been no outstanding snow of a universal character in South Canterbury,” said Mr Burnett this evening.

“There have been bad falls in certain isolated areas, but looking back over the period before 1908 I can remember really bad snowstorms of a severe and universal character, which were spaced on an average of one each six or seven years.” he said. “The art of high country sheep management has made very great strides during the last 30 years,” Mr Burnett continued. “The country with the best aspects, the warm slopes standing up to the sun, on which the north-west winds play, has been fenced and saved for keeping the sheep in winter. As a consequence sheep are in smaller compass and more readily got at in a time of serious snowfall. This, coupled with the development of the mechanical snowplough for clearing the main and subsidiary roads, had placed an entirely different complexion on the task of saving sheep at such times,” Mr Burnett said.