RURAL RIDES

Press, Volume LXXXIII, Issue 25300, 27 September 1947, Page 6

RURAL RIDES

Nelson Farming Not All Fruit GOLDEN BAY PRODUCTION The very good road over the Takaka Hill takes you from the heart of the traditional iruit-growing Nelson and lands you in a part of Nelson equally famous, but without the glamour of fruit and hops .and tobacco iarms. It lands you in Golden Bay, which produces somtteof the finest butter in the Dominion.

Tlie Riwaka Flat, above which the hill road rises, embraces about 250 U acres, the size of a moderate farm in many parts of New Zealand, but its permanent population is about 1200, and for several months each year casual labour in the orchards hop gardens, and tobacco farms adds several hundreds more. The farms are generally of between six and 20 acres, and the whole area looks as closely populated as an outer suburb of a city. This sort of farming has been prosperous lately. Good livings are made off a few acres.

Takaka Hill is practically a solid block of marble and is mostly highly unimpressive farming country. Near the top, where the marble outcrops in a most curious formation, several men, not easilv dissuaded, run sheep and a few cattle on hard-looking browntop, liberally sprinkled with fern, a little scrub, and some bush. One man has managed to persuade a big area of excellent grass to grow in this unpromising area, and his paddocks stand out in almost startling contrast to the prevailing grey and dun of the rock and browntop. A famous marble is quarried nearly at the top of this mountain. The local legend is that when the call for tombstones and such objects slackens the company grinds lime. The story is the same all over Nelson as it is everywhere else—a great demand for lime, but a small supply. The Upper Takaka valley, where the Cobb river hydro plant is situated, is an area of most mixed, country, 'rhe hills, which are the familiar Nelson > pattern of bush, growth, and fern, have been considerably stirred round by earthquakes during their, history. They have been heaved up, twisted, and shattered, and to a stranger look as though they might be at it again at any moment. Clover Needed The bottom of the valley is as mixed as the hills., but it improves nearer Takaka. There is much heavy land, much shingly river bottom, and many areas where boulder spills have shot down from the hillsides and covered good land. On the spills only blackberry grows, but a considerable area looks as though it would hold subterranean clover well.

a. farmer at the head of the valley, besides milking a herd of 120 cows, is one of Nelson’s largest producers of pigs. He has a modern and highly efficient lay-out and makes most of his pig income from shipping stores back across the hill for sale round Motueka and Riwaka. He/has several hundreds of acres of ferny faces on Takaka Hill, where he runs his breeding sows. Wild pigs are about in plenty, but his experience over many years is that the domesticated boar can successfully circumvent the advances’of Wild boa' s to his domesticated sows. The sows never fail to turn up again at me, homestead, and never fail to produce' . good looking litters of pure Tarnworths.

Golden Bay as a whole was settled, very early. This is clearly seen in the number of ancient buildings, whicn often stand alongside the most modem. The district has gone a stage ahead of Canterbury, where many farm buildings are past their usefulness and need renewing. In Golden Bay renewal is proceeding, because in Golden Bay there is no shortage of building materials. Cement is so plentiful that about the commonest sight on the farms is new epnerete cow sheds, yards, fencing posts, and drainage tiles. Few farms with any pretensions to enterprising management have not some sort of concrete work in progress. Timber too, is relatively easy to get. Very often the best buildings in the Nelson towns are Government buildings—the Motueka post office is an example—and the writer having made this observation, to a Nelson farmer; received the reply, “Yes. it’s a bit like Russia, really. We peasants live in hovels while the grandeur of the nation is displayed in great public buildings.’’ He said it with a grin, as indeed he might, because in no part of New Zealand are farm houses, and buildings too, generally, better lookedafter than in Nelson. Between Takaka and Collingwood the river flats vary from pakihi to the heaviest dairying land. The biggest area of good land is round Takaka itself, and there cannot be better dairying land anywhere in New Zealand. It is easy farming there, and production is frequently of an intensity that would leave Taranaki and the Waikato far behind. Muth of the farm land is reminiscent of the Poverty Bay flats. . A good example of what can be done is on a farm at Motupipi, about three miles from Takaka. The block is 50 acres of red clay soil, not particularly rich land. It is carrying 45 head with replacements, and is. producing 2001 b of fat to the acre. The herd is one of the notable Jersey Studs of the Dominion, and though butter-fat is the backlog, great money is made from the stud. The writer was introduced to a handsome young bul] waiting to be shipped to Australia, where he had been sold for several hundred guineas.

Fine Pointe There is some fascination in breeding Jerseys that the writer has never been able to understand fully. The fascination a good beast has for anyone . With an eye for stock is quite easy to appreciate, and he must be a clod indeed who is not stirred by the sight of good stock well kept, blit the true Jersey fanatic seems to look for points so refined as to be invisible to the normal mortal. On the farm just mentioned is a cow which for several seasons has put better than 6501 b of each y ear into the bucket. She has bred at least one notable son/ and has another that looks like growing into a champion, yet she was turned down for the highest Jersey award because she was considered to be “too coarse.” She certainly looked a little more robust than the average spindly Jersey, but her great record, and her shapeliness, did not offset her one misdemeanour. There seems to be more than a little restlessness among Jersey breeders of the northern end of the South Island at the insistance of the breed society on fineness. They argue that cattle brought from t a hard-bitten island, which developed a small b»eed because there was fiot enough grass to grow a big one, cannot be expected to stay small when they are well fed. as they cannot help being, at any rate in many parts of Nelson. Perhaps the opposition view was best but. unintentionally, by. another Golden Bay Jersey man who, when we walking through his fine herd, asked. “I don’t know whether you are a Jersey fancier or not?” The Word “fancier” irresistibly brought a picture Of pouter pigeons. French poodles, fantail goldfish. and other spectacular examples of man’s fanciful applications of his ability to direct nature. A notable . Golden &ay farm is owned by a family at Purumahoe; It was taken up by the great-grandfather of toe young man at present in charge. The gamo those, days was goldmining, not farming. The grandfather found "old running a bit Thin, and developed the timber on the property, and began to run <?oWS on the clearings. The father turned more away from the budh and began to develoo the farm seriously, and the property is now a highly efficient Producer. It Contains about 1000 aerfefc. of which 700 are rough hnisiefe. useful for Wintering young stock, ahd Some of the 300 acres of flats are pa>ihi. The Place last season milked 120 cowls, which was m below the tdn figure because the season was very dry. The butterfat average was also below expectations for the same reason, though it

Was a highly satisfactory 3401 b a head from the herd of ordinary grade Jerseys. Beside the cows, the place turns off about 120 store baOoh pigs a year. The rainfall there Is 80 inches a year, and the flats. Which are ploughed up every eight to 10 years, have to be handled In the light of this extremely heavy precipitation. The grass is ploughed un about nine inches deep and sown straight down again, often With the harrows and drill just behind the plough. Only the top Is worked, and so some drainage is obtained from the break Uhderneath., Drainage is a big problem, and the flats have about five mPes of open ditches on them as well as moles. Golden Bay was settled early, but a great , deal of development of good land might yet be undertaken. There is, of course, a fortune for the man who Can find the secret of economic development of the hills which once grew magnificent bush, were milled and burnt off, and after a few years of declining grazing after the burn, have now fallen down to fern and often bare rock. It is a frequent remark in Nelson that the bush Should never have been taken off the hills. To be Concluded.