EARLY FARMING METHODS.

Waikato Times, Volume 120, Issue 20889, 22 August 1939, Page 13

EARLY FARMING METHODS.

FIRST MILITARY SETTLERS. DIFFICULTIES OF PIONEERS. The plains of the Waikato and Waipa Rivers consist of low rolling hills, flat areas of alluvial land, and large peat swamps — writes Mr P. W. Smallfield. The soils of the low rolling hills are loams and clay loams of fair natural fertility, and it was on these low rolling hills that settlement first took place. The soils of the wide plains of the Waikato are sands and loams derived from pumice sand deposited by the Waikato River. The peat areas are generally of low natural fertility and are still largely unoccupied. Church of England missionaries introduced farming to the Waikato natives about 1840. The Rev. John Morgan (Te Awamutul introduced English methods of farming, brought in English fruit trees, taught the natives to grow wheat and.to grind it in their own water mills. The period from about 1845 to 1860 was an era of peaceful progress and industry amongst the Waikato tribes. The farming missionary succeeded in giving the district round Te Awamutu a thoroughly settled and Home-like appearance. The wheat grown by the natives in the Rangiaowhia—Te Awamutu district —was ground at the mills, bagged and sent down to the European settlements for sale. The flour was carted in bullock-drays to Tc Rore where it was loaded into canoes. The canoes were paddled down the Waipa and Waikato Rivers along the Awaroa to Waiuku and there loaded into cutters and transported to Onehunga. It was finally taken across the isthmus to Auckland —a total journey of over 100 miles from the flour-mills of Rangiaowhia. The Maoris invested the proceeds in clothes, blankets, tea, sugar and all kinds of European goods and then began their homeward journey. War Feeling Aroused A variety of elements, social and political, combined to produce a war feeling in the Waikato. The Waikato tribes had always been averse to selling their land to Europeans, and aspired to form a separate Maori state in the centre of the North Island. The Waikato war was precipitated by trouble arising out of disputed land-purchases in Taranaki. In 1864 there was severe fighting in the Waikato and the Maoris were finally defeated at the Battle of Orakau. The Government confiscated the land of the rebellious natives under the New’ Zealand Settlement Act of 1863 and settled the country with disbanded militia-men and civilians—about 3000 military settlers, each of whom received a grant of one town acre and a farm section of from 50 acres upwards, according to rank. The new settlers adopted mixed farming methods—wheat and potatoes were the marketable crops, cattle and sheep were fattened, and butter was made on the farms and traded to local storekeepers. The depression in the “eighties” was severely felt in the Waikato, and it was not until the late “nineties” when the dairy industry was becoming established, that farmers were at all prosperous. Small cheese factories had been started in the early “eighties,” but owing to poor road communication, the factories could not draw sufficient regular suppliers of milk, and had to go out of business. The dairying industry was sufficiently launched in the “nineties” by the inauguration of a system of skimming stations or creameries to which the farmers brought their whole milk, and the cream separated at these skimming stations was manufactured into butter at a central factory. With the development of an export trade, further changes were introduced —establishment of co-operative factories, the practice of home separation and improved road transport. Dairying, which had developed as a sideline to mixed farming, became a separate enterprise. Permanent grassland took the place of abort-rotation pastures, and the practice of intensive grassland fanning was slowly evolved. Today grass-farming in the Waikato has reached a very high standard of efficiency and dairying, of course, is the major industry.