Ninety Years’ Development in Matamata Farming

New Zealand Journal of Agriculture, Volume 87, Issue 2, 15 August 1953, Page 129

Ninety Years’ Development in Matamata Farming

By

G. A. BLAKE,

Instructor in Agriculture,. Department of Agriculture, Matamata

IN the 1870 s owners of some of the large estates in the South Island were breaking in the better class country and taking profitable crops of turnips and grain off it. But discouragement and expense were the lot of settlers in the Matamata district who, thinking their land was similar, tried the same practices there. Large companies borrowed heavily from the Bank of New Zealand to develop this Waikato country, but they and the bank itself were in difficulties in the depression of the 1880 s and early 1890 s. During the operations of the Assets Realisation Board, which was formed to reorganise the estates, the importance of topdressing grass was discovered. This article describes a fully developed farm of about 300 acres which was part of the Mangapouri Block taken over by the Government from the Assets Realisation Board in 1906 and thrown open for selection the following year. Brief histories of the settlement of the district and the operations of the large estates form a background for the picture of the evolution of this Waikato county from frustration and disaster during its development as large estates to realisation of its great production potential after subdivision and the adoption of the new grassland farming practices.

SETTLEMENT OF MATAMATA THE settlement of the Matamata district dates back to 1866, when, soon after the conclusion of the Waikato War, Josiah Firth made an agreement with the Arawa tribe to take over a large block of land in the locality. The Native Lands Act of 1865 had made it possible for land to be bought from the Maoris by direct negotiations and soon some other large blocks were taken up in the southern Waikato; the land itself was covered in fern and scrub and only those with plenty of

capital could afford to do much with it. In the 1870 s and 1880 s the owners of some of the large. estates. in the South Island were breaking in the better class country and taking crops of turnips> and grain off it. For some years this proved very profitable and naturally attention was directed to the large areas of fairly easy country in the Waikato which bore a sufficient resemblance to those in the south. But all attempts to break in the land, raise crops, or sow it down in grass proved discouraging and expensive.

Companies' Large Blocks Apart from Firth’s Matamata estate, other large blocks were held by the New Zealand Thames Valley Land Company, the Waikato Land Association, the Auckland Agricultural Company, the Bank of New Zealand Estates Company, and the Estates Branch of the New Zealand Loan and Mercantile Agency Company. The Auckland Agricultural Company was formed in 1882 with a capital of £1,000,000 by Thomas Russell. He had come to New Zealand as a youth and qualified as a solicitor, but from 1860 he had devoted most of his time to other business interests and among other things was closely associated with the establishment of the Bank of New Zealand, the New Zealand Loan and Mercantile Agency Company, the New Zealand Insurance Company, and the Colonial Sugar Refining Company. Until 1882 he was John Grigg’s partner at Longbeach.

The Auckland Agricultural Company acquired several undeveloped estates in the . Waikato, including Waitoa, Okoroire, Paeroa, Mangawhero (adjoining Matamata), and Mangapouri, near Tirau. In Hands of Bank of New Zealand Nearly all the large land companies in the Waikato had borrowed heavily from the Bank of New Zealand. When prices were reasonably good or when there was hope for a rapid improvement the burden could be carried, but as the depression of the 1880 s and early 1890 s deepened the companies were unable to meet their liabilities and their- enterprises fell back into the hands of the bank. The bank itself was in 7 serious difficulties and the Government had to come to its rescue in 1894. In the reorganisation which followed a new body was formed, the Assets Realisation Board, the aim being to manage the estates prudently and . then sell them off when circumstances were favourable. John McCaw, a Scotsman who had come to New Zealand in 1877, was appointed manager for the bank in the Waikato in 1889 before', many of the other properties had fallen into the bank’s hands. He had been employed by the New Zealand and Australian Land Company for some time at Totara, near Oamaru, and after leaving the company’s service he had managed estates in South Canterbury. He made his headquarters the Fencourt estate, but later they were at Matamata. Importance of Topdressing McCaw is an important figure in the history of Waikato arming, for he was among the first to realise, the importance of topdressing. .. In the late 1890 s about 1800 tons of fertiliser was being used a year on the properties he managed. Applied at the rate of about 2cwt. per acre, probably most of the fertiliser was used on turnips, but a description of the Matamata estate taken from Harris’s “Diamond Jubilee of the Piako County” shows that McCaw was using fertiliser when he sowed down new grass as well. The ’ description of the Matamata estate and the methods followed on it would be true of all the places under McCaw’s supervision:— About the year 1900, the Matamata estate consisted of 50,000 acres, inclusive of 10,000 of the Waharoa estate, part of which had been

leased to small farmers. . . . The Matamata estate carried at the time 31,000 sheep, 2600 cattle and 184 horses. In grass were 22,000 acres; whilst there were 2000 acres in root crops, mostly swedes and soft turnips, and 500 acres in oats, which were to be threshed and made into chaff later. A Hercules mower drawn by two horses was constantly in operation in most areas in order to keep down the scrub that covered the plain for miles. In this way, about 10 acres a day could be cleared. Then the ploughing was usually done by contract. Generally speaking, the estate found the horses and the feed, whilst the men received a daily wage according to the acreage ploughedusually about 2s. an acre. By this method it cost about ss. an acre to bring in the land; for it was planted with cow-grass and fed with artificial manures, which were put on in the first instance at the rate of IS cwt. to the acre. It was. very noticeable that the light soil of Matamata and, indeed, of the Upper Thames, responded marvellously to this method of treatment. Every cultivation showed an improvement in the return, further • increased by the use of more fertiliser. This cow-grass was expected to last two or three years. Then the ground was planted in swedes or put into pasture, which was intended to last another six years when properly treated with artificial manures. So it was that this form of pasture technique gave a nine-year life to the grass when it was sown for the third time. Government Purchase x In 1896, just after McCaw took over the management of the properties, Mangawhero, which covered 5670 acres, was valued at £24,450; Mangapouri, of 2728 acres, was valued at £11,580. These values were probably still influenced by the misplaced optimism of the earlier decade, for when the Government bought them 10 years later £20,700 was paid for Mangawhero and £9300 for Mangapouri, even though there had been no reduction in the area. IMPROVED FARM ON MANGAPOURI BLOCK The extent of the improvement that has taken place in the Matamata disirict during the last 45 years is shown in the accompanying illustrations from photographs taken of the same area before 1907 and recently. There follows a study of a farm that today comprises

nearly all of one of the original subdivisions of the Mangapouri Block. Part of this property is used for fat lamb production, but all the rest of the original block is devoted to dairying. Average production is almost 2001 b. of butterfat per acre. Several of the .first settlers on the Mangapouri Block still retain all or portion of their original allotments, but the owner of Section. 11 of 383 acres held it for only a year before he died. During his occupancy he milked 100 cows. For 4 years after his death the holding was unoccupied, but was used for winter grazing by neighbours. In 1911 Mr. S. G. Barnett, the present owner, took over Section 11 and an adjoining 123 acres. At that time all the sown pastures had partly reverted to fern, with cocksfoot and red clover the only grasses present. All the hill faces, and 85 acres of swamp

were in fern and scrub, and one subdivision fence divided the property into two padddcks. Dairying was recommenced and in a few years 100 cows were being milked, the highest annual production being 30,0001 b. of butterfat. Each year 80 acres were ploughed with two single-furrow ploughs—3s acres for swedes, 35 acres for pasture after the crop, and the balance for oats and peas for horses and pigs. In December of each year 161 b. of seed per acre, consisting of 81b. of perennial ryegrass, 61b. of cocksfoot, lib. of timothy, and 11b. of white clover, was drilled through every coulter, with a mixture of superphosphate and blood and bone, and this practice continues today, although the amount of seed has been increased. .Topdressing began in 1912 with basic slag, guano, and imported superphosphate, and in 1917 the use of a small amount of potash and lime was begun and continued for 20 years. With the exception of a small, steep sideling all the farm has been ploughed twice. 313 Acres; 40 Paddocks A portion of the original holding was sold for rehabilitation purposes, and the area now farmed is 313 acres, divided into 40 paddocks by fences which were'erected mainly during the first regrassing period. ' Windbreaks and internal shelter belts of lawsoniana, gums, and pines were planted during the early years of occupation, and in all some 7000 trees were set out; 2000 pines planted in 1916-17 were recently milled to produce 260,000 ft. of sawn timber, but in 1911 only two trees were growing on the property. At present the 313 acres are being farmed as a dairy and fat lamb farm, and are carrying 125 dairy cows, 40 2-year-old heifers, 10 yearling hulls, 600 ewes, 180 wethers, 130 ewe hoggets, 200 wether hoggets, and 20 horses. The farm is flat to easy undulating, varying from 300 ft. to 500 ft. above sea level. Two main soil types are found on the farm, Tirau sandy loam, derived from the Tirau ash shower, and Waitoa silt loam and clay loam on the drained

flats. Both . these soil types are moderately fertile, but tend to dry out in summer. The Dairy Section Although the farm is managed as one unit, 100 acres are reserved for dairying and on this 90 cows are milked, but the replacements are carried on the sheep section. The skimmed milk is used to rear 40 calves annually, the balance being used by 7 sows and their progeny. Three of the breeding sows at present on the property are from a sow that had 17 litters and averaged 14 piglets per litter, and this partly accounts for the high average of 10 piglets per litter from the 7 breeding sows now carried. Horse _ breeding, once a major project on this farm, is

still carried on, but to a much less extent. Thirty acres a year are closed for autumn-saved pasture and with the use of the electric fence this area is sufficient to provide ample grass until spring growth begins, but is supplemented with silage and hay. Each year 80 acres are made into silage and 30 acres into hay, but as the owner has a pick-up baler, all toppings are baled to bring the total to 3000 bales a year. A small area of swedes is grown annually and the land is returned to permanent pasture in the spring by drilling in 301 b. of a mixture of perennial ryegrass, . short-rotation ryegrass, cocksfoot, timothy, and red ana white clover. Three hundredweight per acre of phosphate was the usual —

annual topdressing, but over the last 3 years this has been changed to 2cwt. of superphosphate and lcwt. of muriate of potash per acre, as both soil types on the farm require potash. The Sheep Section On the sheep section 600 ewes are farmed for fat lambs, and any surplus feed is either made into hay or utilised by the purchase of store lambs. Shearing is done by contract shearers in the owner’s woolshed, and in recent years the ewes have averaged 101 b. of wool per clip. The farm is efficiently watered with 300-gallon water troughs in every paddock, the supply coming from a spring in the middle of the farm, and being elevated by a ram with a capacity of 15,000 gallons per day. Supplementary reservoirs holding 10,000 gallons insure against a pumping breakdown. Adequate shelter is provided by lawsoniana and barberry hedges planted on about half of the subdivision fences. Labour and Equipment The owner, his son, and a married

employee housed on the farm do all the routine work, including the preparation of pedigree Jersey yearling bulls for sale, but casual labour is employed for shearing. With a full range of cultivating implements, 2 tractors, a self-tying hay baler, tedder, and sweeps, seasonal work is kept up to date. Claim Substantiated With the exception of part of Mr. Barnett’s farm, the whole of the original Mangapouri Block is entirely devoted to dairying, and though production varies from farm to farm, the average production is almost 2001 b. of butterfat per acre. This amply substantiates the claim made in 1907 that the land is suitable for dairy farming.

The Mangapouri Block

THE Mangapouri Block as it was when thrown open for selection in 1907 after purchase by the Government from the Assets Realisation Board is described .in the following extracts from the advertisement of the ballot:— "The Mangapouri Settlement ... is situated in Piako County [now Matamata County], within convenient distance : from the Towns of Hamilton, Cambridge, Tauranga and Rotorua. . 1 "It adjoins the Township of Tirau, and the Tirau and Taumangi Railway-stations, 134 miles and 137 miles from Auckland respectively, are within fifteen minutes' drive of the settlement. The City of Auckland can be reached in six hours by rail. < "The quality of the soil on the whole is a good light sandy loam, on shingle, sandstone, and rhyolite. "The settlement is -suitably subdivided into dairy farms,'the land being adapted for this industry. "The climate is bracing and the rainfall equable. ' "The area offered for lease contains 2550 pores and 33 perches, > which has been divided into ten dairy farms, varying in area from ' 163 ’ acres 2 roods to 41 I acres. The grasses at present ,on the various . farms are of mixed English varieties, and, with the exception of the grass sown last spring, is from three to four years old, and all in good heart.. White and green crops grow well on the settlement. The whole area is practically ploughable, and it should be noted that nearly all grassing has been done by plough. Watering 'facilities: are generally good, but in some instances wells will have to be sunk; but water will probably be found at no great depth. Timber for fencing and building is procurable at reasonable rates from Mokai and Mamaku mills. There is a school, store, hotel, and post and telegraph office at Tirau,-and intending selectors will find this the most convenient place to stay when viewing the-settlement."