PIONEERING LIFE ON KING COUNTRY BUSH FARM

Press, Volume CXI, Issue 32494, 2 January 1971, Page 13

PIONEERING LIFE ON KING COUNTRY BUSH FARM

(By

MARIANNE THORPE)

Two small women and one fierce bull. The bull is madly keen to jump a rickety gate that will give him access to a paddock with cows. The two small women are equally determined he shall not do so.

As the bull prepares to jump the gate one of them stands, batten in hand, ready to crack it down on the bull’s massive skull. The other rides furiously up and down waving her stockwhip in a gallant effort to prevent her friend from being trampled to death.

The bull’s attention is diverted, disaster averted and, for the moment, the cows are safe. It is a hot, muggy day.. There is no way of escaping the heat in this inland area of high, steep hills and deep valleys. But as the two women pant theit way back to their little cottage, they are grateful to be alive. The kettle is boiling over the Are and a cup of tea is quickly brewed. This incident happened 50 years ago. The women, Mrs Gwen Davis and Miss Myrtle Garland, now in their early eighties, are wellknown in Christchurch for their philantrophic work and their variety of interests, ranging from C.0.R.5.0., United Nations, National Council of Women, P.P.5.E.A.W.0., Federation of University Women, Student Christian Movement, Theological and Theosophical Societies to various musical bodies within the city. They are both members of the Society of Friends. But not so well known are their years spent on a bush farm in the North Island, when isolated and with little help, they coped with conditions which would have broken those of less spirited determination. Mentally as alert as ever, Mrs Davis and Miss Garland remember their six years on the farm with amazing vividness. Soldier’s farm Mrs Davis’s husband, Mr Arthur Davis, had been allotted a returned serviceman’s section of 300 acres of bush on the border of the King Country by ballot in 1916. Wounded at Gallipoli, he had been discharged from the army and had returned to New Zealand to start a new life. What were his thoughts as he first inspected the site on foot, after travelling on horseback the 11 miles from Raetihi to the beginning of the narrow track leading to the section? The countryside was one of steep hills, up to 2000 feet, and deep valleys with gorges eroded by heavy rainfall. These hills were densely covered with glorious bush, real rain forests: rata, rimu, treefern, matai, miru, and maire grew abundantly. Magnificent trees, wonderfully fertile country, but where was the land for grazing? The trees would have to be felled. The Maoris in the district were friendly. “You fight for us” (in the war), “we work for you” was their dictum and they helped to fell the trees. Many were the gorges that had to be crossed often by way of fallen tree trunks. Bush was felled, dried, burnt, grass seed sown and fences erected. Then sheep were bought to graze on the new pasture, while the returned soldier, with a bushman he employed, lived in tents. First cottage At length timber for a cottage was bought. It was stacked at the side of the road at Orautoha, north of Raetihi, ready to be sledged or taken by packhorse to the section, but the Great Ki«g Country bush-fire of 1917 destroyed it. Fresh timber, not so matured, had to be bought to replace it and, as the early winter rains had begun, it had to be sledged or snigged to the farm along tracks deep in slush so that upon arrival every board had to be taken to a creek and scrubbed before it could be used. A small cottage was finally built. It consisted of a large living-room, a bedroom, veranda, back porch and kitchen, “furnished” with a cast-iron wood-burning stove and a flat-bottomed bath. Outside were a pateka—a Maori storeroom built on stilts, and a privy of tree fern trunks which later blew over and was rebuilt by Mrs Davis and Miss Garland. Mr and Mrs Davis were married in 1919. Ten months later Mr Davis was killed ■ in an accident on the farm. Their child, a daughter, was bom three months after his death. “Strange that a human being could survive the horrors of Gallipoli and meet his end so soon after he had built his little home, and before his child was bom,” Miss Garland commented. Meanwhile Miss Garland had resigned from the staff of Nelson’s Girls’ College at the end of 1919 on her doctor’s advice. He was confident that country life would soon restore her health. So she joined her friends, Mr and Mrs Davis, for an extended visit. Women alone The visit grew into a partnership of six years. After Mr Davis’s death the two women decided to carry on the farm against the advice of their friends and with the full realisation that there would be formidable difficulties to overcome, difficulties caused by isolation, the climate, their small budget, the type of work required from

them, as well as a baby to care for. How did they cope? “We worked from morning to night,” Mrs Davis said. “We just never stopped unless it was to have a cup of tea when somebody happened to pass and call in.” There was no road, only a rough track deep in mud and with many slips in winter; and no telephone, the nearest being two miles away and even then each call cost 6d. The rainfall was tremendous, averaging 200 inches a year. “It could rain for weeks on end with little let-up. When Ruapehu stopped sending us moisture-laden clouds, then Egmont would do her worst,” Miss Garland said. The winter was bitterly cold. “We don’t know the meaning of frosts in Christchurch,” Mrs Davis added. “I remember on one occasion, when I gave the cat her milk in the morning, it was frozen before she could drink it.” But the air was gloriously pure. In spite of the cold, both women always had cold baths, a habit which Mrs Davis has continued to the present day, a factor which in someway may contribute to her extraordinary vitality. There was of course no electricity. Kerosene lamps and candles lit the cottage at night while a fire was always kept going in a huge open fireplace. "With the aid of a horse and a snig-chain we used to get the logs for the fire from where they were accessible,” Mrs Davis explained. Then, with crosscut saw, maul and wedges, the biggest logs were converted into firewood. Sometimes they were so big that the two sawyers at either end of the saw could hardly see each other over the top! All transport was either by foot or on horseback. Until a road was built the track had been so narrow in places that two horses could hardly pass. Supplies were obtained by order. They would come by mail-coach or in the cream cans twice a week from Raetihi and be dropped by the side of the road at the entrance to the track. There they would be loaded on to a packhorse and taken back to the cottage. “We got everything in bulk: 701 b of sugar, 501 b of flour,” Mrs Davis said. “My husband had put in an orchard and we grew all our own vegetables. Our strawberries and loganberries were famous in the district." Fruit and vegetables were always preserved and never bought. “We also did a lot of baking, often for surveyors, roadmen, musterers, drovers, and the many and constant callers.” The farm was intended for running sheep. “It was perfect sheep country, unsuitable for dairying,” Mrs Davis emphasised, “We had 700 or 800 sheep, about three sheep to the acre in summer time.” Recovering calves Life was manageable until the slump came. It was 1921. The wool prices dropped to 2Jd per lb, sheep could not be sold. Many a farmer walked off his land, but the two women did not give up. They bought some cows in order to have cream to pay for the stores. “We had about .seven cows. Getting them in, then milking them was quite a job,” Mrs Davis recalled. “But keeping track of the calves was worse.” Neighbours helped to get cows and sheep out of the slips and gorges, but when calves blundered their way into them, these amateur farmers developed an ingenious, if not always successful, method of hauling them out. Mrs Davis would descend into the gorge, buckle straps around the calf and hook these to a length of wire attached to a wire strainer and a tree trunk at the top. As the strainer (worked by Miss Garland) drew in the wire, the calf would slowly be lifted up—or more often than not slip out of the straps. “Helen (the baby) was always with us and no sooner was I out of sight then she would begin to cry, so we had that to contend with as well,” Mrs Davis said. “Then came the time when we had to have a cowshed, a separator room and a separator. The bank account stood at 9/lld. Where was the money coming from?” They need not have worried. In one and the same mailbag were two letters from close: relatives containing gifts of money. But still the bank balance continued to dwindle to next to nothing. Something had to be done. “We arranged to knit children’s garments for a well-known firm so many skeins a week. Many a long winter’s evening it was a case of having to walk up and down in order to keep

awake. But we discovered to our surprise and dismay that it was possible not only to walk and sleep, but also to walk and sleep and knit. You can imagine the result,” Miss Garland said. “This was indeed sweated labour, but it helped us to hang on.” Losses in cattle also had to be sustained. “The loss of Tiny, our Milking Shorthorn, was a major disaster. There were our milk and butter gone. At that time she was our only cow.” “Pretty tricky” During the slump when the women milked cows, the cream had to be taken by packhorse to the road where it was picked up by cream’ lorry. Mrs Davis recalled one such occasion when it had rained heavily for days on end. “I walked because I knew it was going to be difficult, while the horse slogged through the mud with the precious cream hung on the saddle-hooks. At one place a great tree trunk lay right across the track. Carefully I had to lead the horse down the hill, round the tree-tops and up again to the track. It was pretty tricky. Then the pack straps came loose and the cream came pouring out of the cans. ‘There’s our livelihood running away,’ I

thought. But the packsaddle was righted with help and so some of the cream was

Joys and tragedies alternated in this hard pioneering life.

"We made wonderful close friendships,” Miss Garland said. “We shared everything, everybody ■ helped and was concerned about everyone else.” The Maoris were particularly friendly and warmhearted. They spoke little English, but were always interested in Helen. “Ah, the little Queen,” they used to say, “all the same Davie,” (just like father). “There is nothing like the genuineness of friendships formed in difficult times,” Miss Garland said. “Faced with hardship, people are drawn together. Our lives became intertwined in a mysterious way you can hardly describe.” The qualities most valued became sincerity, integrity, readiness to sacrifice, and an active concern for others.

“Experiences such as these hasten one’s own maturity. One realises that material goods as such are not important. The great things when you came in after a hard day’s work were adequate food and shelter, warmth and a good bed, “We had music at night. We owned a hand-wound gramophone, a lovely instru-

ment, and our records used to give us endless joy. We also had all the books we wanted posted to us from the wonderful library of a Wellington friend.” Return to teaching These then were the essentials. And a large tent used as a bedroom by their visitors and frequent callers. Inevitably, however, the time came when they had to return to the outside world if the child was to be properly educated. Once again they took up positions on the staff of Nelson Girl’s College and after over 20 more years of teaching and two years overseas they came to live in Christchurch in 1952. Though half a century has slipped by since they ran the bush farm, their experiences have never ceased to influence them in their attitudes and values.

As Miss Garland pointed out, “The six years had been hard but immeasurably rewarding, though certainly not financially. We had learnt a great deal quite apart from bush farming. We know in our own experience what matters most in life. We had proved that no tests are too great for the sharing and caring of truly fine people, both Maori and pakeha.”