NEW ZEALAND BUSH LIFE FORTY YEARS AGO.

Marlborough Express, Volume XLI, Issue 224, 21 September 1907, Page 6

NEW ZEALAND BUSH LIFE FORTY YEARS AGO.

GOING ON THE LAND

(By the Rev. Canon Haselden in ; Auckland Herald.) j That. New Zealand is settled to-day Jby an ever-increasing number ct" re.specatblo and well-to-do people is a fact that no one can dispute; but hew people settled on the land between 40 and 50 years ago is not known, except by comparatively few. Those who have been here for many years, and those even who were born here, know but little of the way the early settlers took up their land, or of the life 'that went on in many a bush settlement between 40 and 50 years ago. The sons and daughters in many a bush have married and left the old homestead. Their interests in ii':a were numerous, and in many cases quite different from their early days. The old people—that is, the pioneers of the bush—stayed on at ' the old farm, or they sold cut and took_ a small house and lived a very quiet Jife in some town, and they know, and remember well how they went on "the land and lived in the bush in those, past years. The country has made the town; buo the makers of tho country districts—the pioneer- set, aers -—are passing from this: life, and -today it is few, perhaps, who know or their life when they settled, on the land and turned up the ground for its first peep at tho sun, and cut down the bush, and logged it up, and burnt it off, and sowed the grass seed on those hills, which, in the memory of man had never seen the light, except through the gloom of close-grow-ing trees and dainty ferns. Perhaps if I had been born in the bush and spent all my life, there^it would have no romance for me, and I would only think of the hard side and the disappointments and the toilsome life of years of overwork; but as I was born in England, and brought to New Zealand in the days of childhood and spent parts of my. life in the bush and parts at school and college in a colo-, jiial town, there is for me a certain kind of romance about the bush and I Vhave things: to tell about.%he bushj which I know to be true, and there .are characters I knew in the bush whom I admire and love, and think of this day with feelings of respect. I shall begin with "The First Wedding in the Settlement?" Ah, there was something about that which must •foe told and told quickly. No, let us ibegin with the "First Funeral," that was sad and pathetic, and after that we will tell the more lively story of the first wedding. No; let us begin with the story of the first place of worship, and that ritualistic cross that got over the ridge-board,- above the raupo roof, anu nearly caused a split in the congregation, and, of course, Wt> shall speak of those four good men, "who, as laymen, took the service Sunday by Sunday ? No, no, this will not do. We must get on the land before we begin to talk about what we did there. "Going on the Land," this must be the title of article number one. In the South land companies and land associations sold land to new settlers. In the North, between 40 and 5J years ago, the Government gave the land free to settlers, and much of it was at that time dear as a gift. To .each member of the family over 18 years of age the grant of land was 40 acres, and for each one under 18 .years the grjant was 20 acres. Therefore, if an intending settler had a wife and a large family the free grant of land from the Government was between three and four hundred acres. To people who did not know anything about land from a practical farmer's point of view, this sounded very attralia, and many and many a family of intelligent, well-educated people paid their passage and made the long sea voyage of from three to four months, in a sailing ship, and came to Auckland. When they got to Auckland the land offered to them was still miles away, and there were no roads, nq trains, no steamers, no coaches, nob even riding horses, by which to ..reach it. •- - A settler's wife once told me how "herhusband had' taken, up-his land and got his, Crown grant for it, and then made a bargain with the skipper of a cutter to take the whole family and their belongings to the land. The voyage lasted a few days, and then the cutter put them down on the side of a little creek and turned out all their possessions on the bank, late in the afternoon, and sailed away, leaving them there on their land certainly but land without a blade of grass, . -or a tree cut down, or any kind of habitation on it, or within miles of it. Over that woman's face there was a wistful look as she spoke of that afternoon, their first afternoon on their land in New Zealand. Children, furniture, stores, a few live scock, all dumped down on the side of a creek with fern and bush all round, and night coming on. Camping out for fun is fun; but camping out because ,you have nowhere else to camp is not fun at all. Most settlers were wiser that this one. The intending settler generally went with other men and selected his land. I'hen he came back to Auckland got his selection marked off at the Crown Lands Office. The Crown grant followed in due course. Then the going on the land was according to the means the settler had. The family I knew best did it in this way. the mother and the girls and younger children were left in a house in Auckland, and stayed there about six months. The father and three younomen went to the land and lived in tents, while a house made of splitslabs was put up by them, and an experienced bushman employed for the purpose. Then came the day for the family to start for the bush farm. Oh, it was grand •! Robinson Crusoe's life was all very well, but a New Zealand settler's was far better! The good cutter, Vision, Captain Michael Yates, afterwards the husband of the first Lady Mayor in the world, the Mrs Yates of Oaehunga fame, was I chartered and sailed away. The dls- j tance from Auckland was under 80 ! miles, but it took the Vision nearly j three days. The boys thought it was ' grand fun, and Captain Yates was a young man, only *24 years of age, strong, good-looking, and with plenty of spirit in him. But for a gentle lady who had lived all her life in the West End of London, and always had servants am] .such like it must- hay& been hard, one would think, and that going on the land was an unpleasant ordeal for her. When the cutter journey was over there was the still more delightful experience to follow. The lirst introduction to a bullock . dray had to bo msde. It was a : charming thing on two wheels wifi 1 a long polo, which was hold up.by two • bul ocks on their neck?, and tWmevo '■■ bullocks pulled in iront. E«,eb hm-'■ lock owned a name tnd answered it in the. approved manner af well-

brought-up bullocks. But the best introduction was still to be made, lhe .well-known ;bush character-, -the bul-. lock-driver,, had to b© presented. Me was a, tall, well-built old soldier, and being an old soldier, he knew how to be polite and very attentive to the mother of the family, whom he called "a real lady." Nine miles was travelled, at the rate of not three miles an hour, over the tops of fern spurs and ranges; and, after the sun had gone down, the land was reached, and the house in the bush opened its doors to welcome its mistress and its young masters. A bush house in those days could be very comfortable, but it did look very strange. There was at that time no sawmill, or even saw pit, for miles, so the house was built of split slabs. There were no bricks to be had for love or money, so the fireplace was like a small room, and the chimney was of wood. When that was lined with tin, and the tin kept well polished, it looked most cheerful. The men who wanted to smoke could sit all round it, and have no fear of the smoke annoying the ladies, for the tobacco smoke joined the firewood smoke, and went up the chimney without hurting anybody. The firewood was in the bush, at the back or the house-; all that had to be done was to cut it up. The water was in the creek in front of the house; it only wanted carrying up. Broad acres of land spread away in all directions; all they wanted was to be turned up and cultivated. They got the cultivation in time. Wheat was grown by hand labour; ground by a hand-mill, baked in a camp oven on the spot, and cost at the lowest calculation three times as much as it cost in Auckland. Root crops were grown, and once some were shipped to Auckland. The shipment did not pay its travelling expenses. A lot of work was done, and hard cash spent, and very little ever came from it. Some settlers worked terribly hard, buoyed up with the hope of the future. They would begin their day by working on their own places for three or four hours, then come and do a day's work for the settlers who had some means, and then return home to work again for three or four .■"hours more, and this day after day. In many pases the people !of education got into their old professions in the town or into the Government service. When money came to help them from Home they went back for a while to the bush, for it had a charm, strange and powerful, for them; but generally a few years of bush life was all they had. Some stayed and worked on, and have good farms to-day. A few, a very few, ot the men who really understood farming, and were strong and able workers, made money. The settlements that were formed by the 40-acre grants were not all alike. There were special settlements of Church of England people, Presbyterians, Nonconformists' people, and Germans; some had a large proportion of people of education and

means; some were settled by people who were assisted with their passage from England by the Government, and work was found for them in roadmaking, and even in breakwater works at the bar harbour. Some districts had settlers in them who spent thousands of pounds on their places, and these people assisted greatly in opening up the country, although they lost their money and sold their places at a great sacrifice. In some districts the timber sent away, in the shapejof firewood, house blocks, and later on as railway sleepers, helped the settlers to live, while the farms were being made, and the farm produce at last became of value. In other districts there was a good deal of money spent in roadmaking; and, as the roads were never really formed, but only earthwork thrown up, they were always requiring money spent on them. This helped many most excellent working men to stick to their land and become firstclass settlers. But the living was hard for them and their families; so very hard that settlers of to-day can hardly understand it, and the townspeople knew nothing about it. Hope of making the farm, the joy of conquest over the wild bush, and a quiet, earnest faith in God, were, I think, the three things which inspired them to work and persevere.