SOILS OF THE PROVINCE OF AUCKLAND. (No. 10.)

New Zealander, Volume XVII, Issue 1569, 1 May 1861, Page 3

SOILS OF THE PROVINCE OF AUCKLAND. (No. 10.)

FIRST SETTLEMENT ON OPEN LANES.

The want of something like a manual of agricultural operations for the use of new settlers, has always been felt among us. The reversion of the. seasons, the variations of soil, and the difference of flic various systems of carrying on farm operations, has proved a perplexing question to many at their first outset, and it has been to supply this deficiency that we have in the present series of articles and in others endeavoured to make clear the way for beginners. So much depends upon the amount of capital to he employed, the nature of the land, the distance from water-carriage or a market, and upon other circumstances, that a separate scale and system is necessary for each. It is only by laying down general principles, and leaving each one to collate from these, as the peculiar circumstances of his case may happen to require, that we are able to enter upon the subject at all.

Wc liavc lately hail an opportunity of observing for ourselves the results of the hist few years immigration, visiting the various districts from Auckland to the North Cape; whatever wc may have heard, and in some, slight measure been induced to give car to, with regard to there being alarge percentage of dissatisfied settlers, has been entirely dispelled. Everywhere there seems to he the same reliance of success, and it is worthy of notice that in most of those instances where the old hands, the men of twenty years’ standing and upwards in the country, happen to be surrounded by newcomers that the latter have left them far behind iu advancement, even where their period of settlement has not extended over more than a couple of years. A large, a very large proportion of the new settlers are men of substance and education, as well of energy and determination, men who will not be content to sit down for the remainder of their lives in the same state of discomfort, which they must as new settlers, necessarily experience tor a time, but will in advancing their own interests as surely advance the general welfare of the country. All that New Zealand wants to render it one of the finest countries iu the Australasian group is population —and wc look on each one of these successful pio uccrs of civilization as the nucleus around which his

jjicnds and connections from home will rally, when they 1 receive from him the detail of his experience, and an | impartial account of the advantages to be derived in i choosing this Province as a field for emigration over i those, which though they may here and there afford ] successful oportunitics for amassing rapid fortunes, are ■ unfitted, on account of the enervating effects of climate | upon the constitution of their native born inhabitants, | to become the permanent home ot Englishmen. One error into which very many of our new settlers have fallen is the notion that it was unsafe to purchase cattle at once, and run them upon their waste land and the unoccupied lands of the Crown and ot private individuals around them, on the grounds cither that they would become wild, and so be perhaps altogether lost, or that they would run great risk of being destroyed by eating the Tupali which grows abundantly in some districts. Now, from particular experience, we unhesitatingly declare, that in giving way to these notions, the new settler is losing one of his chief sources of profit and comfort. Ask the settlers on the Wade, the Mahurangi and Matakana and other of the earlier settlements, in what position they would have been had they waited to commence stock-farming until they had either enclosed paddocks or pasture-land! Of course if cattle arc brought to a strange place, turned out uncared for and left altogether to themselves, many will become wild enough, but, if herded by day for the firs l week or fortnight, and brought home regularly every night to the stockyard, there will be no fear but that they will soon become thoroughly domesticated to the place. As to the danger from Tupaki , happy is the man whose land produces it in such excess. Any ill results may be avoided in districts where it docs prevail by using the precaution of purchasing cattle bred and reared upon a bush run, which very seldom eat of it so immoderately as to become injured by it. At the same time the green Tupiki may be easily destroyed, for where land is sufficient y rich to grow this plant in abundance, there is sure to be with it a sufficient undergrowth of ferns, &c., to feed a running fire. In all cases it is inadvisable for an up-country settler, who has nothing but bush feed, to purchase in town cattle of whose habits ho knows nothing whatever, and which may for aught he knows, have been taken from the luxuriant grass paddocks of Epsom or the Tatnaki. One advantage at anyratc he possesses, for that mortality among calves, the result of penurious shortsightedness which takes place every winter in the paddocks about Auckland, is unknown in the bush, and this more than counterbalances the possibility of losing a cow or bullock in a swamp. The stockyard into which the cattle arc driven at night, if it has not a covered shed attached to it, should at least have its sides drawn with Ti tree scrub so as to break the violence of the wind and afford some shelter to the cattle, without which, during bleak south-westerly weather especially, they would become liable to injury from exposure to cold. At the first commencement, and while as yet the settler has neither straw nor fodder, the yard should be littered with green flax, rushes, or even ferns though this last is the least useful for the composition of manure on account of its power of resisting decomposition. Green food too may be sown at most times of the year for the soiling of milch cows and other stock, even on new ground which lias been but lately broken up, provided guano or other artificial manure be used for the purjioso of forcing an early and rapid growth. From February to December, oats, maize, sarghum, and Cape barley may be advantageously sown for this purpose; and from July to December turnips and rape in addition. Such land as contains the least fern, although there may have been upon it perhaps a heavy growth of flax, tupaki, or other rubbish, should be chosen for the production of green food where it is wished to obtain it from newly broken up ground, and artificial manure must be used* however naturally rich the soil. Too little attention U paid amongst us towards the growth of green crops for the soiling of cattle, and the consequent manufacture of manure thereby, for the production ot the grain ami potatoe crops to which the farmer must trust as the chief source of returns. Without a supply of green food the trouble and expense of an tin remunerative daily is kept up where, if such a system of rotation were adopted, the same number of cows would yield a considerable return and fair profit—the same expense of cultivating so many acres is annually undertaken tor one half the gross receipts of what might fairly he expected were manure made upon the premises and applied to the land; and since the umnanuredcrop even leaves a margin of profit, it stands to reason that every extra ton of potatoes, every bushel of grain grown by this manufacture and economy of manure, is nearly so much extra gain upon the present system.

Objections to the use of turnips and cabbages for the feeding of milch cows are urged on account of the taste and smell imparted by them to the milk and butter. For this there is a remedy as simple as it is effectual, which consists solely in observing the following rule:— One quarter of a pound of saltpetre is to be dissolved in a gallon of water, and bottled off for use. Th e value of a .small wine glass full of this liquid poured into every four gallons of new milk as it is brought to the dairy will entirely remove all taint.

In first commencing the cultivation of a section of open land, bullocks will in all cases be found more useful than horses. The former will, when unyoked, gather their own food, and, if worked five days in the week, maintain themselves in good working order; their pace, too, is more suited to the breaking up of rough land, which may contain many impediments to the plough beyond the unevenness of its surface. In carting fencing and firewood from the bush, they can he taken on rough roads and in places where it would he utterly impossible to manage horses. Should an accident happen to the one, the knife can he resorted to, and the value of the beef will in a great measure make up the loss, —where, in the other case, the carcase would ho useless. But the great disadvantage in commencing with horses is the certainty that for some time the whole of their fijod must he purchased. Afterwards, when the farm is self-supporting, when there arc grass paddocks,well-tilled stubbles to plough, and good roads, bullocks will, as elsewhere, disappear before the more economical labor of the horse team. But for ncw-coincrs to suppose that wo are all asleep, ami that they can do with horses that which our experience tells us we must do with oxen, is only to assume a superiority over one and all, which a little reflection might cure them of.

Although crops may he forced from newly broken-up land by the use of artificial manures, yet the best and cheapest way to overcome the natural acidity of flic soil is to turn it over and leave it for some months exposed to the action of the sun, and the oxygen of the atmosphere. A quicker method of obtaining the same result would be produced by the use of lime, —but this cun only be done where the material of shells ami firewood is near at hand, and is within the reach of comparatively few. The breaking up of fern lands for fallowing—that is, to be sown with wheat in the May of 18Gt2, or with potatoes or spring grain in the spring of the same year—should commence at once, now that the land is sufficiently softened by the rain, and may continue to be performed when the state of the weather will allow throughout the winter and spring: until, in fact, the summer heat and drought render the ground too hard for the cattle. The land should be harrowed with, not across, the scum as soon as the drying weather sets in, and be cross-ploughed about Christmas time. During the summer, if intended for wheat, it must be broken down tine with the harrows,— and about May, the time for sowing, he ploughed a third time for the seed furrow. Care must be taken, where the land lies low and flat, that the ridges are not more than twelve or fifteen feet in width, and that the furrows arc carefully cleaned out to the depth of the • loose soil, so as to give a free access to the rain which

will fall during the winter. I Where the land is intended for spring crops, such as oats, barley, potatoes, turnips, &c., the land must not he harrowed downline after cross-ploughing, unless it is intended to plough u third time before winter, but remain as rough and open as possible during the winter months, care likewise being taken that the furrows arc drawn, and no water allowed to lodge on the land. The object is that when the soil is pulverised, and becomes soaked by the heavy rains, the atmosphere —which is the principal drying agent in the winter —has no opportunity of searching into and evaporating the moisture which it does quickly and effectually when the soil is left in a rough open state. When intended for oats, — which arc best sown in July and August (if sown in June, though they ripen earlier, and may produce as heavy a crop, they are liable to loss, on account of the case with which early sown oats shake, —and, if sown in September, they arc liable to he caught in a dry season by the drought, and to turn out a light crop)— advantage can he taken, where the land is of a moderately dry nature, of such fine weather as we generally have at intervals during the winter for getting in the seed; but, where the land is heavy and wet, the ground must he broken down and the seed furrow prepared as for wheat before the setting in of the wet season. In all eases, however good the land, the benefit of ever so small a dressing of artificial manure, such as hones or guano, will lie felt on new land: indeed there is this peculiarity, noticed by many > in the soil and climate of New Zealand—that nowhere is manure applied with more advantage, for a smaller dressing here will produce a larger return than a heavy dressing will effect in other countries. Wc shall from time to time in this series of papers enlarge further upon these subjects, which are to our new settlers matters of everyday importance.