ON THE BROWN HILLS

Evening Post, Volume LXXXI, Issue 23, 28 January 1911, Page 11

ON THE BROWN HILLS

WHEN THE COCKSFOOT CALLS. MEN OF ALL SORTS. (By Eareye.) On Banks Peninsula, that picturesque mole on the right cheek of the South Island, the grass-seed measures time just as. "the Cup" 'does for sporting folk in Wellington, Auckland, or Christchurch. Babies are born so many -weeks before or after grass-seed, and the harvest time is January and February. Wellington city is far from Banks Peninsula, but people of the capital should have an intimate interest in the cocksfoot crop, for much of th& butter and milk consumed here comes from grass descended from the Banks seed. When the axe and' the torch, cleared the country '"up the line," a large area of the rich ashes was strewn with cocksfoot seed from Banks Peninsula, and for a time it was the poor Peninsula's fate to suffer the competition of seed from the northern lands which it had grassed. Many of the Peninsula's sturdiest young men, too, trekked to "the .North Island," and on the Peninsula "the North Island" generally usW to mean the Waira»rapa, the Manawatu, or the lower part of Taranaki, where land was to be won by stout hearts, strong backs, and willing hands a few' years Lack. COSMOPOLITAN. la the weeks than 'are not a, ferment of grass-seed the Peninsula is a peaceful cluster of hills, with a small population drawn from every country of Europe — England, Scotland, xreland, Wales,, France, Germany, Russia, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, and others. During grass-seed additional countries are represented, but Britdns predominate — all sorts of Britons. One may see university men, waterside workers, shearers, Bailors, general labourers, remittance men, and downright rogues and vagabonds (a few, spelling off). By day the hooks flashing among the brown heads of the cocksfoot reveal the fighting line on the warm slopes, along which the billy boys are kept at the gallop with cans of oatmeal apd water for the melting gang, and at night little fires in the gullies show the camps where the weary are smoking away the day's aches. The operation in the rugged fields, many cumbered with the bleached limbs of slaughtered sylvan giants, can be briefly told. The cutting is all done by the hands, one to wield the hook and the other to grab the heads till the fingers hold a sheaf big enough to cradle cosily on the* stubble. By-and-bye the sheaves are carried to a threshing floor, and the seed is whacked out with flails. Lastly come the riddling, the bagging, and the packing down to the sea for the little steamer or to the Little Biver station for the train. It sounds -very easy, but it is all work to extend every muscle from the finger-tips to the toepoints. The human machine requires about five firings of solid food per day, and no end of pints of oatmeal water. The man who wants to find a lost, stolen, or strayed appetite will pick it up in a grass-seed paddock. After two or three days he would eat the handle of his hook, if nothing softer was offering. BLAMED FOE EVEEYTHING. Peninsular people, if they have orchards or hen-roosts, live in terror of grass-seeders. If the choice apricot tree is plundered or a few plump chickens vanish in the night, "those grassseeders" get the blame. All mishaps up and down the bills and valleys are set against the grass-seeders. Hence ripening fruit is rushed to the jam-pot when the invasion begins, and dogs are put near the poultry places. This suspicion of iHe whole grass-seeding army is due to the tricks of a few "thugs." Some of the "no-visible-lawful" class, harried by the police in Christchurch, . take to the hills for a change. They get" swags together somehow, and by a miraculous effort assume a want-work aspect in place of the old wont-work mien. They bluff about, and loaf about, and get paid off by one employer after another, and all the time they have their hungry eyes agog for a bit of thieving. When they return to town they have an excuse — "been grass-seedin' " — for the the possession of ill-gotten money during a few weeks following the end of the season. POINTEES IN THE PADDOCEL Some skilled workers, who would scorn to steal another man's goods, steal his strength. They cunningly "point" on those who toil beside them. Sometimes a cutting line on a hill face includes twenty men, who take up a strip a quarter of a mile wide. Each man works towards a mate and away — to and fro. The "pointer" makes a show of bustle, but jockeys his friends on each side into cutting more than their share. Sometimes he does this by lingering over the sharpening of his hook, lighting his pipe, and so on. Yet he is soon detected, and the line yells "weka, aweek, a- week, a-weka." This indicates that the "Artful Dodger" has been caught cutting a "weka track," and he is cut off from the line. He is left with a little circle of cocksfoot all to himself, and the line jeers at -his frenzied effort to slash out his grotesque patch. Life for this person has then a strong dash of ginger ; he generally moves on to another camp. "BLUEING" THE CHEQUES. Conversation under the blistering sun is much concerned with what will be done to sundry pints when cheque-time comes. If the camps happen to be near a hotel — these camps are a minority, for there are only two hotels on the Peninsula outside Little "River and Akaroa — some of the seeders may have nothing to draw. They gradually absorb the cheque, night by night, on credit. Others husband their thirst carefully. They feed it with talk of foaming brown measures, in long-handled pots, and wait for the giddy days at the bar. It is &aid that some have gone to Akaroa with bulbous cheques, and have walked to Christchurch a week or so later, . st~i" with a thirst and visions of pewters, bcu no talisman to make the visions material- | ise. | These spendthrifts are single men, of course. Money is mere dross to them ; they are in a -fever to throw it away after all the sweating. Froni sheanng they go to grass-seeding (after the shearing cheque has followed many others), and from the Peninsula they catch the late harvest in the far south. In the winter they may knock about farms or do some bush-felling. They are always keen for hard work, and still keener t-» go through the proceeds in a wild swirl. They have been up and down the two ! islands and across them. They know the summer and winter moods of ever river, and the pecularities of every racecourse. And after all tho cheques they have a wealth of memories, a ragged tent and a few old clothes. They are not worried with the care of property. People pity them, but they say they like the life. They envy nobody. It is not safe to argue with them about j their reformation, unless the reformer is well up a tree or on the safe side of an impassable fence.