The Mopping-Up Process.

Timaru Herald, Volume XIIC, Issue 13803, 14 January 1909, Page 4 (Supplement)

The Mopping-Up Process.

ORIGIN OF THE BIG ESTATES. The announcement and adoption of Mr Julius Vogel's Public Works and Immigration Policy in 1870 soon put a different face on the country. Its most important immediate effect was neither public works nor immigration, but the mopping-up of the best of the runs into big freehold estates. There had been some movement of North Canterbury and North Otago farmers into South Canterbury, and also of men who, brought up to farming at Home, had done well on the Otago or

West Coast diggings, and could now afford to buy farms at £2 an acre and equip them. Then came the Vogel policy, with its avowed intention of settling people on the land as agriculturists, a policy which found one of its strongest supporters in Mr E. AV. Stafford, member for Timaru, and another in Mr W. Rolleston, at that time Superintendent of Canterbury, and nicknamed by the squatters "The

People's William," because of -his preference for the farmers. Mr Edward Jollie, the member for Gladstone (there were only two electorates in South Canterbury then), one of the old school of squatters, was one of the bitterest opponents of the scheme. The inevitable contest between Cain the keeper of sheep and Abel the tiller of the ground was re-enacted. . The conditions of the warfare favoured the

man who could command the most money.; possession gave the runholder an' advantage, and financiers were eager to assist him, on terms that proved ruinous to many, who found that in their frantic efforts to keep out the farmer they had let in the mortgagee. "Within three years, recorded Mr Sealey in ISBO, the whole area contained in the coast runs passed into private hands —constituting sixteen large estates totalling 437,000 acres, an average of 27,000 acres each. Mr Sealey gives the following list: — i N.Z. Land Company, Levels, Pareora, and Hakateramea, 130,000 acres; Rhodes' estate, Seadown, 10,000; Mr Hoare, Raincliff, 15,000, Messrs Studholme, Opuha and "Waimate, 60,000, Messrs Tesehemaker, Otaio, 17,000; Mr Etworthv, Pareora, 40,000; MiRhodes, Bluecliffs, 10,000; Messrs Parker, Waihao, 10,000; Mr Douglas, "Waihao Downs, 10,000 -. Messrs Howden and Co., Pudding Hill, 20,000 and Hakatermea, 20,000; Hon. R. Campbell, Hakateramea, 35,000; and Mr McLean, Waikakahi, 60,000. "This land" says Mr Sealey, "was virtually given to the runholders, having been bought in a great measure .out of the profits made during the pre/ious tenancy, at a nominal rental, of the land itself." As a consequence of the extent to which the purchase of the runs wns carried, there has been a larger application of the Land for Settlements Acts in South Canterbury than elsewhere in the same area of'the country. Nearly a million sterling has been spent in the repurchase of 23 parcels of land and preparing them for closer settlement. Not nil of these were "large estates," but seven of them averaged over 20,000 acres each. i CONTRACT CROPPING.

Another reason for purchasing the freehold of the runs had begun to force itself upon the attention of the squatters. This was the necessity for regrassing lands that had been overstocked till the sheen had eaten out the nutritive native grasses. \ This involved the ploughing of the land, and obviously this would not be undertaken in the case of land held on such an insecure tenure as a pastoral lease, liable to be purchased at any moment, by the first comer who could pay £2 an acre for it. The need for' regrassing thus helped to extend the area of the large estates, as such work was often done in situations where the ordinary farmer would have been slow to locate himself. For tin's re-grassing a system of contract cropping was extensively adopted. The landowner gave a man with teams and implements the use of a block of land for one crop of wheat, the land to be sown down for him, with grass seed provided by the owner. A very few years' experience showed that the contract cropper could afford to pay for the privilege of taking off a crop of wheat; and a rent being demanded, the system became less profitable to the croppers. In the earlier years many of the croppers made money enough to enable them to buy and equip good farms. Hundreds of miles of wire fencing were also erected to surround and subdivide the runs, and fencing contracts were another means by which working men were ennbled to become freeholders. On this subject Mr D. Stuart supplies some instructive remTtiiscences and results of enquiries, as follows:"About the year 1874 the New Zealand and Australian Land Company displayed a desire to break up the tusrnek in this district, and to introduce English grasses instead. The Companv had already practically ploughed all the>r tussock on the Totara estate near Kakanui, Oamaru. In the course of conversion they had received a fair rent from the croppers. The southern town

was doing an export trade in flour, and gave a ready jnarket for milling wheat. The Company was also ploughing up the Moeraki estate. The managers of the Levels estate, Mr Donald McLean and Mr Hassell, advertised in the Oamaru newspaper for croppers for 2000 acres as a start. At first the terms agreed on were that the croppers would plough up the tussock, take off their own crop of wheat, then give another ploughing and sow the grass seed for the Company —the croppers to be paid us per acre. The croppers preferred this to only ploughing the land once, and putting the grass seed in along with their seed wheat, as

there was the risk of the grass choking the wheat. Perhaps J. Barclay, of Oamaru, was the first to close with this offer. There is a paddock on the estate known still as Barclay's, from which he took about 58 bushels to the acre. Soon the Totara men, with their drays, teams, and • ' double-furrow ploughs, were crossing the Waitaki, coming after that wheat and that crown an acre. ' Some of them are forgotten, but some names are still familiar, to wit, G. Morton, J. Reid, R. Davie, W. Stevenson, J. Divan, T. Pooke, A. Cleland, J. Balfour, Fleming and Medley's men, J. Rogerson, J.

Paterson, R. Skinner, J. Skinner, W. Menkes, D. Adams, G. Groundwater, J. Milne, G. Milne, J. Goldie, J. Mitchell. J. Smith, G; Murdoch, J. Shepherd, A. Dinnie, J. W r arden, R. Campbell, J. Campbell, J. Fraser, P. Fraser, R. Fraser, A. Brown, D. Blue, R. Cochrane, and A. Coneland. Soon they were camped all over the Levels, in huts■ biiilt of sods.for the most part, with a few cabbage trees and maybe a calico roof nailed on to some scantling. The most of them had • letters of introduction (from T.hos. Brydono, Robert McAulnv and Andrew in the nockets of their sleeved waistcoats. ' The plough was ' speeding ' now, and the Pleasnnt Point storekeepers were ' making their pile.' But •*he Oumaru men did not scoop the pool. Tbere wore North Canterbury men also after the wheat ard the crown, and rot o"lv +be the p"d the Smiths, and the Martins, the Guinns and the O'Briens, but the Lan'l Company, and the big landowners and Fouatter.s went in for growing wheat on their own. The climax was reached when the clerks in town went into rropning partnership with ploughmen—the dav of liens on growing crons had arrived." —(See the "Mercantile Gazette."') AN AGE OF WHEAT. We must retrace our steps a little from this point, to glance at a problem that for a year or two puzzled and firewood. Near the bush there the agriculturists of the time. The. virgin soil gave bountiful crops on the first furrow, and such good use was made on the plough that the 18667 season found farmers at their wits' end to dispose pf their produce, and meetings were held at Temuka, then the centre of the farming industry, to discuss the problem of finding a market. It was stated that the amount ■of wheat to be disposed of would be " from 40,000 to 00,000 bushels." Hitherto the experiment of sending wheat to England had not been tried. It had been talked of, but it was believed that wheat would not carry so far by sea without being first kilndried, and this process would reduce its value. The experience of one shipment of wheat from Tasmania, that had to be dug out of the ship,, was deemed conchisive. It was. asserted that wheat had been sent Home rrom Tasmania quite safe in iron tanks, but these were held to be too expensive. The idea was that the wheat would be sent Home in bulk, and the ships be fitted with bins to hold separately each shipper's wheat. It was supposed that it would bo necessary to adopt the alternative of sending the wheat Home as flour, but as yet -there were no mill? to grind it. In 1867, however, a small parcel of wheat was shipped to London from Kaiapoi, together with 500 uags of flour from Milford, and the wheat arriving Home in sound condition, the export of wheat from North Canterbury soon assumed Targe proportions. South Canterbury did not ship direct till ten years later, but shipments were made to London via Lyttelton, to Australia, and to North Island ports. In 1868, 80,000 bushels were thus disposed of, and two years later 316,000 bushels. In '75 the export rose to 580,000 bushels, and to a million in 1882. The high water mark of grain export was reached in 1900, when 708,000 sacks (2,830,000 bushels) of the three cereals were shipped, half of the total being wheat. Mr D. Stuart recalls the fact that of nine Home-going vessels loading wheat here in 1879 there were seven in the roadstead at one time. He gives their names, and comments on the trade as follows :

" In 1879, the following ships were all loaded with wheat in the roadstead, and sailed for Britain: Loweswater, 603 tons, Lewis; Charlcwond. 837 tons, Hiscocks; Menmarnock, 787 tens, Robson; Taranaki, 1126 tons, Wight; Margaret Galbraitk, 841 tons, Ferguson; Edwin Cox, 836 - u ns, Phease; Clan Campbell, 729 tons, Ewen; Chile, 768 tons, Cnlbert; and Renfrewshire, 898 tons, Wilkie. The Renfrewshire came here from Glasgow, with general cargo and 22 passengers. •Ml the other vessels arrived in ballast . We may ,be sure that the first tiling that attracted the wonder and admiration of the Renfrewshire passengers was Parr's lofty windmill, for you may travel from the Mull of Galloway to John o'Gronts, and from Troon Point to the East Neuk of Fife, without seeing the wind utilised in flour making. Water takes the pi tcc tl>ore —mill-dams, lades and wheels in the country everywhere. The roadstead about that time suffered from a handican of preferential railage rates to Lyttelton. Mr Conyers was general manager of the New Zealand railways, and he ran special night trains at very low rates for the ChristHiurch grain kings. Much grain was also going coastwise for transhipment into Home vessels at Port Chalmers."