45 Years In South Island High Country

Press, Volume CIX, Issue 32251, 20 March 1970, Page 6

45 Years In South Island High Country

In the view of Mr David McLeod, who is retiring from active highcountry farming after 40 years, the idea that this type of farming is “on the way out” is a gross error.

Mr McLeod, who has been on Grasmere station in the upper Waimakariri. 78 miles from Christchurch, since 1930, still has great confidence in the ability of high country people to go on farming in this region. As soil conservation measures are enforced, he says, it is likely there will be some reduction in extensive grazing, but he feels that there is still adequate scope for developing high country areas with topdressing and oversowing, and in some cases even with irrigation. In many cases Mr McLeod thinks that the higher country may not be physically cut off from properties, but with improved farming techniques stock will not range so high because the feed on the lower country is so good— he has found this on his own country. He sees no reason why the high country should not continue to produce wool and sheep for a long time to come provided that wool prices do not collapse altogether, and even if they do, he considers that cattle could efficiently graze a great deal of this country, but he does not regard this as the most efficient use of this" class of country and he says he would be more concerned if he felt that the wool market had indeed collapsed altogether. In fact, he says, the present decline in wool prices is no worse than in the slump of the 19305, and a helpful aspect on this occasion is that it has not been accompanied by an equivalent fall in the price of meat. There are now very much better farming techniques and most properties are in a very much better state, so the high country generally has a very much better chance of weathering the present difficult period. Mr McLeod, who is a former chairman of the South Island High Country Committee and still an honorary member of the committee, of which he has been a member since its inception, and the present chairman of the management committee of the Tussock Grasslands and Mountain Lands Institute, came to New Zealand in 1925 at a time when he had no relatives in the country at alt Born in London in 1902, he came from a family of lawyers—both • his grandfather and great-grand-father had been successful lawyers and his father had trained in law. He went to school at Sedbergh in the north-western corner of Yorkshire close to the English lakes district and then to Cambridge, where in 1925 he completed a bachelor of arts degree in agriculture. Of this latter qualification he says that he subsequently came to 'the part of the world where a degree based on English farming was of the least possible use.

When he was young he wanted to go into the navy, but after World War I the navy was reduced in size and no longer offered the same opportunities. Interested in the world outside, Mr McLeod went to Canada when he was 21 years of age with the idea that he might have gone farming there, but here the opportunities seemed to be in wheat farming on the prairies or fruit farming in the west and the young Englishman was basically interested in animals rather than crops and machines. His arrival in New Zealand instead of some other part of the world was influenced by the fact that when bis family lived in Essex they were close to the family of Major P. H. Johnson, of Mount Torlesse at Springfield, and in 1925 Mr McLeod came out to New Zealand to Mount Torlesse. Subsequently he worked briefly on Mount White, Mesopotamia and Craigieburn, and spent a period with Major Johnson when he sold his Brackenfield property and moved to Raincliff in South Canterbury. Of his interest in this sort of country, Mr McLeod says that perhaps because of his Scottish ancestry he has had a dove for the wilder and rougher country where it is possible to go for miles over hills without seeing a lot of people. Attracted by the spaciousness and freedom of the life and the absence of the trappings of civilisation, he says that as one gets older he tends to despise the trappings of civilisation and is able to live satisfactorily so long as he has enough food to eat and clothes to wear and has an interesting job to do. Frequently people in the towns have to invent things that they need because they do not have the satisfaction of natural things. In 1929 when Mr McLeod returned to England to visit relatives, Mr C. L. Orbell, of Pentlow at the Levels in South Canterbury, was also in the country, and interested in making an investment in the high country he offered to go into part-

norship with Mr McLeod if he (Mr McLeod) could find a suitable property. The result was that in 1930 the partnership took over Grasmere at a price which Mr McLeod recalls was quite excessive considering that already the country was slipping towards the big slump of the 19305, but no one then expected that it would be so protracted. In the first three years of their occupation, he recalls, they lost money heavily. In their first season they scoured their wool and shipped it to Britain for sale and after they drew £l5OO from the bank against this consignment they had to repay the bank £3OO as their 209 bales returned only £l2OO. Those were days when they sold lambs for only 9d, ewes for Is 3d and in their second year their best money for wool was only Bjd. Rather better prices in 1934 and 1936 helped Mr McLeod and his partner to make some progress. Mr McLeod recalls an experience in 1934 that has persuaded him never to sell his wool forward and to offer the lot at auction. After the niggardly 9d a lb they had been getting in the previous season they accepted 13d a lb for fleece wool in 1934 when it was offered to

them privately. This was in a period of rising prices and subsequently their pieces brought up to 16jd at auction, indicating the very poor deal obtained for the fleece wool. Because during the war prices for wool were related to earlier modest returns, Mr McLeod recalls, it was not a very profitable time for high country men, but after the war things began to pick up and in the wool boom season of 1950-51 the Grasmere wool brought up to 155 d a lb in the February sale, but when the balance of the clip was sold after the waterfront strike the best price was only 57|d and the average for the station for the season was 85d. It was only then, in his experience of the New Zealand high country, that runholders were able to put some money back into their properties and in general Mr McLeod believes that runholders have since done well in improving their properties, considering that it is a precarious investment. Mr McLeod still regards the high country as a precarious investment in that profit margins are too low at recent price levels with high running costs and taxation, making it extremely difficult for a young man to build up reserves to educate his children and to provide for the future. In this he feels that the high country is at a disadvantage compared with the down country freehold property where the farmer has the opportunity of a major capital gain from his land. In contrast to the down country property where the land often constitutes twothirds of the investment, Mr McLeod says, in the high country stock represents two-thirds and buildings, fences and the interest in the land only one-third. Mr McLeod dislikes a system where people receive profits in the form of capital gains rather than in the form of genuine earnings. The runholder’s position he feels, however, would be improved if it were possible to have stock treated as capital for taxation purposes. It was wrong he felt that the runholder should be put

in the position by the taxation department of someone who was dealing in stock. Noting that the coat-price squeeze was a problem of all farming at thia time, Mr McLeod says that adding to high country farmers’ burdens in this respect Is the pressure of soli conservation measures.

It would be fair to say that the authorities concerned were being as fair as they could be in treatment of runholders—whether the problem was as

serious as was stated was another matter—but where country was withdrawn from grazing it imposed considerable problems in management on runholders.

Where on their own property 15,000 acres had virtually all been withdrawn from grazing, he said that it had necessitated moving into a more agricultural type of farming with more topdressing and a great deal more fencing and a large investment of additional capital.

Mr McLeod recalls that after a fire on the Bailey block of Grasmere in 1956 they received assistance from the Soil Conservation and Rivers Control Council for oversowing and topdressing and the success of that encouraged them to extend this practice, so that when it came to the retirement of the country mentioned by an extension of cultivation and some further oversowing and topdressing it was possible to carry more stock on the lower country, which was less susceptible to erosion, so that except for this year when they had to put 1000

head back out again on the higher country, they were able to carry the same number of sheep and additional cattle on the reduced area. This was, however, more costly than the old pattern of extensive grazing, and it was for that reason that they had to have the extra cattle to cover the extra cost. Grasmere, on its reduced area of 24,000 acres, is now carrying 8500 sheep, including about 4400 ewes, and 330 head of cattle. The flock was initially halfbred but in 1061 a start was made to use Corriedale rams and now no halfbred rams are used at all. The use of the Corriedales, Mr MceLod says, has resulted in a more even class of sheep and made it easier to keep the wool even, and because there has been less need to cull for wool it has enabled more attention to be given to other factors. The herd is of Aberdeen Angus breeding. Last year 215 females went to the bull and this year the number is 260 or 270. Mr McLeod says that when topdressing starts cattle are a necessary part of a station’s equipment to keep down roughage and rank growth at certain periods. But he says that Grasmere is not .natural cattle country with long river beds and swamps. It tends to be too steep and consequently a good deal of fencing is necessary to keep cattle on topdressed country. Irrigation is a possibility envisaged on the country around the homestead. Water is available and wild flooding on three or four paddocks has already given good results but Mr McLeod expects that still better results might be obtained if in future when paddocks were sown down to grass they were borderdyked to a

reasonable extent. But for the hot, dry conditions this summer, he says, they would have been able to carry a lot more stock. Mr McLeod now farms in partnership with his son, lan, and lan will now be taking over the management of the property. Mr and Mrs McLeod will leave New Zealand at the middle of next month on a world tour with one of its main purposes being to attend the marriage of their younger son, Robin, who is now a director of a firm called Agricultural Business Consultants, with the responsibility of ensuring that land used for natural gas pipe lines is restored to the satisfaction of land owners. On their return to New Zealand the McLeods will settle away from Grasmere. Mrs McLeod is the elder daughter of the late Professor R. E. Alexander, former director of Lincoln College. Mr McLeod has been a member of the high country committee since it was established in 1939. Initially it was an advisory body to the Minister of Lands and when Federated Farmers was formed the committee offered to become part of the new farmer organisation and was readily accepted, being granted representation on provincial meat and wool section councils and on the Dominion meat and wool council, and also on the Dominion council of the organisation, but the latter position was not

accepted. This reorganisation had made it possible to do more to represent high country people, Mr McLeod said, and at the same time the committee had still retained its right to approach the Minister of Lands on high country matters. Mr McLeod, wiio officially retired from the committee two years ago, was then made an honorary member. Earlier from 1942 to 1951 he was chairman of the committee, and is now the only foundation member still serving on the committee. Since the retirement of Mr R. M. D. Johnson from the chairmanship of the Tussock Grasslands and Mountain Lands Institute, Mr McLeod hak also held this position. He notes that when the institute was established in 1860 it had a strong soil conservation emphasis but the concept of the institute was now being broadened to look at the high country as a whole and its use for all purposes rather than too rigidly from a soil conservation point of view, though, there would would, however, still be a close association with soil conservation. Mr McLeod said that it could be expected that wider use of the high country would only come about gradually. From 1942 to 1948 Mr McLeod served on the Canterbury Land Board while chairman of the high country committee, and for a year he was also chairman of the Tawera Rabbit Board —he says, however, that the Upper Waimakariri has never been as severely rabbit infested as other gorges. Mr McLeod has not regretted coming to New Zealand 45 years ago. “I think that all English people find themselves at home here.

I think that they find a community that they can fit into and they can understand the thinking of New Zealanders, and are of course readily accepted.”