TOPDRESSING

New Zealand Journal of Agriculture, Volume 75, Issue 1, 15 July 1947, Page 19

TOPDRESSING

# 'z

By

J. M. MILLER,

Rural

Development Division, Auckland.

THE development of the meat and dairy export industries brought about by the , introduction of refrigeration was described in the previous article in this series. The present ■ article deals with a no less important aspect of the develop-. ment of these industries—the practice of topdressing grassland with phosphatic fertilisers. The history of topdressing is the history of Waikato farming, for , it was in the great middle basin of the Waikato River that soil, climatic, and marketing , factors forced farmers to adopt, with the aid of topdressing, intensive grassland farming on soils which would not naturally I '.carry milk-producing pastures. UNTIL the' beginning of this , century topdressing was not : recognised as a general grassland management practice which would enable high-class pastures to be produced on poor land. For about - a hundred years previously current ? thought and literature on farming had been directed toward extending the use of concentrated fertilisers—-ground bones, then superphosphate and the, guanos—for increasing the yield of , crops, including the. hay crop, but specific knowledge, about the action, of phosphates on the growth of clovers, and the action of clovers on the growth of grasses, and the fact .that the whole process could, often eliminate the distinction between ' good land and poor land; was a long time coming. ■ In this country it was apparently a coincidence that while one group of men were talking about the refrigerated transport of perishable ; animal foodstuffs, another group ' were independently working out the cheapest means of producing those ; —namely, from topdressed pasture. The group .of Waikato farmers who first developed topdressing were men of unusual curiosity. and enterprise, and their achievements and failures in the fields . of co-operative dairying and the reclamation of scrubland and swamp land were scarcely less notable

than in that of grassland improvement; but the historical record reveals that their remarkable joint effort . which overcame the difficulties of Waikato farming was forced on them by circumstance.' It was as if Nature had said, “Topdress or : perish,” and they had decided not to perish. The Cambridge settlers. developed topdressing partly because they had heard of the Rothamsted experiments, but mainly because they had to. ■ ; . , : THE WAIKATO \ The . Waikato region l was first authoritatively described by Dr. F. von Hochstetler (1), who toured the pumice country on foot and by canoe in: 1858. Climbing... to the top of Taupiri Mountain, and looking south, he beheld “an extensive lowland spreading into . distant, mountain cones and remote ' mountain chains . . . glistening (with) numerous lakes and the serpentine.currents of large rivers.” He called- it the ... Middle Waikato Basin, and- identified its limits: by the' mountains Pirongia, Maungatautari, Te Aroha,' and Taupiri. Later' measurements showed it. to. have an area of about 8000 square , miles or 5,000,000 acres. It is now called. simply “the Waikato,” and includes wholly or in part the counties of Waikato, Waipa, Piako, and Matamata. The eastern half of the basin is drained by the Waihou and Piako Rivers, the western half by the Waikato.and Waipa Rivers.' The Waikato and Waipa Rivers meet at Ngaruawahia, enclosing a. triangular piece .of land which was formerly

called the “delta” and is now Waipa County. • ‘ The rivers . run through, sandy pumice terraces and plains formed from material washed down after the last great volcanic eruption in the Taupo district. Away from the river margins the plains tend to subside into vast peat bogs, or to rise into clay downs and hills. Except for some cabbage trees and patches of kahikatea bush, the region was devoid ' of ( forest, but many of the bogs contain the remains of large trees destroyed ages ago by fire or by a rise in the water-table. The pumice plains were covered with tall manuka and scrubby' bracken, the clay hills with a mixture of bracken, tutu, koromiko, and small manuka 1 (2) . On the brown clays , of the “delta luxuriant bracken had built up a thin layer of black humus, while primitive Maori agriculture had improved some of the river terraces through, the application of- wood ash, but there was none of the accumulated bush ' and tussock fertility which gave, farming a good start in other regions. The land was shared by the Arawa and Waikato tribes, the Arawas owning the part east of the Waikato River in the direction, of Rotorua and the Waikatos owning the “delta” region as far back as the Puniu River behind Te Awamutu. At the time of Hochstetter’s visit the Waikatos had evolved a . prosperous Eropean style of agriculture under the enthusiastic supervision of the Rev. John . Morgan,, the Anglican missionary at Te Awa-

mutu. (Hochstetter’s description of the Te Awamutu agriculture was given' in a previous article in this series, “Subsistence Farming.”) A year or . two afterward Morgan was swept away in the turmoil of intrigue which developed . ' into the Waikato ; War, and nothing remained of his work except' the clover plants and the peach trees which he had propagated throughout his . district. He used to carry a saddlebag filled with clover seed and pierced with a hole through which the ; seed trickled as he rode (3). The prevalence of red clover in the Waikato led to its adoption as a staple fodder crop by the first European settlers. The Waikato also became noted for its groves of wild peach trees, ; but these were destroyed after 1880 by an' epi- 1 demic of leaf curl and die back. As a result of the war of 1863-64 the delta region changed hands, being mostly .divided out among the military according to the promise of the Government during the recruiting campaign. “The acquisition of the valley of the , Waikato was a . greatthing done,” said Anthony Trollope, the English novelist, who .' came round in 1872. “The Natives, by the Treaty of Waitangi, had been declared to be the owners of the land, and the difficulty in buying land from them was great. There was trouble in getting it from them unfairlymore trouble in getting it • fairly. But acquisition by war settled all this.” Trollope’s summingup is mercifully realistic and covers a multitude of sins. The fruits of victory proved. to be generally disappointing. .The amount of good land acquired by confiscation was found to be very . small. The Afawas got their land back as a reward for changing their .allegiance

from the Maori king movement - to Queen Victoria, but it was not fit for agriculture. Nor was the rest much better. Andrew Kay, a Scottish storekeeper of the period, wrote that “the flat country land round Cambridge had a hungry look in 1864, being, covered with short, stunted fern,' and was generally v considered barren and worthless. . “One fine spring morning William Buckland called all hands to a spot in front of the National Hotel, just about where the War Memorial now, stands. He had discovered a solitary plant of clover. It • looked quite healthy and was much admired. This find helped to instil some confidence in the district.” Nevertheless, “of the eleven hundred emigrants who came to Cambridge in 1864, there were only, fourteen actually on . the land at the end of three years” (4). . Anthony Trollope found in 1872 that the delta region had been completely transformed. “The military settlers have not generally succeeded as farmers in New Zealand,” he wrote, “but the general process has been successful. After a short period of occupation the old soldiers were enabled to sell ' their lands, and have very generally done so. The purchasers have gone upon it . with true colonising intentions, and now the upper part of the; Lower Waikato, and the valley of the Waipa which runs into it, the districts around the new towns of Cambridge, . Alexandra ' (Pirongia), Hamilton, , and Newcastle . (Ngaruawahia). are. smiling with English grasses” (5). . Farming Development For some years after the victory over the Maoris there was a state, of

tension in the Auckland Province, and military outposts were maintained at Cambridge, Kihikihi; ' and Pirongia. The few'small settlers who did not sell their land were ..those who succeeded in obtaining Government contracts for the supply of chaff, potatoes, meat, etc., to the armed constabulary. But the remnant of the Waikato Maoris, who had found sanctuary. with the Ngatimaniapoto tribe in. the King Country, did not venture outside the confiscation boundary, though they . remained sullen and hostile and not only prevented the erection of telegraph poles on their territory, but actually shot a surveyor who was engaged on .that work. So the colonists were able “to assume the power of conquerors,” as Trollope put it, and use . the land as they thought fit. Two influences guided the development of the Waikato farming influence and the speculative influence. After, the military settlers sold out, their holdings were largely aggregated by the new owners into grazing properties of 250 to 1000 acres. divided by post-and-rail fences into large paddocks on which sheep and cattle were fattened. The aim of the owners was gradually to . introduce the English system of mixed arable farming, but what spoiled their aim as much as anything was the fact that the available farm labourers were of a type which had left England to escape from that system. , ' Twelve years after 7 the. war the editor of the “Waikato Times” remarked that the large majority of settlers followed the rough-and-ready colonial , system’ where grass, sheep, and cattle were the rule, and the crop, whether root or cereal, the exceptional departure. “As a matter of safe speculation,” he went on, “it is far .more profitable for a man to buy five hundred acres, even though he can only roughly work a hundred, and wait till the increased value of the whole enables him to sell out at a profit, than, instead of buying the extra four hundred acres, to apply the capital to the thorough working of the farm . . . Those settlers who have made money have made it from the sale not of produce but of the land itself.” The following year (1878) he referred to the sale of 260 acres between Hamilton and Cambridge at £l5 an acre, and added that “everywhere throughout the district land whether improved or unimproved is on the rise, and what four or five years ago could have been purchased for £2 to £4 cannot now be obtained for less than treble the money. . . . there is good reason to believe that . . . land has a far higher price to go before it reaches anything like a fixed standard of value. . . . The soil has met its liabilities fourfold” (6). \ That last remark was straightout propaganda in favour of specula-

tion. That the land could not stand a value anything like £l5 an acre was afterward disastrously proved. Farm Production Nevertheless there were many farmers who, although they ' indulged in land speculation as a? sideline, were not prepared to sell the home farm. A thousand or so acres of flat, free-drain-ing soil on the bank of the Waikato River provided i a good place to live, and" as long as the rivers were the main traffic arteries, it , was the best proposition too. The names of some of ;' these —Tamahere, Fencourt, Pukerimu, Pukekura, etc. — perpetuated as names of districts in the Waikato today. For the first 10 or 12 years the income of Waikato farmers was derived from the sale of fat -stock in Auckland.’ The cattle were either driven to Thames and shipped by sea from there, or shipped by river to Mercer and driven from there. After 1875 cattle could be railed from \ Mercer, after 1879 from Hamilton, and after 1884 from Morrinsville and Cambridge. By 1875/ however, Waikato stock was being undersold, on the Auckland market by Taranaki. There were several reasons for this. In the first place Taranaki farmers had a fertile brown forest loam .to work with; secondly, they could ship directly from Waitara to Onehunga; and thirdly, the Waikato pastures were running out. Willy-nilly the 'Waikato was forced into-mixed cropping, with a rotation of. potatoes, cereals, roots, and new grass. But' the idea that it ought to be pre-eminently a grazing region, where men could “sit-down at their ease and see the grass converted into beef and mutton” (6), never died out. No doubt the climate and the growth of grass round stockyards and gateways encouraged this view. For the next 20 years the English system of farming prevailed in the

delta Region, though in • a modified form. During most of this period, from 1880 till 1895, the country was 7 in the depths of a severe depression, and consequently there was a pool of : unemployed men from which labourers could be drawn. That these men were a good deal different from the English farm labourers is evident from a passage in the “Waikato' Times” of 1881: “The days when the farming man, if he kept sober on his eight shillings a week pay for. forty years, and. brought up a large family respectably without parish aid, and never omitted attendance at church on Sundays, and always took off his hat „ and respectfully touched his forelock to the squire and parson and all God-appointed magnates . . . those days are gone. . . . The farmer with ‘ a few years, of independence and good education,' out here, offers a wonderful contrast to the ? old chawbacon, even as a labourer, and is sharper and shrewder, and perhaps harder and more selfish in his dealings with his inferiors, than any of his former. masters.” When the , dairy industry . r became , established and . the cropping farms were cut up such men became the first generation' of “cowcockies.” . . ' ' ' ’ -. f Another modification, of the English system was that artificial 'manures—rock phosphate, guano, superphosphate, and bonedust were, used instead of farmyard manure. Although the cattle were fed on the'roots and the crop residues, they were not stalled or penned,' and hence there , was no accumulation of “muck” for. ploughing in with the crops. At the same/ time there was no conservative opposition to the use of artificial' manures, whose only drawback was that they had to be bought for cash and. were very dear (£8 to £lO a ton f.o.b'. Auckland). From 1876 lime from the Waipa quarry, where the stone was burnt with manuka, , could be had , for thirty shillings a ton through the Waikato

Steam Navigation Company, who would dump it at the nearest river landing. . 1 As a result of the fertilising of the crops the pastures improved so noticeably that, it became the ; practice to lay, down grass seed with fertiliser too. An entry in the “Waikato Handbook,” . published in 1880, records that “last year a 28acre, old grass paddock (on Douglas’s 1000-acre farm at Tamahere) . was ploughed in spring, cross-ploughed in February, topdressed with 2cwl;. of, Mexican guano per acre, and sown with 161 b. of grass and clover and -Jib. of turnip seed to the acre. It was sown ea£ly in March with a drill, saving one-third . the seed as between sowing broadcast. It wintered 800 sheep, and the grass has now met in the drills, though in September Mr. Douglas was rather doubtful about it, thinking that the sheep had trodden the grass too much. ' However, it has turned out well, and is certainly a cheap way of renewing an ‘old pasture and at the same time taking a turnip crop” (7)/ ; . With the establishment of a mixed cropping system the appearance of the countryside changed, from a bare expanse of poor grass. Paddocks were subdivided and crops fenced off from stock with ditches,' dikes, and . hedges. English trees were planted for shade and for sentimental reasons. Ploughmanship improved and ploughing matches were held. Wire fences were adopted slowly, as wire : was dear; barbed wire, invented in America in 1879, was £46 a ton in Auckland in 1882. '• \ The mixed cropping system was only a passing phase, however, for it was displaced by, dairy farming as soon as the combination of refrigeration, dairy factories, top- • dressing, and milking machines made the one-man' dairy farm a , commercial possibility and opened the way to the purchase of land s by farm labourers.' The change-

over was hastened by the cutting- ;; up of enormous blocks of grassland ( in the eastern portion of the Waikato Basin. The history .of this grassland belongs to the “extensive” phase of Waikato farming, which was going on at the same time as the delta farmers were trying to evolve the English system, and which arose out of the speculative aspect mentioned earlier as being one of the two main influences affecting the development of the Waikato. The Bad Times < ’ i i' : \ j ■ ■ ■■ i During the great depression of 18801895 strenuous efforts were made by Waikato farmers to keep farming profitable. They were being squeezed in two waysby falling prices and by soil exhaustion, jln other' parts of the North Island “bush-burn” farming was progressing on a grand scale, but hostile Maoris to the south and bush sickness 'to the . east effectively prevented the settlement of both the King Country , and the Patetere' Plateau (Mamaku Hills). The Waikato ■ was a dead end. An attempt was made to meet soil, exhaustion by improving farming methods, notably by growing swedes and turnips with the aid of manures in an effort to have fat stock ready for the market in winter as well as .summer. Farmers tried to avoid the peril of falling prices by diversifying their farm produce and by “eliminating the middle men” through co-opera-tive enterprises. Fruit, tobacco, and sugar beet, which were suggested' as alternatives to meat. and wheat, all failed. The Cambridge Farmers’ Club proposed that to encourage barley growing it should be illegal for brewers to use sugar for, brewing, but the Government took no notice. Wheat, ( which is usually a reliable crop, was quite unreliable during this period, falling from about Bs. a bushel in 1877 (during the Russo-Turkish War) to 2s. Bd. in 1887. In 1887 the Waikato grew its largest crop, (8000 acres), but the acreage declined rapidly in succeeding years, the reasons being, according to “Brett’s Almanac” of 1894, “the absolute necessity of using large quantities of manure for cereal crops, (and) the uncertainty of our local markets, which rightly or wrongly it is generally thought are worked by rings against the farmers’ interests, so that the producer never has any idea whether his crop; however good it may be, is going to pay him or not” (8). ' In 1882 the North New Zealand Farmers’ Co-operative Association, Limited, established to build an abattoir and freezing works and engage in retail butchering and general merchandising,' set up its headquarters in Auckland to “meet the business men

on their own terms” (6) . ; In a few years it was suffering from cut-throat competition .and from a bad habit of buying businesses- from its directors, and in 1887 it was wound up amid general lamentation. Great things had been expected of the co-operative movement, but, as one of the ' liquidators said, “if we seek 1 protection from the Auckland middle man, it is not the wisest thing in the world to rush into his arms” (6). > • Henry Reynolds opened his Pukekura creamery, in 1886 and started making “Anchor” butter. In 1892 he had eight factories and. in 1895 dairying was second in importance to meat production and the depression was over. . ; ' Josiah Clifton Firth After the conclusion of the war against the Waikato Maoris the 'way was opened for the purchase of land from the Arawa tribe, ' the “friendlies” (5), whose possessions stretched

eastward from the Waikato River toward Rotorua. ' The first man to take advantage of the situation was Josiah Clifton Firth in 1865. . “The . passing of the Native Lands Act was the first step taken to open up the, unconfiscated portion of the Maori lands. Firth here saw his chance,'and he began negotiations with William Thompson (or Wiremu Tamehana, the Te Waharoa chief) for the Matamata country .. . Men smiled, for it was commonly said that at Matamata ‘Fern is King,’ but this in a short while might : have been changed to ‘Firth is King,’” (9).

J. C. Firth was ,the prototype of a small group of men who .■ represented a large amount of Auckland and London capital seeking to be invested. The investment of ,this capital in land initiated an era of speculation which ended disastrously in the great bank crash of 1895. But such a bald statement does not do justice to the situation, which had its constructive side as well. Firth was an educated Englishman who had founded the Wharf Steam Roller Flour Milling 1 Company in Auckland before 1860. The mill prospered . and he participated in public affairs. He was a handsome, attractive, and energetic man, and acquired ■ a strong following. His name crops up in accounts of nearly every colonial activity—acclimatisation,f afforestation, secular education, the eight-hour day, gold-mining, flour-milling, kauri gum, municipal and provincial politics, land settlement, and even literature. For a time he was a director of the Bank of New Zealand and the New Zealand Loan and Mercantile Agency Company Limited.. He was a born publicist and an object of suspicion to those of his colleagues who preferred to work in the dark. , ■ ' ' Firth’s plan on acquiring Matamata was a grandiose one. He had acquired the freehold of about 50,000 acres of easily ploughable scrubland which he proposed. to turn into a “bonanza” wheat farm similar to those described in a previous article in this series. The wheat would be carried in his own ship down the Waihou River, which ran through his property, to the Firth of Thames, and thence by sea to his Auckland flour mill. To do all this he had to clear the land, fence it and grass it, stock it with cattle to improve it, sow, harvest, and thresh the wheat, store it, erect homes and buildings and a wharf on the river, build a ship, and ' finally clear the river of snags for 60 miles. Yet when he had done all this it was not enough. A “missing link” in his plan made it unworkable. Matamata \ A description of the Matamata Estate in 1880, when it was at the height of its productivity, is to be found in the Piako County » Council’s diamond jubilee publication (9). It was evidently a remarkable sight. A grand avenue 23 miles long led completely through the estate from the Waikato River to the landing on the Waihou. Double gateways 20ft. wide led into paddocks a ' mile or a mile-and-a-half square containing wheat, red clover hay, Lincoln and Shropshire sheep and Down-cross hoggets, and Shorthorn and '; Hereford cows ; and steers for cheese and beef production. There were also an apiary of several

hundred . hives, pine groves in which deer were running, a racetrack for the employees, and an armed fortress. In 1881 seven, miles of telephone wires were erected. ? In 1882 the implements included 8 reapers .and binders, 13. mowing-machines, 10 drills, 10 Cambridge rollers, 10 rakes, 2 manure distributors, 11 disc harrows, several , hay loaders, 2 portable steam engines, a scoop, and a grader/ In, the 1881-82 ’ season the ■ estate x produced 35,000 bushels of wheat from 1400 acres, 3500 acres of clover hay, and, 1400 acres of turnips, while 4000 cattle and' 7000 sheep were grazing 'in the fields. The missing link in the Firth plan 1 was phosphatic fertiliser. His ' cattle were not very : efficient fertiliser, factories and sometimes had to be expensively hand fed (9). In 1884 Firth gave up wheat growing after losing two seasons’ crops. Opinion was expressed that the r- harvesting was bungled (6) because Firth tried to direct operations from Auckland instead of trusting his manager,-but wet weather was probably .as much . to blame. He could buy wheat from Canterbury more cheaply than he could grow it, but he had sunk about £200,000 in Matamata, some of which was borrowed, and he was now pinched for cash. In 1886 he offered to sell dairy farms and to finance them and establish a cheese factory, but because of the low price for dairy produce few of the farms were taken up.' “An attempt to. foster the dairying industry by establishing a condensedmilk factory was a failure because the mortgagees foreclosed although everything -was in working order. for a start” (9). In 1889 Firth went bankrupt. “Mr. Firth, who was indebted to the Loan and . Mercantile Agency Company, ground up all the wheat he had in stock. He had, however, no money to provide a fresh supply, and the Loan Company declined to advance him any further credit for that purpose” (10). “The story of his , fertile ideas, his great executive ~ ability, his . humanitarian principles, his rise to wealth, and his eventual failure ... is one of unsurpassed interest in the colonising history of this ; country,” . (9). Firth died in 1897, but before his career ended he founded another enterprise, the Firth Pumice Company, for the supply of insulation to the refrigeration industry. One of Firth’s managers at Matamata, John McCaw, a man of importance in the history of the . Waikato, is mentioned later in this article in connection with the Bank of New Zealand Assets Realisation Board, of which he was made superintendent.,

The Estates Other well-known men who bought land from the Maoris were Thomas and Samuel . Morrin, ironmongers, who founded Morrinsville, and Thomas Every Mac Lean, who for a time was Provincial, Superintendent. ' By 1875 numerous large estates in the eastern part of the Waikato included Locherbie, Waharoa, Paeroa, . and Okoroire. They , were partly broken in and farmed to attract settlers, but the depression came on, and instead of being cut up and sold, they fell into the hands of the financial institutions to whom they were mortgaged. There is a description of them in the jubilee publication of the town of Te Aroha. “These estates,” says a ■ contributor, “represented : the most picturesque stage of agricultural life in the Thames Valley. They were highly organised with specialised staffs# The owner or manager, with the employees, formed a little community, largely self-contained. There z was a roomy homestead with cottages for ploughmen, shepherds, and stockmen. Tradesmen such as blacksmiths and saddlers formed part of the staff. A full range of the best agricultural machinery available was used and everything was done on a big scale.” He points out that the 1 general farm practice was conditioned by one allimportant consideration: the failure to establish permanent < pastures. “In breaking in the virgin land the dry knolls and levels were ploughed, fallowed through the winter, and worked up for spring sowing of cereals, root crops, or pasture. Pastures had to be maintained for the needs of the beef cattle and sheep. The short life of these pastures compelled the adoption of a cropping, rotational system. When grass was sown in the ashes after the burning off of the scrub, the strike usually was excellent and the first season a good bite of feed was thrown. The second year saw a waning of the growth, the sole opening up "with white - clover more abundant than grass. By the third season the pasture was returning little useful feed and was again ready for the plough” (11). ..... ' Some of the estates were established on swamp land, but these fared no better, although much labour and money was spent on draining them. The pastures, after an initial flush, ran out to Yorkshire fog and sweet vernal. In some cases they were over-drained, but mostly the failures were due to the poor nature of the peat, which re- . quired heavy liming, which was impossible in the absence of roads solid enough to support loaded wagons. The Land Companies In the years 1875 to 1895 occurred the rise and fall of the big land com-

panies 1 which . were set up by the mortgagees and into which the estates were gradually merged. These were the New Zealand Thames Valley Land Company (also known as the Patetere Company), the Waikato Land Association. (the Waikato or Piako Swamp Company), the Auckland Agricultural Company (involving Dalgety, and Company), the Bank of New Zealand Estates. .Company, . and the .Estates Branch of the New Zealand Loan and Mercantile Agency Company. Confounded by a depression of unprecedented length and severity, they extended their farming operations to secure some return on their investments, which were quite unmarketable. In a spirit of desperate optimism they faced the future, but each year proved' ’ worse than the one , before. Eventually they were forced to carry little - but sheep, which required the. least labour and which increased from about 100,000 in 1890 to 400,000 in 1894 (8). ' > - ’ <-- ' , By 1895. the Bank of New Zealand; whose head office oscillated between Auckland and London, was carrying not only its own Estates Company, but .the other land companies as well, and the load was too great. The bank appealed to Parliament. As it was a question of saving the bank, no matter how closely it was associated with the companies, ' emergency legislation which made the Government the largest shareholder in the bank was passed' overnight (12). The upshot of the speculative phase was that a Bank of New Zealand Assets: Realisation Board, consisting of two members appointed by the bank and one by the Government, was set up to administer and dispose of the properties. John McCaw, who had been J. ’C. Firth’s most successful manager, was made superintendent. At an ever-increasing rate the land was cut up and sold, with the assistance of the Crown, to the increasing numbers of dairy farmers, until by 1904 the last of it was gone. It sold for £3 to £4' an acre, which had been about- its value in 1870 before the boom started. • - / In spite of themselves, the “companies and moneyed individuals” had done much useful work in clearing the scrub, draining the swamps, establishing pretty. little settlements, and providing casual and contract work for many struggling settlers at a time when there was very little money about. “They have, as it were, prepared the way for settlement, and given it an impetus, and had it not been for their interference, the many hundred thousand acres which are now in grass would have remained ' to this day and for many years to come a barren waste” (6).

However, this grass, though , certainly more productive than scrub, consisted chiefly of catsear, fog, danthonia, chewings fescue, sweet vernal, trefoil,' and creeping bent; while “hundreds and hundreds of absentees’ lands lay waste, not only producing nothing, but in too many instances propagating furze, sweet brier, and other such nuisances” (8). Pasture Establishment ’ It might be baldly stated' that Waikato farming . was ' a dead-end x occupation until a means was discovered of establishing and maintaining good permanent pasture. The,, fact that eventually such a means was discovered is therefore of outstanding importance. . In its technical aspect the problem was one of selecting desirable pasture species and of providing a suitable environment for them. Red clover was the first of the desirable species to establish itself. It would not stand hard grazing, but was eminently. suitable for a ' hay crop, and . when used only for that would last ten years or more. It was often , sown alone, ;or with cocksfoot in the ashes of a scrub burn in February; the following spring cattle were turned in on the luxuriant growth and, while feeding on it, crushed out the second-growth fern which invariably came up. After that the ground could be ploughed and resown. • The preparation of the ground for pasture depended a good deal on the amount of manuka which was mixed with the fern. Solid fern would give a clean burn which could be ploughed immediately if necessary, say for a turnip crop, but manuka of any size or thickness had to be cut up by hand for a clean burn, or else killed by a scrub .fire and allowed to rot before the teams could . get the plough through the ground. Scrub cutting was a real bugbear, especially for the settlers’' sons, and Mac Lean’s “patent tea-tree cutter,” a horse-drawn machine hopefully but ineffectually introduced in 1884, aroused as much interest as the giant discs did 50 years later. As for the method of cultivation, it was soon found that the light land,’ with its thin topsoil, was best ploughed not more than 4in. deep, and heavily rolled. The light ploughing brought the double-furrow plough into popularity. In 1878 Auckland merchants were advertising red, white, . alsike, and crimson clovers; ; lucerne, timothy, sainfoin, yarrow, birdsfoot trefoil, ribgrass, sheep’s parsley; ryegrass from Poverty , Bay, Canterbury, and Pukekohe; cocksfoot, prairie grass, Indian doob, machine-dressed ratstail; poa pratensis, poa trivialis, poa aquatica; sheep’s, hard, and meadow fescues, and -crested dogstail, sweet vernal, and meadow foxtail. Although few of these were widely used, those species

which the soil suited were soon widespread, . no matter what mixture was sown. ' - . ' Ryegrass was' of course .the favourite with the majority of farmers, while Dutch white clover was introduced as early as 1871. The superior nutritive value of ryegrass-white clover pasture was known from English experience, and every endeavour was made to get it going. The results were variable, but generally disappointing, and gave rise to a “ryegrass controversy” which was ' settled after the , turn of the century by comprehension of the phos-. phate-clover-nitrogen-grass cycle and the discovery of “false perennial” ryegrass as the troublemaker. The Ryegrass Controversy From the annals of the Cambridge Farmers’ Club, as recorded in . the “Waikato Times,” it is possible to reconstruct a scene , from the ryegrass controversy. In this scene, which is part of the discussion which followed an address by one of the members, the argument is conducted on a gentlemanly level, but the conflict of opinion is quite evident. The scene 'opens with John Runciman agreeing with many of the views put forward by the speaker, but announcing flatly that there were others, to which he could not subscribe. “For instance,” he said. “I am and always have been of the opinion that ryegrass will grow on new land equally well with old, and I have proved it. Those

who have failed to grow it are themselves to blame for not using the proper implements. The failure in the grass is not owing to the state of the soil, but simply to the want of'sufficient rolling. When I 'first came into the. district I grew some splendid ryegrass on new land. 'Most people put too ; little seed into the ground; I have always put 201 b. I have never sowed a . pound of cocksfoot, but have kept to the ryegrass, and with the most successful results.” ~ Mr. Williams: My experience has led me to think that the land takes ryegrass too freely, to, the exclusion of clovers, which are smothered when the ryegress is thickly sown. Consequently, when the rye goes out the pasture is done. Anything like 15 or 201 b. of ryegrass is too much. You might get a good pasture for a few years, but you’ll suffer in the end. The less we have to do with ryegrass in the laying down of new lands, the better. ' . Mr. Walker: I don’t think the getting of a good pasture is so much a matter of seed as the preparation of the land getting a thoroughly good seed-bed. It is well known that only ~50 per cent, of clover buried half an inch comes up. and of seed buried an inch and , a half very little, if any, ever germinates at all. The 1 same remark applies to grasses as well.' Mr Martyn: When I first came to the district I sowed nothing but clover. Then Mr. May . strongly advised me

to put in a few pounds of ryegrass. Now the paddocks have an excellent sole of grass— they are not covered with thistles. (Laughter.) . Mr. Clark: Seven pounds of ryegrass to the acre is as good as 201 b. If the land will grow ryegrass, 71b. is ample; if it, will not, then it is so much the less seed thrown away. . . t : John Fisher t brought the . argument back full circle by saying that he remembered seeing Runciman’s crop, which Runciman ' said he had properly rolled. “Yet the same season,” he went on, “I put in ryegrass on new land, and it was certainly not for the want of rolling that it turned out a failure, because I rolled. it with a heavy implement more than once.” Then he started on a new line. “I think it’s insects,” he said. . . . Cambridge Farmers" Club It would be difficult to overestimate the influence of these men: < In the space of seven years they determined the future of the Waikato future which, until 1947 at any rate, was to be one of permanent pasture grown from reliable seeds, maintained with topdressing and proper management, and converted into milk for. the manufacture of dairy, products and the fattening. pigs and lambs. To a great extent, of course, they were driven by necessity, and they were soon to have their philosophy shattered by an economic crisis of the first magnitude, but they, kept J their wits about them for long enough to get their ideas pro- , pagated. These ideas were derived from the latest English information regarding the grand march of nineteenth century research in its relation to agriculture. In 1875, when .there was a general feeling that agriculture in the Waikato was . still only tentative, a number of prominent farmers in the Cambridge district began to meet once a month in one . another’s houses to “talk shop.” Some had been officers in the militia, some were estate , managers, • others combined business interests with farming, and some were just good plain farmers and breeders. Incorporating themselves into a club, they arranged farm inspections, ploughing matches, and shows;.managed campaigns against such natural calamities as peach leaf curl, sheep scab, and bovine pleuropneumonia; built a kauri clubhouse costing . £800; entertained important travelling personages; became exclusive and unfinancial; squabbled, and, in 1882, broke up (6). , They , had a rule that any member could be. called on to prepare and read an essay on some aspect of,farming. In practice this devolved on the founding members, among.whom were Henry Buttle, J. P. Campbell, G. E.

Clark, R. H. D. Ferguson, John Fisher, Joseph , Gane, 'Hicks, R. Parker, Henry Reynolds, .J. ' C. ' Reynolds, Richard'Reynolds, Capt. James Runciman, E. B. Walker, Williams, and Major John Wilson. Their essays were informative' and authoritative, and became widely known, being reprinted in the “Waikato Times” and; sometimes in the Auckland papers and the “N.Z. Country Journal.”

Among the topics raised were “cooperative dairy factories” in 1876 and “topdressing of grass” in 1880. The first subject, by James Runciman, aroused a lot of comment to which the newspapers gave prominence. It was typical of the Cambridge men that they were not afraid to turn words into deeds, and in 1878 Runciman opened a private cheese factory on his farm at Hautapu. It was followed by several co-operative cheese and bacon factories, at Te Awamutu and

elsewhere, but because of poor facilities and transport,' none of them flourished. However, James Runciman’s example was taken up by a fellow, club member,' Henry Reynolds, who started a successful chain of creameries in 1886, selling out to the Aucklander Wesley Spragg’s New Zealand Dairy Association 10 years later. Thus organised, dairying became profitable, and topdressing and refrigeration hastened its growth, culminating in. the formation of the New Zealand Co-operative Dairy Company in 1919. Topdressing developed much more obscurely. On March 22, 1880, in a lecture entitled “The Culture of

Grasses/’ Major John Wilson drew the attention of the club to the fact that,' while manure is largely used in mixed arable farming to produce greater abundance of grain or, roots, “grass seems by common consent to be , left to itself, to succeed alone, or it may be struggle through under every disadvantage. ... In some poor and stiff soil manure is an absolute necessity, soil such as is seen in many parts of Kaipara and almost everywhere on gumfields. . . . And on any, whether good or indifferent, a supply of some such stimulant is at once observable in a more luxuriant vegetation.” He then read an account of an experiment at Rothamsted Experimental Station, England, on the topdressing of grass plots, and how the struggle for existence was altered in favourJv of the higher-producing grasses, which increased in number, while the herbage became simpler. Finally he observed that “on the finest old pastures manure judiciously chosen exerts ,a most powerful influence, doubling and trebling . . . the already exuberant vegetation, and it is equally noticeable that an application of this stimulant fairly extirpates weeds” (13). ' : Topdressing It was not until 1908, when the Department of Agriculture published the results of its first topdressing trials at Ruakura and Te Kauwhata, that 'the principle of topdressing began to excite interest among farmers outside the Waikato. What had happened in the 28 ( years since Major Wilson’s lecture is difficult, to ascertain, but enough of the old gossip is still in circulation to furnish the inference that topdressing was regarded with derision by those who had no need to do it, and with shame by those who did. .< There is some reason to believe that John Wilson did first moot it, and that Richard Reynolds may have been the first to try it out. Wilson was not a farmer, but lived as a retired gentleman at Cambridge. He had taken up 400 acres adjoining the camp of : the Imperial troops at the Pukerimu River landing, but had sold it to a- man named Comrie, who later sold it to Richard Reynolds (4). Reynolds is reputed to have been very progressive and businesslike and willing to try anything.. It is. said that once after a visit to Hawke’s Bay he laid down part of . his farm in tall fescue, and had to plough it up again. Years later, in 1913, he ' came back from a trip to America full of ; the importance of lucerne, only to see from the window of ’ the train a fine stand at Ruakura, upon which he handsomely complimented the manager, Primrose McConnell (4).

Reynolds, Martyn, Clark, and other members of the club were careful experimenters with manures for crops on a unit cost basis, reporting their results to , the 'club from time to time. Topdressing started hesitantly in the. Cambridge district in the eighties (2), the seed drills being used as distributors. Its early progress was delayed by a baffling feature which , arose from the cautious manner in which those who first tried it would topdress only part of a paddock, to be sure that the topdressed part was better than the untopdressed part. Curiously ’ enough, it was usually worse, the grass on it being only a few inches high while the rest was knee high and going to seed. This is said to have been a common experience. It was not realised for some time that the stock were eating the topdressed grass and leaving the rest. Topdressed paddocks automatically became understocked. In the nineties the practice spread further afield. “Some beautiful green paddocks were to be seen from the main road in passing through the Morrinsville district, and it used to be a mild joke to suggest that those Morrinsville farmers, anxious to sell their hungry farms, had sprinkled some bonedust over their front paddocks” (11). About 1900 John McCaw, then Superintendent of the Bank of New Zealand -Assets Realisation Board, began topdressing at Matamata with ljcwt. to the acre, in order to prolong the ■life of the pastures whose persistent running out seriously interfered with the grazing management (9). This was contrary to the advice

of the Department of Agriculture whose recipe for, the Matamata County was . “a combination of . gorse, 'kept under control by stock,- together with . . . some selectedgrasses (such as ... chewings fescue and danthonia. semi-annularisY’ (14). Scientific Background As is often the case, practical men gave the clue to the experts. The same , thing had happened in England, where the Cheshire farmers , who used crushed Ijones on old grass at the beginning of the nineteenth century had started the investigation which resulted in the invention of, superphosphate by J. B. Lawes in 1842. In 1843 Dr. Justus von Liebig applied the economic law of the minimum to agriculture, stating that' “by the deficiency or absence of one necessary constituent, all the other's being present, the soil is rendered barren for all those crops to the life of which that . one constituent is indispensable.” In 1856 Lawes set apart about 8 acres of grassland in his park at Rothamsted for investigating the comparative. effects of different manuring substances on permanent grass— “in the first instance,- probably to deter-, mine the best means of increasing the gross amount of produce. But not only has the general character of the herb- 1 age as to vigour, colour, date of ripening, etc., materially altered, but the composition of the produce has entirely changed . . . No fresh seed has been artificially sown C within the last fifty years certainly, nor is there any

record of any having been sown since the .grass was first laid down” (13). The dominance was shifted from sheep’s fescue to cocksfoot. . The history of basic slag as a commercial product began in 1879 with the successful demonstration of the Bessemer process of steel-making at Durham; while in: 1886 Hellriegel and Wilfarth in Germany discovered the fact that clovers could extract nitrogen from the atmosphere' These two discoveries were amalgamated by Sir William . Somerville, Sir Thomas Middleton, and Professor Douglas A. •Gilchrist at Cockle Park, Northumberland, in a series of experiments which' began in 1896. , Somerville determined the superiority of basic slag over other manures for renovating poor grassland on heavy clay soil. He used sheep to measure the productivity of the pasture. “Hitherto in grassland , experiments the -values to be attached to various improvement methods were assessed by the extra weights of hay produced” (15). Realising that. this did not necessarily measure the quality of the herbage, Somerville used live-weight gains to assess the results. He decided that the improvement in productivity was largely due to the appearance of wild white clover, which was the only new plant to come in. He also found that the application of lime doubled the calcium intake of the herbage plants. , Somerville worked with 3-acre plots, which were criticised as not being the usual farm practice. So Middleton set

out 10-acre plots . and used cattle as well as sheep, as his measuring instruments. “The mixed grazing had the immediate effect of doubling. the live-weight increase per’, acre” (15). Middleton thus discovered the fertil-ity-building effect of topdressing plus heavy - stocking. He also found that close grazing - was necessary if ■ the clover' was not to be overshadowed and weakened. , Gilchrist’s contribution was , in the selection of leafy and persistent strains of pasture plants. ‘ “He used New Zealand' strains of ryegrass and' cocksfoot as far as possible. . . . He was particularly careful to obtain wild white clover seed from old-established pastures where the strains were persistent” (15). ' ’ The fiftieth anniversary of Cockle Park was celebrated last year. A picture of Tree Field, where Somerville worked, is reproduced on page 28. Grassland Management In 1904, at the request of the Waikato Farmers’ Club (founded in 1889 and a sort of forerunner to the Farmers’ Union, later changed ,to Federated Farmers), and under the auspices of the provincial A. and P. Associations, the Department of Agriculture began its now-famous topdressing trials. The pasture at Ruakura' consisted chiefly of sweet vernal, fog,, some trefoil, and a little cocksfoot and creeping bent, while at Te. Kauwhata it was mainly ratstail. “One of these old pastures, in 1904, was stocked heavily, hay carted on to it and fed off, ’ wt.' of basic slag applied, the whole well harrowed, and now other grasses and white clover are appearing” (14). The trial was repeated with other manures, but the final report in 1908 recommended basic slag. - . . . Topdressing, first of hay paddocks, then of grazing paddocks, slowly, encouraged other practices of grassland management. “The tripod and chain harrow was used to spread the droppings of the animals. Some farmers went to the extreme of supposing that harrowing was in itself sufficient to maintain and improve their pastures. . . . The work of spreading the droppings was done, perhaps, once in • the year ... in the late winter and early spring. .. . The , accumulation of roughage during the summer and autumn was fondly imagined to be the acme of good farming. It denoted that the farm was not too heavily stocked, and carried in the paddocks a substitute for hay. As the feeding of roots was a common winter practice, a runoff of roughage was, in the absence of other provision, a matter of necessity. Pastures that were in a . condition for harrowing during the autumn months would have been considered ‘hungry’ looking. The practice of fre-

quent harrowing, then, was slow ,to gain ground, as it required a shorter pasture than was deemed practicable or desirable” (11). Frequent harrowing, short pasture, and small paddocks are the basis of “rotational grazing” management. The Phosphate Economy Of the fertilisers used bonedust was the prime favourite until it became too scare and expensive. The liability of foreign shipments to be, contaminated with anthrax led to its compulsory sterilisation. It was superseded by George Clark’s . “Waikato mixture” of equal parts of bonedust, superphosphate, and guano; and this mixture was in turn superseded by basic slag after 1908. With the change from the Bessemer process of steel-making to the open-hearth process, the phosphatic quality of basic slag fell off, and the amount used declined from. 36,000 tons in 1914 to 12,000 tons in; 1921. After 1920 superphosphate came to be used in enormous quantities, reaching a maximum of 600.000 tons in 1940, by which time about 4,000,000 acres were being topdressed annually, over 1,000,000 acres receiving lime as well. Nowadays more attention is being paid to. minerals other than phosphates, and “straight superphosphate” is being ammoniated, cobaltised, copperised, and “reverted” with calcium and magnesium compounds. , The effect of topdressing was to 7 provide a veneer of fertility which - nourished the shallow stoloniferous : roots of the white clover plant after the taproot died, and thus made the plant perennial on poor soils. Heavy stocking increased the- humus content'of the surface film. Heavy stocking , was made possible by autumn topdressing, which provided a flush of feed for -winter. . - , J . The notable feature - of Waikato ' topdressing was that farmers took it seriously and made' an, annual budget expense of it, as Southland... farmers did with ■ liming. ’So topdressing did not remain merely an interesting experiment as it did in England. It gave the Waikato a / tremendous-> economic advantage over its competitors,. Taranaki, Manawatu, and .Southland, and eventually forced, them to adopt it in spite of their scepticism. From the dairying districts it spread into the fat lamb districts, and for some years now has been pressing hard on the hill-country sheep-farming economy. Phosphatic fertilisers are in worldwide demand, but the Food and Agriculture, office of the United Nations estimates that there ' are sufficient known world reserves to * last ' 1000 years at double the present world rate of use. . ' ~ .... - ..

Summary In New Zealand the practice of “topdressing” began in the Waikato, where the amount of stored fertility available for exploitation by pioneer farmers ' was very small." It was at first a desperate ■ remedy for a desperate situation,, and' was - advanced by : a group of men who had not , had the opportunity of becoming self-satisfied. . Topdressing was- followed by the introduction of permanent strains .of grasses and clovers and by a system of grassland management. ' The' system of “intensive grassland farming”, aims l at the production of milk by raising the fertility of the soil so that it will grow nutritious pasture plants affording adequate sustenance to prolific cows • and . ewes, whose milk is used. for , the manufacture of dairy products and the fattening of pigs and lambs. This aim has prevailed in spite of other aims arising from economic pressure. Acknowledgments Thanks are expressed'to the Lands and Survey Department, the Land Transfer Office, and descendants of Waikato settlers for assistance in preparing this article. References - 1. Dr. F. von Hochstetler; ■■ “New Zealand,’’ 1859. - 2. Bulletin 76 of the Department of Scientific and .Industrial,Research. 3. James Cowan: '.'The Old Frontier.” .4. John McCaw’s scrapbook of newspaper clippings.- . ' <■’ '." ' 5. Anthony Trollope:'.-''Australia and New Zealand,” 1874. 6. The. "Waikato Times,” 1874 to 1889 issues. 7. “The Waikato Handbook,” E. M.Edgcumbe . and Co., 1880. 8. “Brett’s Almanac,” 1880 to 1895 issues. 9. C. T. Harris: "The Settlement and Development of the Upper Thames Valley,” 1937. 10. The “Te. Aroha News” newspaper, May 11, 1889. 11. G. W. Wild in “Te Arolia and the. Fortunate Valley,” 1930.. LA- ".. ... 12. B. A. Moore and J.... 5. Bartori: “Banking in New Zealand,” 1935. 13. Major Wilson: "The Culture of Grasses,” Cambridge. Farmers’. Club, 1880 (in the “Waikato' Times,” March 25). . <.-L' ; L'' ; 14. Department'of '-Agriculture Reports, 1894 to 1908. •?;, ' ' 15. Journal of the British Ministry of Agriculture, December, 1946. v A -

r' - ' “ •’"" - THE AUSTRALIAN SOLDIER ... . mi' ' fly i mm The reported presence in the Opotiki district in recent months of an insect called the Australian soldier fly has attracted considerable attention. The insect has been suspected of causing damage to crops and pastures. About 20 years ago it caused some concern in Australia, but it proved to be of little importance. Nevertheless its presence in this country is being carefully investigated by officers of the . Departs ment of Agriculture and the Cawthron Institute.^j ■