KAURI GUM DIGGING

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1695, 24 August 1904, Page 2

KAURI GUM DIGGING

(By Constance Bamicoat.)

'The kauri gum industry is peculiar not only to New Zealand, but to the North Island of New Zealand, and to the extreme northern peninsula of the North Island, although there are a few gumfields south of Auckland. Except those engaged in the Tarnish trade, perhaps hardly anyone outside New Zealand has the least idea what kauri gum really is—what it looks like, where it is found, and how put on the world’s market; and even in New Zealand there are probably comparatively few who could give a really succinct and accurate account of this most interesting industry. The “Ear North” is difficult of access; roads are few, and, m the wet season, bad even to impassableness, except for buliock-waggons; 'the only reasibie way of getting there is by steamer from Auckland to one of the coast towns, running only once or twice a week. Trains are almost non-exist-ent. WHERE GUM IS FOUND. Away in the distance smoke coukl be seen on the hillside, where, a gum-dig-ger was burning scrub before breaking a new piece of ground. Often the 'barren hill-slopes, where little but coarse rushes and low scrub will grow, and nothing is beautiful save the graceful “umbrella fern,” are seen to have been all turned over, the cloggy earth lying m great square chunks for miles. For here the gum-digger with his spade and spear had passed through, prospecting for gum; and here, long before his time, hundreds, probably thousands, ol years ago, probably before even Tasman knew anything of “Van Diemen’s Land,” grew the great forests of kauri pines, now for ever vanished, from whose tall straight trunks fell the gum, - for centuries embedded in the earth, in the search for which, even now, some six thousand human being find, wholly or partially, their means of livelihood. For kauri gum is nothing but the solidified sap of. the kauri tree, a kind of pine, only found in the sub-tropical far north of the North Island of New Zealand; and all the kauri gun land in the world would only cover about 1,500,000 to 1,600,000 acres. All about the Northern Peninsula of New Zealand erorrfious kaui-i trunks, half decayed now, hut still • lying as they foil ages ago, are ’found embedded in the now barren gumfields. At tlie top of these trees the gum was mainly formed, the action of wind and weather seeming ro make the trees bleed, when the sticky sap adheres to the bark and solidifies into lumps, these lumps being finally detached and failing to the ground oy their own weight, and in course of time .they become buried deeper and deeper and deeper in the leaves and soil.' At the top of the tree where the great branches come out of the straight trunk, often a hundreddeet and more in height there is often a large hollow, which in older trees is generally full of gum. in former times lumps of a hundredweight or more were fairly common, while no one then would have thought of troubling about the walnut-sized pieces which the digger is now thankful enough to get.

The best gum is always dug out of the soil on which ancient forests stood—gum which has dropped from the trees and lain covered up till the digger’s spear struck it, and his spade unearthed it. There must have been forest upon forest in some parts, for layer upon layer of gum is found of varying ages, the first of which was worked, perhaps, years ago by the pioneer diggers. After them came other diggers who had t-o dig lower, and who found older gum; and again came other diggers who- probed still lower, and found still older gum. There is little fear of the digger striking a stone and mistaking it iur gum, for not only can the experienced spearer at once detect the different ring in the sound when the spear strikes gum and when it strikes a stone, hut there are hardly any stones at all in that part of New Zealand. Another kind of gum is procured by climbing the tall kauri pines themselves —‘bush gum,, which is not quite so valuable as that taken out of the ground. Two men climb the tree with a strong rope which they throw over the brandies. then climb up and chop off the gum with a hatchet. THE TRADE. There is not now much choice of land for the gum-digger; and large finds of gum are rarer and rarer. Everywhere the soil has been so thoroughly turned over and over, that it might well 1 e thought there could he no gum left. Yet the kauri gum trade is still one of the most considerable in New Zealand; it has been in existence- since 1847, in the pioneer days of “Van Diemen’s Land”; and in 1898 the value of its export was greater than that of the coal for the whole colony, and even greater than that of the butter and cheese industry of which so much more is heard. From 1853 to 1899 211,217 tons were exported, worth"£-9,768,318, the lowest average price per ton having been in 1894, £4B 10s sd, and the highest in 1899, £62 3s. Kauri gum, indeed, for most grades at least, stands at record prices, never before reached —so high, indeed, that London dealer's are con-

sftantly threatening the trade with extinction before other gums (none of which, however, can quite take the place of kauri) if the prices do not come down. EQUIPMENT AND DIGGERS.

A gum-digger’s equipment is simple—a spear, which is a long, flexible rod. square and steel-pointed, with a spadehandle, used to prod the earth till gum is discovered; an ordinary spade, and a Maori kit (a basket of flax fibre i r pieces of plaited dried flax-leaf) to put the gum in. The spade is often the oftly tool used now, though in former days a hook, as well as a spear, was used to drag the gum through the swamps. Although anyone and everyone may, and does take to gum-digging, that is if they are sufficiently “hard up,” experience is valuable to the digger as to everyone else, and there are good and bad diggers as there are good and bad workmen in other industries. A great deal xlepends on physical endurance—capacity to keep on at severe physical exertion under a hot sun; while more, again, depends on wise selection of the piece of land to be worked. A license must now be taken out by all diggers and gum-merchants. 1 lid* guru-fields are one of Humanity’s odds and ends boxes, in which Maoris half-castes, Austrians, pioneer European settlers, English university graduates, and other ill-assorted folk rub shoulders together. It may not he strictly true that some of those retrograde scions of the British aristocracy supjjosed to be sent to “the colonies,” of which we hear more than we see, are working on the gumfields: but it m certainly true that there are many men to be found there whom no one would expect to find. It is one of the roughest of lives, as weil as one cf the loneliest. The diggers proper, those who cLpend upon gumdiggmg only for a living, have now a much better time than formerly, as they deal direct with the gum merchants and have nob to depend on the untender mercies of the nearest “storekeeper.” Besides the diggers proper, a number of Maoris and settlers in the country round about do more or less intermittent gumdiggmg to eke out their- i«icomes, The real diggers live in whares —sometimes only tents, sometimes a rough hut knocked up anyhow out of bush timber and tree-fern trunks. They are generally, out of their whares all day iong, taking their food with them, the neverfading “billy” to boil, and their tools and baskets. If they are Maoris —and in the far north there are often more Maoris than Europeans—a trail of children generally go too, down to a baby in arms, pur to sleep on the soaking swamp land under an old shawl laid over'some scrub to keep off the scortching sun.. While still quite small they begin to do a little digging on their own account, while the grown girls often sit by scraping the gum (clearing away the earth adhering) while their brothers and father dig it. Some of the women cveji dig gum themselves, a high tribute to their physical strength, as the weight of that clammy swamp land is enormous. DIFFERENT VARIETIES Kauri gum, when properly scraped and polished, makes one of the prettiest collections possible. A good kauri collection is not only rare but of considerable and increasing value. The best gum looks exactly like honey—the clearest golden honey, solidified into all sorts of irregular shapes. It is quite hard and can bo polished till it is smooth as ivory, while it is so clear that insects, leaves and twigs can bo seen embedded in it. Some of it, again, is more golden brown; some pale yellow or lemon colour; some straw colour, almost white, while ground gum is often flinty and either dark sepia or black. Were there more of it, it coukl be carved into charming ornaments; hut this is rarely done.

Tke golden yellow gum is used chiefly as a substitute for amber in making the mouthpieces of pipef>; but the chief use of kauri gum is, or course, in making varnish, for which, m the opinion of one of the best known London manufacturers, it is superior to all other gums. “No other gum,” he has said, “could take its place from a peculiarity which it possesses (entirely its own) of assimilating with oil more rapidly at an easier temperature than any other gum.” Kauri, however, is not the only fossil resin used in making the best varnishes. Manila gums are so like kauri that only an expert can detect the difference, and then only by the sense of smell, but for various reasons Manila is less satisfactory. After kauri, gum anime of Zanzibar is the most important fossil resin, but its price is almost impossible. Most of the kauri gum exported goes to America, which t-ook considerably over 5000 tons out of the 7635 exported in 1902, the rest going to England, Germany and France. One of the most interesting processes in the gum industry, and one which can be seen in Auckland without the trouble of a week’s absence up north, is the sorting of. the gum, which requires a trained touch and exact knowledge of the different qualities only acquired by long practice. Collecting, sorting, packing and shipping the gum employ quite another thousand men. Some of the commonest kinds of gum look moie like artichoke roots or very small and withered potatoes than resin,—Abridged from the “Empire Review*