Making Sheep Country: Mt Peel Station and the Transformation of the Tussock Lands

Making Sheep CountryMT PEEL STATION AND THE TRANSFORMATION OF THE TUSSOCK LANDS

ROBERT PEDEN

AUCKLANDUNIVERSITY

PRESS

To Susan, for all your support

CONTENTS

Preface First the Squatter, then the Runholder, after that the Farmer vii

One The Pastoral Frontier: Occupying the Grasslands 1

Two Indiscriminate Burning? Fire as a Management Tool 41

Three ‘Rabbits on the Brain’ 65

Four Overstocking, Overgrazing, Sheep Numbers and Stock Loading 95

Five Constructing the Landscape: Fencing, Cultivation, Oversowing and Drainage 133

Six Sheep Breeding: Shaping Sheep to Suit the Land 167

Seven ‘Not Much of a Business’ 199

Eight Appraising Preconceptions, Prejudice and Proof 237

Notes 246

Bibliography 260

Index 274

John Barton Arundel Acland, Legislative Council, 1894. Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington, General Assembly Library Collection, F-128-35mm-B

VII

PREFACE

First the Squatter, then the Runholder, after that the Farmer

Pastoralism had a profound impact on new zealand’s history and its landscape. Extensive sheep farming transformed the open country of the South Island, and the products grown on the grasslands – fine Merino wool, grain and later halfbred and crossbred wool, and

sheep meat – provided the stimulus for the growth of the New Zealand economy in the colonial period. The pastoral era began in the South Island in the early 1840s and had ended by the outbreak of World War 1. By that time most of the great stations had been subdivided into smaller runs and farms.

For pioneering pastoralists, like John Barton Arundel Acland, learning the business of large-scale sheep farming and setting up their stations was an exciting but risky adventure. Many lost their money when their businesses failed, some lost their lives in the country’s wild rivers and a few froze to death in backcountry snow storms. Almost all experienced considerable physical hardship when exploring the land and establishing their stations.

This account uses Acland’s experience at Mt Peel as an insight into the broader story of the expansion and development of pastoralism on what were to become the South Island grasslands. Acland’s story is in many ways typical of the experiences of his fellow pastoralists. In the early years there was a good deal of excitement and adventure, which is evident in accounts written at the time and in memoirs. With his life-long friend, Charles George Tripp, Acland explored the headwaters of the Rangitata, Orari and Ashburton rivers – wild and isolated

VIII MAKING SHEEP COUNTRY

country – in their search for suitable land where they could establish their sheep stations. Acland and Tripp played a leading role in the expansion of pastoralism when they took up Mt Peel Station in the mountains west of the Canterbury Plains. Up to that time people were sceptical that sheep farming could be viable on that sort of country. Once Acland and Tripp broke through that psychological barrier, others soon followed. When they set up their station, Acland, Tripp and their men spent their first winter at Mt Peel sleeping under canvas as there were more pressing jobs to do before they could get on to constructing their accommodation. They drove sheep from the Christchurch area to stock their run and had to swim them across three major rivers along the way. Over the years Acland and his station survived storm, snow, flood, drought and economic turmoil when the wool market virtually collapsed. In the 1890s Acland came close to losing Mt Peel when the bank threatened to sell him up. However, he was one of the lucky ones and was able to hang on through the tough times. Mt Peel remains in the hands of his descendants today.

The early pastoralists were the pioneers of the grasslands. They transformed the region’s tussock and shrubland environment with a considerable degree of deliberation to turn it into productive sheep country. Techniques such as tussock burning, fencing, drainage, oversowing and cultivation were used to improve the quality of the grazing so that sheep did better. The pastoralists also improved their sheep to meet the demand for different types of wool and the growing international trade in meat, as well as making the sheep better suited to the changing grassland environment. The pastoralists developed systems of production that opened the way for the settlement of farmers that became possible once the frozen meat trade became economically viable in the 1890s. Small farmers could not make a living from wool alone. Meat gave them a high value product in addition to wool and made farming an economic proposition. In 1912, George Warren Russell, when speaking during a debate in Parliament about the break up of large estates, noted the progression of land settlement that had taken place in the South Island, saying: ‘first [came] the squatter, then the runholder, after that the farmer’.1

Yet pastoralism and the pastoralists have been often viewed in a negative light. Indeed, organised settlement in New Zealand was planned to counter the establishment of a pastoral system. Edward Gibbon Wakefield, although he had never been to the colony, believed that the uncontrolled pastoral expansion in New South Wales, with single men living in often isolated conditions far from the moderating influences of society, had led to a breakdown of the social order. As a consequence he developed a system of

PREFACE Ix

colonisation to prevent the process being repeated elsewhere, and the Wakefield settlements in New Zealand – New Plymouth, Wellington, Nelson, Canterbury and Otago – were initially strongly anti-pastoralist. That soon changed. The income from wool grown on the pastoral stations of the Wairarapa and the South Island stimulated the growth of the country, and regions in the North Island that lacked extensive grasslands soon envied the wealth that wool created in the pastoral settlements.

In the 1870s increased immigration and investment in the country’s infrastructure under the Vogel scheme boosted the settler population and with it a hunger for land. And so arose a new attack on pastoralists. The extent of their land monopoly caused increasing resentment, and by the late 1880s the epithet ‘bloated squatters’ was widely used in the press and in parliamentary debates.

In the 1890s the Liberal government began to break up the great estates to settle small farmers on the land, and many estate owners readily took advantage of high land prices to make substantial profits by subdividing their properties and selling off land. About this time a new critique of pastoralism emerged. This view criticised the land management of the pastoralists which, the critics claimed, had caused the degradation of the grasslands. Indiscriminate burning and overgrazing with sheep reduced the vegetation to such a level that it allowed

Mt Peel Homestead and Station Buildings, early 1900s. Macmillan Brown Library, Acland Family Papers, Item ID 203

x MAKING SHEEP COUNTRY

the rabbit irruption to take place, which completed the destruction of the grasslands and, in places, led to erosion and the formation of the scree slopes that are so evident on the mountains of the South Island. Through the twentieth century this critique gained more traction and has since become the orthodox account of the pastoral impact on the tussock grasslands. In fact, it has become so widely accepted that critics often make sweeping generalisations about pastoral mismanagement with little evidence to support their claims – quoting from an earlier critic seems to be proof enough.

This is an alternative account of the pastoral impact on the South Island grasslands. It uses the Mt Peel story as a case study to investigate how the expansion and intensification of large-scale sheep farming played out on the ground. The conclusion drawn from the evidence gathered here is at variance with the established account that claims that the methods of the pastoralists led to a degraded landscape. That explanation fails to explain the different outcomes of pastoralism and the differences in the intensification in land use found across the region by the end of the pastoral era. The evidence from Mt Peel and other runs outside the semi-arid and hardest mountainous areas is that, up to the time of their subdivision in the 1890s and early 1900s, productivity remained high and had even continued to increase.

The main theme of this book is that the environment, or rather the different environments, found across the tussock grasslands at the time of settlement, had a profound influence on shaping pastoral development and in determining the different outcomes of the pastoral occupation that we find in the South Island by 1914. It all began with a simple system of running sheep on open country to grow wool. When wool prices declined and an export market opened up for grain, pastoralists on the plains and downlands became agriculturalists on a grand scale. When experiments in refrigerated shipping of meat proved successful, pastoralists on the plains, downlands and easy hill country readily turned to intensive sheep production to take advantage of the trade.

By World War 1 most of the great stations had been subdivided and different production systems had been developed to suit different types of country. On the better lands, farmers had replaced runholders and estate owners. On the plains and easy downlands, a mixed farming system of cropping and sheep fattening was well established; on the easy hill country, semi-intensive pastoral farming was widespread. Extensive pastoralism remained only in the hardest hill and high country where rabbits and aridity, the short growing season, devastating snow storms, the limitations of contemporary technology and isolation meant that other systems of agricultural production were not viable.

PREFACE xI

The pastoralists, by and large, were improvers who played a vital role in the development New Zealand’s economy. Out of necessity New Zealand was a ‘big’ man’s frontier. The big estate owners and runholders had the capital, or the access to credit, to invest in livestock improvement and land development on a large scale, and to experiment with new technology. Before the state became involved in agricultural research, a good deal of experimentation in agriculture in the nineteenth century took place on the large estates. Pastoralists and men closely associated with pastoralism developed the frozen meat trade and were at the forefront of making New Zealand the leading producer of sheep meat in the world. Of course, there were unintended consequences of their trial-and-error methods. For example, the spread of invasive weeds remains an intractable problem in parts of the country. However, the economic benefit that New Zealand has enjoyed, initially from pastoralism and later from pastoral farming on the grasslands of the South Island, has been profound.

I am deeply grateful to many people for their assistance and support. I thank the New Zealand Vice-Chancellors’ Committee for awarding me a Claude McCarthy Fellowship for 2009 that has enabled me to write this book. Professor Tom Brooking, University of Otago, supervised my doctoral thesis and has always been extremely supportive and helpful. Sincere thanks to Professor Eric Pawson, University of Canterbury, for taking time out from his busy schedule to read some of my chapters and for his useful feedback. Associate Professor Jim McAloon, Victoria University of Wellington, gave me valuable ideas on my chapter ‘Not Much of a Business’. Special thanks to Graeme Dunstall, University of Canterbury, who co-supervised my master’s and doctoral theses and who has been a wonderful guide over the years. Emeritus Professor Peter Holland, University of Otago, was always ready to read my draft chapters when I was preparing my doctoral thesis. I enjoyed and valued our discussions over that time. Emeritus Professor Kevin O’Connor has been a valued and testing mentor and has given his time freely. Thanks to the staff at the Macmillan Brown Library, where I spent many months trawling through the Acland Family Papers.Tim Nolan has done a wonderful job preparing the maps and charts, and if there are any errors in the data they are all of my making. A special thank you to Duncan and Carol Mackenzie of Braemar Station. The years I spent at Braemar were the best of times, although I did not fully realise it at the time.

I am indebted to the Acland family of Mt Peel Station for their wholehearted support and backing for this project. I hope they enjoy the end result.

The biggest thank you of all goes to my wife, Susan Alderston, who has been my rock through years of study and the trials of writing.

MAP 1.1 The Tussock Grasslands of the South Island about 1840

MAP 1.2 Provinces, Districts and Main Towns in the South Island

MAP 1.3 The Establishment of Runs in Canterbury to 1865

MAP 1.4 Stations in Marlborough, Otago and Southland

Mt Peel, 1861. This photograph shows the first dwellings built on Mt Peel Station. The first house was erected in May 1856 and made from felled cabbage trees. The cabbage trees were planted upright in the ground and the gaps between them plastered with clay. The roof was thatched with snowgrass. The house consisted of two rooms: a 10-foot by 10-foot living room with a fireplace for cooking and a 10-foot by 8-foot room for the Smith family, with a loft above it for stores. Later in 1856 a larger house was built. It also consisted of two rooms and had a 24-foot by 7-foot lean-to behind it. The small building closest to the camera is a whata, a store shed built on stilts to keep the station’s supplies away from rats. The heavy flax cover, tall tussock and shrubby plants give some idea of the vegetation that confronted Acland and Tripp on their exploring expeditions to the Mt Peel country. It took several burns as well as grazing with stock to reduce this sort of vegetation to short-tussock grassland. A. C. Barker, Canterbury Museum, 8283

1

CHAPTER ONE

The Pastoral Frontier:Occupying the Grasslands

At four o’clock in the afternoon on 4 january 1855, the Royal Stuart dropped anchor at Lyttelton after eighty-six days at sea.1 Among the passengers was John Barton Arundel Acland, the youngest son of Sir Thomas Dyke Acland, 10th Baronet, who held

the estates of Killerton in Devon and Holnicote in Somerset. Acland, who was thirty years old at the time of his arrival in New Zealand, had been educated at Harrow and taken a degree at Christ Church, Oxford. He had practised law in London, but had become bored with both the law and the city. With his eldest brother, Thomas Dyke Acland, taking a keen interest in the management of the family estates, as well as making a name for himself as an agricultural improver, Barton Acland had to look elsewhere for an opportunity. Encouraged by his friend Charles George Tripp, who was disillusioned by the lack of prospects in England, the two decided to take up the challenge of sheep farming in the colony of New Zealand.

Within hours of arriving, Acland and Tripp walked to the top of the Bridle Path, a steep walking track between the port of Lyttelton and the settlement of Christchurch, to view their new country. Surprisingly, Acland did not record the scene in his diary, but other early visitors to Canterbury did and many of their comments were decidedly unflattering. C. Warren Adams, who arrived in October 1851, trudged up the Bridle Path in a strong southerly soon after landing. Perhaps it was the weather, but he found the view of the plains

2 MAKING SHEEP COUNTRY

‘anything but inviting’. ‘The mountains in the distance were completely hidden by the thick rain’, he wrote, ‘and the dreary swampy plain, which formed the foreground beneath our feet, might extend for aught we could see, over the whole island.’2 When Henry Sewell tramped up the Bridle Path on his arrival in February 1853 he found the view from the top ‘imposing’, and the vastness of the plains ‘very striking’. However, after descending to the plains he was ‘oppressed with the dull monotony of a vast flat unbroken by a single visible undulation or a tree’.3 Samuel Butler, who arrived five years after Acland and Tripp, did not find the outlook quite so depressing, but he was hardly enthusiastic about it either. He described the climb up the steep hill as an ‘awful pull’.4 On reaching the top the view out over the plains ‘was of the “long stare” description’, he wrote. ‘There was a great extent of country, but few objects to attract the eye and make it rest awhile in any given direction. The plains . . . were lovely in colouring, but would have been wonderfully improved by an object or two a little nearer than the mountains.’5

The main difference between the view that Butler saw and that seen by Acland and Tripp was that in the intervening years the nearer country had been cultivated, fenced and ‘squared into many-coloured fields’.6 Otherwise the two dominating features of the landscape remained the open, empty, windswept plains and the backdrop of blue, lofty mountains. Like many of the newly arrived settlers, Butler found the view back towards the harbour much superior, and more familiar, but the future of the colony lay in the opposite direction.

On their return to Lyttelton, Acland and Tripp called in to see the local clergyman, Benjamin Wooley Dudley, where they were introduced to Henry Sewell, an official of the Canterbury Association and the parliamentary representative for Christchurch. He noted the arrival of the two men with some scepticism, writing:

Acland is a queer addition to the Colony. Will he stay? I do not know. Whether men like the Colony and stay, depends on their success – and whether men succeed or not depends on individual character. Tripp and Acland talk bravely of going up to Sheep Stations to serve apprenticeships. Whether the reality will be as tolerable as they fancy, I doubt. Nous Verrons [we shall see].7

By the time Acland and Tripp arrived in January 1855, the expansion of pas-t or al ism through the eastern region of the South Island was well under way. Would-be sheep owners had explored and claimed land in the hills and valleys of modern-day Marlborough, the Canterbury Plains, and parts of North and East

THE PASTORAL FRONTIER 3

Otago, and thousands of sheep were being imported from the Aus tralian colonies. This establishment phase involved an intensive process of environmental learning as pastoralists had to come to terms with the landscape, vegetation and climate of the region. They also had to learn, largely by trial and error, the business of large-scale sheep farming, as most were new to the game. Despite missing these formative years, it turned out that Acland and Tripp were to play leading roles in the expansion and establishment of pastoralism in New Zealand.

Pastoralism Precedes Organised Settlement

Historian John Weaver has argued that exploration by ‘resource hunters’ extended the frontiers in British and American settlement colonies out beyond the reach of formal authority.8 That was undoubtedly the situation in the expansion of pastoralism in New Zealand, where people looking for land for sheep farming preceded settlement or soon moved beyond the boundaries of the settlement lands. Formal surveys and the establishment of grazing licences followed the advance of these pastoral entrepreneurs. The distinction between actions of the land hunters and the attitudes of the formal authorities was initially heightened by the underlying ideology of colonisation.

Part of the Great Plains and Canterbury Settlement, 1851. William Fox’s painting from the top of the Bridle Path illustrates the scene that the earliest settlers saw as they made their way from the port of Lyttelton to the Christchurch settlement. The painting provides a wonderful sense of the openness and emptiness of the landscape at the time of colonisation. Small pockets of manuka and bush are all that break up the vast expanse of tussock grassland that stretches from the coast to the distant mountains. In the foreground men drive cattle and sheep down the Bridle Path to establish the flocks and herds that were to become the main source of wealth for the region. William Fox, Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington, PUBL-000-3


The settlements of Wellington, Nelson, Canterbury and Otago were based on Edward Gibbon Wakefield’s theory of colonisation, which arose from his belief that the squatting system in New South Wales, characterised by easy access to land and an industry based on large-scale wool growing, led to the breakdown of the social order. He decided that colonial settlements should be established where companies would buy land cheaply off native peoples and then sell it at a high price to settlers with capital. The high price of land would force workers to work hard and save before they could afford to buy land and set themselves up as farmers. The profit from land sales would fund further immigration and so the colonies would grow. This process, based on the success of agricultural production, would create an ordered system of colonisation in which everybody would have, and know, their place. Essentially, it would transpose a slice of rural agrarian England, with its landlords, tenant farmers and rural workers, to ‘new’ lands on the other side of the world: there would be no free-for-all.

Wakefield’s theory was flawed. One of its significant weaknesses was related to the idea that the economic base of the colonies was to be the production of grain and foodstuffs; but where were the markets for this produce? For all its apparent problems, the pastoral system in Australia that Wakefield so despised had proven to be highly successful. Wool was a commodity that could be stored and shipped without spoiling. It had a ready market in English and European mills, although wool prices were subject to considerable fluctuations. Early settlers soon realised the economic advantage of pastoralism over agriculture. Dr David Munro, who accompanied Frederick Tuckett in 1844 to determine a site for a New Zealand Company settlement in the South Island, wrote that ‘[p]asture is the natural and great resource of the east coast of this island. Agriculture will be subordinate to it for a long time.’9 He went on to suggest that the Port Cooper area, which later became the central core of the Canterbury Block, was unsuited for a Wakefield-type settlement because it lacked trees for fuel and timber. He felt that large-scale farming by settlers ‘with considerable capital’, with ‘each having a range of a good many thousand acres, and thus being enabled to combine the rearing of stock and tillage’, would better suit the country.10

The New Zealand Company had founded the Wellington colony in 1840 and a settlement in Nelson the following year. Both colonies provided the take-off points for pastoral expansion in New Zealand. In 1843 a group of young entrepreneurs – Charles Bidwell, Charles Clifford, William Vavasour, Henry Petre and Frederick Weld – embarked on a venture to establish sheep runs in the Wairarapa on land leased from Maori. In 1844 they landed sheep from Sydney


in Wellington and drove them around the coast to stock their new stations.11 Two years later Clifford and Weld leased a huge block of land on the north-east coast of the South Island from the Maori chief Te Puaha of Kapiti. The run, which they called Flaxbourne, stretched from north of the Awatere River to Kekerengu, and in 1847 they stocked it with 3000 sheep.12

The exploration of the land outside the Nelson settlement block began only a year after its foundation, and by 1846 Nathanial George Morse was squatting at Tophouse before Sir George Grey purchased the area from Maori in 1847. Although none of the land had yet been surveyed, Grey’s purchase opened the

The Valley of the Awatere with the Inland Kaikouras, 1875. By 1875, when John Gully painted this scene, the lower Awatere had been settled by pastoralists for twenty-five years. In that time parts of this country would have been burned several times. However, this painting illustrates that native shrubs still thrived in places. Cabbage trees, called ti-ti or ti-palms by the early settlers, dot the valley floor and lower terraces along with tall tussocks, manuka, flax and other shrubby plants. Cabbage trees were considered a sign of good land and the lower Awatere was known as good healthy sheep country. Now much of it is planted in vineyards. The Inland Kaikoura Range provides the backdrop to Gully’s painting. The highest peak in the range is Tapuaenuku, standing at 2885 metres (9467 feet) above sea level. It was the first major mountain climbed by Sir Edmund Hillary. John Gully, Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington, PUBL-0010-09


way for pastoralism, so that by 1849 thirty squatters had set themselves up in the Wairau Valley and a year later both the Wairau and Awatere valleys had been almost completely taken up as sheep walks.13 Soon after, the acting Agent for Nelson issued the first licences to pastoralists, which gave them the right to depasture stock for an eighteen-month period from January 1849 to July 1850. This was an example of formal authority reacting to the reality of the situation. Thereafter, pastoralists were not squatters at all, but graziers who held pasturage rights issued by either the New Zealand government or local provincial authorities.

Men looking for sheep country also preceded organised settlement in Canterbury. The Deans brothers introduced the first sheep onto the Canterbury Plains at their Riccarton farm in 1843. In 1847 the Greenwood brothers formed the first sheep station in Canterbury at Motunau, on the easy hills north of the plains; and Captain Mitchell established a cattle station called Mt Grey on the north bank of the Ashley River in August 1850. Several other runs were formed in 1850 before the arrival of the first Canterbury settlers in December. The Deans stocked Dalethorpe and Robert Waitt established Teviotdale, while outside the Canterbury Block Clifford and Weld set up Stonyhurst in addition to their Nelson (later Marlborough) station Flaxbourne; and the Rhodes brothers formed a huge holding, called The Levels, in the region that later became South Canterbury.

Historians have given considerable credit to a group of Australian squatters who arrived in Canterbury in 1851 for establishing pastoralism in the region.14 One of them, John Christie Aitkin, is supposed to have persuaded the Canterbury Association’s Resident Agent, John Robert Godley, to free up the regulations on the lease of ‘waste’ land (Crown land that had not been sold as freehold) to enable pastoralists to establish themselves in the Canterbury Block. Godley was no fool. He was well aware how precarious the economic base of the settlement was, and in a letter to his father in 1850 he wrote: ‘I wish most heartily that instead of two or three, we had twenty or thirty unlicensed squatters with 10,000 sheep or cattle each; if it were so, I should have tenfold more confidence than I have now in the rapid success of the settlement.’15 However, his hands were tied as he had no authority to change the regulations established by the Association in London.

To get around the problem, in May 1851 Godley issued a temporary ‘form letter’ that enabled people to take up pastoral land without having to pay the high price of 20 shillings per hundred acres that was set down in the Association’s rules.16 Godley intended this as an interim measure to encourage those with


capital to invest in Canterbury while he waited for official approval to come from the Association headquarters in London. In February 1852, after gaining permission, Godley instituted a system that divided runs into three classes: Class 1 runs were leased with a pre-emptive right of purchase at 20 shillings per 100 acres; Class 11 runs took in blocks over 250 acres with the same rental as Class 1, but with no pre-emptive right; Class 111 runs carried no pre-emptive right and had leases that ran for seven years at cheap annual rentals. These new regulations initiated a scramble for runs in Canterbury, so that by the time Acland and Tripp landed most of the plains and easy hill country had been taken up.

In Otago too the ‘resource hunters’ preceded organised settlement. Whalers began bringing livestock from Australia in the early 1840s, and by 1844 Johnny Jones had 2000 sheep on 40,000 hectares that he had purchased from Ngai Tahu leader Tuhawaiki.17 The Otago Block was purchased that year and the Scottish Free Church Society founded the colony in 1848. Pastoralism did not proceed as quickly in Otago as it did in Nelson and Canterbury. Herries Beattie records only three runs within the Otago Block, all applied for in 1853; but runs had been established in East and North Otago, outside the settlement block, by that time.18 The interest in Crown lands outside the Otago Block slowly increased, and pioneers in search of run country explored much of Otago ahead of official surveyors.

Assessing the Canterbury Plains as Sheep Country

Surveyors and exploring pastoralists, who were assessing the country for its value for farming or running livestock, wrote the earliest descriptions of the landscape and vegetation of the grasslands of the South Island. Consequently, its economic potential shaped their appreciation of the landscape. Samuel Butler, after admiring the beauty of Mount Cook, pulled himself up as it clearly had no use as sheep country. He wrote, ‘[a] mountain here is only beautiful if it has good grass on it. Scenery is not scenery – it is “country”.’19 This pragmatic view of land begs the question of what made good sheep country. After all, the assessment of what constituted good country could have considerable influence on the outcome of any venture.

John Macfarlane, who had shepherding experience both in the Scottish Border country and New Zealand, arrived in Canterbury in November 1850 and the following year occupied the Loburn Run, listed as Run 1a.20 It was a poor property with a good deal of scrub that made mustering difficult. It was not until Macfarlane bought and drained the smaller Coldstream property in


the 1860s that he really prospered.21 One wonders why an experienced hand like Macfarlane chose such a difficult block as Loburn when so much good land was still available.

Another who misread the landscape was Fredrick Tuckett who had been appointed by the New Zealand Company to select a site for the projected New Edinburgh settlement. His employers supposed that Tuckett would confirm Port Cooper as the location, but he judged the land unsuitable for agriculture and chose Otago instead.22 It turned out that, despite being established before the Canterbury settlement, the Otago settlement languished while the former flourished as both farming and pastoralism expanded.

Dr David Munro accompanied Tuckett on his journey south from Nelson in 1844. He landed at Port Cooper and walked to the Deans’ farm located near the site of modern Christchurch and described the country that they passed through:

The part of the plain we crossed . . . is uniformly covered with grass of various sorts, mixed with toi-toi and flax in the moister parts, and, in some places, thickly dotted over with the ti-ti. The grass, generally speaking, is a tufty wire grass of a very dry nature, and not relished by stock, but there are finer grasses between these tufts, though sparingly diffused, as well as an abundance of a tufty grass of a larger more succulent species, which I know from experience in this settlement is greedily eaten both by cattle and horses. I should not suppose the pasture to be capable at present of supporting a large amount of stock per acre; but I am satisfied that, by being fed down, its value would greatly improve, and a turf of a much better character rapidly be produced.23

This piece of writing contains some significant insights: firstly, in regards to the vegetation of the plains and the way early writers saw it; and secondly, concerning the concept of what constituted good pasturage for livestock. As we will read in other accounts, the larger species of the suite of plants of the grasslands dominated the early perceptions. Here Munro named toi-toi (toetoe or Cortaderia toetoe), flax (Phormium tenax) and ti-ti (cabbage tree or Cordyline australis); in other environments, exploring pastoralists, surveyors and settlers would add other species to this list. Munro had no names for the grasses that made up the rest of the plants in his description. The unpalatable ‘tufty wire grass’ may have been fescue tussock (Festuca novae-zelandiae), while the more succulent grass was possibly blue tussock (Poa colensoi), which was highly palatable to stock. It is interesting to note that the finer grasses that grew


between the tussocks were not abundant even at this time when the country had not been grazed by stock or recently burnt. Perhaps the most interesting point that Munro raised was his view that the grasslands in their unmodified condition would prove largely unproductive for raising stock. In order to make them productive, the mass of the plants needed to be reduced. This is the first instance we have of the overarching aim of land management in the pastoral era, which was to transform the vegetation of the grasslands from a tall-tussock grassland to a short-tussock grassland.

Munro was a perceptive observer. Later in the journey he came across an area that had once been covered in forest that been destroyed by fire. He described the scene where ‘numerous roots and stumps still remaining in the ground, blackened by fire, and holes where others have decayed out’, and concluded, ‘it is thus we find nothing but stunted fern or grass upon many hills and plains, which, I feel convinced, were at one time covered with primeval forest’.24 John Deans came to the same conclusion, writing to his father in 1845 that ‘the plain . . . is pretty much of one character, being all grass land, and I think at one time must have been nearly all covered with wood as we see in many places the roots and other remains of very heavy timber’.25

Charles Obins Torlesse has left us with his assessment of the landscape of Canterbury before the period of organised colonisation. He went to Nelson in 1841 and arrived in Canterbury in December 1848 as a member of the party of surveyors sent out to prepare the way for the Canterbury settlement. At the time of his arrival, the plains were only sparsely inhabited. There were several Maori settlements, chiefly at Tuahiwi, Kaiapoi and around Banks Peninsula; the Deans were well established at Riccarton; the Greenwoods were 60 kilometres to the north at Motunau; and 60 kilometres to the west, John Hay had a whare at Kowai Bush.

Within six weeks of landing at Lyttelton, Torlesse had explored from the Ashley River in the north, to the Rakaia in the south, and to the foothills in the west, assessing the country for its suitability as a site for the new settlement. In a letter to E. W. Stafford in February 1849, his description of the country divided the plains into three strips. The coastal strip, he thought, reached about 10 miles inland, and he saw it as ‘first-rate quality’, having a great deal of flax, toi-toi and grass growth, but also some sandy areas.26 The middle strip, running north–south, he estimated as 15 to 20 miles in width, characterising it as ‘unvarying grass’ and having a ‘tolerable soil’. The western side of the plain running along the ‘snowy mountains’ he thought had good soil, though some parts were stony and others sandy, and had a ‘strong growth generally’. Torlesse


then went on to describe the region scenically, writing that the peninsula was ‘wild and beautiful’, and the western side of the plains ‘very pretty’ with views from the ‘snowy mountains’ being ‘most romantic’. The middle plain, however, he judged ‘monotonous in the extreme’.27

Torlesse saw no immediate future in agriculture for the prospective Canterbury settlers. In a letter to his mother in May 1850, before any Australian squatter appeared on the scene, he wrote: ‘This is a pastoral country more than agricultural, and we must look forward to New Zealand wool maintaining its superiority over other Australian samples in the English wool market.’28

Colonel Alexander Lean, like Torlesse, found that the Canterbury Plains were varied in their quality as pastoral country. On a trip south from Christchurch in April 1854 to look for sheep country, he described travelling over the area that is now known as Rolleston and Burnham, saying ‘for some miles we went over a sterile stony region, apparently ancient river bed’, and that further on ‘grass began to appear but the country generally dry and certainly poor’.29 Lean travelled on and crossed the Rakaia where he camped for the night on Edward Chapman’s Acton Station. The country above Acton was unoccupied, so the next day Lean walked up the south side of the Rakaia assessing the land. He described walking along the high terrace above the river where there was ‘a belt of rich soil thickly set with cabbage trees, from whence towards the interior [away from the river] the soil gradually shallowed’. About 120 feet below the high bank lay a flat river bottom half a mile to three-quarters of a mile wide, ‘prettily diversified with clumps and single trees of manuka, goi [toi-toi], and koromeka [koromiko], amid which paraquets [sic], tuis and bellbirds were frequent’.30 He noted that the feed along the river was very good because ‘tussocks [are] not dominant and fern rare’.31

Lean took up land here and established a 20,000-acre station that he called Lendon (later it was known as Corwar), but he found the landscape unappealing. In 1889 Lean recalled a trip to the Rakaia Gorge:

My attention was attracted by the successive terraces on the opposite side evidently richly grassed . . . . What a contrast the romantic beauty of this neighbourhood to the dull monotony of the plains, to the bare shingle cliff and dusky river bed of my own run. Here was a place where to live, even to breathe the delicious mountain air was a delight.32

Lean was so taken with this country that he bought the unimproved and unstocked runs off the existing leaseholder for £1,400 and started a new property that he named Mt Hutt after the mountain that dominated the area.33


Early travellers in Canterbury often remarked on the tedium of the plains. In January 1856 Henry Sewell set out with the Reverend John Raven to take stores to Albury Station in South Canterbury, a new run that Raven was setting up in partnership with Thomas Kinnersley Adams. Sewell described the journey from Christchurch to the Selwyn River as ‘one uniform flat’ and complained about the ‘dreary monotony of the ride’.34 The next day they continued ‘across more of the same everlasting plains to the Rakaia [River]’. Station houses that they visited or passed by stood ‘solitary and desolate in the midst of a huge wilderness of plain, not a tree or a hillock to relieve them’.35 However, beauty, as the cliché goes, is in the eye of the beholder and not everyone found the plains

River Courtenay Issuing from Hazelwood Forest, 1851. The Canterbury Association surveyors gave English names to a lot of the notable geographical features of the Canterbury Block, but once settlement was established many of these reverted to a form of the original Maori name. The Courtenay soon became the Waimakariri River and the name Hazelwood Forest was dropped for Kowai Bush. The Kowai River in the left of the painting was the route to Porters Pass, which provided access to the Upper Waimakariri country behind the snow-clad Torlesse Range that makes the backdrop to this scene. Charles Obins Torlesse was the first European to climb Mount Torlesse and the mountain and range are named after him. The Waimakariri is one of the great braided rivers that cut across the open plains of the eastern side of the South Island. Before they were bridged, these rivers made travelling a risky business and death by drowning was common. Fox shows a group of people making their way across the river. Kowai Bush was one of several remnant forests dotted along the foothills of Canterbury. The painting illustrates that the vegetation was much rougher in the foothills, where rainfall was higher, than on the lower plains. The banks of the river are clothed in manuka and other shrubby plants and here the tall tussocks would have been denser and more intertwined with shrubs. Etched by T. Allom, from a drawing by William Fox, London, John W. Parker, 1851, Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington, PUBL-0001-4


so unappealing. Although Barton Acland’s diary is largely bare of descriptive passages, after riding into Christchurch from the Malvern Hills in December 1855 he wrote: ‘The plains are now quite beautiful – parts being quite white with a mass of manuka blossom and other parts yellow from a flower sometimes called wild onion and sometimes wild hyacinth.’36

A characteristic of the vegetation on the heavier parts of the plains and foothills was a considerable build up of decayed tussock growth, which in places was 2 feet deep.37 Mark Pringle Stoddart described this feature after an exploring trip to Lake Coleridge. He came across a broken ridge of hills ‘bristling with wild Spaniard . . . [and] dead vegetation [which] formed a deep rotten mat in which the horses’ feet sank at each step and conjoined with the torture from the prickly plants drove them nearly frantic’.38 Alexander Hewson commented on this build up of decayed vegetation and observed a feature that Samuel Butler had noted also: the tangled and decaying vegetation blocked water courses and creeks and created many swamps, but after a few burnings they ran more freely and the swampy areas dried out.39

Several plants featured prominently in early reports and diaries. Matagouri (Discaria toumatou) or wild Irishman grew freely, often with Spaniard or speargrass (Aciphylla sp.), and the two plants formed a formidable barrier to stock. Torlesse found these species a hindrance when exploring the downlands of South Canterbury in March 1849. He managed to force his way 6 miles inland from the Pareora Lagoon ‘by dint of great perseverance in picking our way through thorns’.40 Edward Jollie and his party found the shrubby plant a problem when driving the first flock of sheep from Nelson to Canterbury in 1852. In the Acheron River north of Hanmer they had to detour, ‘on account of the thick Wild Irishman scrub’.41

A plant common throughout the South Island that was also a problem for people driving stock was tutu (Coriara arborea). Stoddart described his sheep being ‘tuted’ [poisoned] after eating the plant. ‘The cure is instantaneous if applied in time’, he wrote, ‘and consists simply in bleeding by cutting boldly across the bars of the palate – the swallowing of the blood brings immediate relief.’42 In this case they did not lose a sheep, but many others were not so fortunate. Hewson described tutu as the greatest curse for travelling stock and claimed that Butler lost 260 of his sheep to the plant during one night in the Selwyn River bed when they were being driven to Mesopotamia. He also recounted an even more costly event when three bullockies lost nine bullocks out of twenty-four after they had grazed on tutu while they camped for the night when carting wool from Mesopotamia to Rakaia.43


While plants like matagouri, speargrass and tutu created problems for pastoralists, some other species were a boon. One of the more valuable plants often mentioned in reminiscences was anise. Edgar Jones claimed that sheep fattened well on the early runs because there was ‘a lot of anise and many annual grasses and herbs which have died out now’.44 L. G. D. (Leo) Acland agreed that there were some very valuable fodder plants, and listed aniseed [anise], wild parsnip, wild carrot and bluegrass, commenting that ‘before the country was eaten out they grew all over the plains’.45 According to Acland, all these plants were so palatable that stock would not eat anything else, with the result that these particular species were eaten right out.

Assessing Otago and Southland as Pastoral Country

Exploring pastoralists and surveyors found that the same suite of plants – fern, manuka, toi-toi, flax, cabbage trees, Spaniard, matagouri, tutu and tussocks – that dominated descriptions of the vegetation in the Canterbury region also grew throughout Otago and Southland. As in Canterbury, there was considerable variation in the mass and mix of plants, depending on rainfall and soil type, although in the wetter Southland valleys the country was always more overgrown.

One of the earliest land hunters to explore Southland was F. L. Mieville who had already taken up a run in North Otago. He left an account of the trip that he made into the Mataura Valley in October 1853. Mieville soon found that he could not make any headway because of ‘an amazing accumulation of flax, fern and debris that had been collecting for years, grown up and decayed again and again, while the growth of everything living was rank and high. The grass, flax and fern were as high as our heads.’46 The solution to the problem, as always, was to burn it, and Mieville set the ‘whole “muss” alight’, estimating that it burned a tract ‘twenty miles in length and nearly the same in width’.47

The previous year C. J. Nairn and W. Stephen had explored up the Waiau River in Western Southland as far as Lake Te Anau looking for suitable country for sheep. In the Eastern Bush area they travelled over ‘high undulating land with flax, tutu and high grass’, but further north they found country ‘well grassed and well adapted for sheep’ because the ground was ‘gravelly’.48 Presumably the hard ground was considered suitable for sheep as it would prevent them from suffering from footrot, and the soils that they had travelled over to this point had been too wet and soft for sheep. Where today’s Grassy Creek joins the Wairaki River, just before it enters the Waiau, the explorers could not push their way


through the thick growth of matagouri and fern and were forced to continue up the creek until it opened out into ‘well grassed’ undulating hills.49 They found the eastern shore of Lake Te Anau to be ‘undulating with manuka scrub and high fern, flax, etc.’, and noted that ‘the soil is very stony but well adapted for sheep grazing’.50 Nairn and Stephen, like so many other explorers, fired the country as they went and when camped at Te Anau a strong southerly wind carried the smoke to the lake ‘so as to obscure everything’.51

Would-be pastoralists looking for land in the semi-arid inland region of Central Otago did not face the same overgrown and tangled growth that Mieville, and Nairn and Stephen had to deal with in the wetter country, but their travel was also made difficult by the vegetation. In December 1857 the

Junction of Manuherikia and Clutha Rivers, c. 1880. The photograph shows the town of Alexandra situated at the junction of the Manuherikia and Clutha rivers. The Shennan brothers explored this area in 1857 when they were searching for sheep country. The surveyor, Alexander Garvie, followed the Shennans into the district a few months later, and provided excellent descriptions of the landscape. This photograph shows the rocky nature of the country and the sparse vegetation cover. By 1880 rabbits had invaded the region in large numbers. The land in the foreground was part of Earnscleugh Station, which was one of the runs most severely affected by rabbits. The leaseholder, William Fraser, reckoned he had destroyed over 400,000 rabbits on the property in 1880. H. Deveril, Hocken Collections, 84.3097


Shennan brothers explored up the Molyneux (Clutha) River assessing the land. For most of the way inland they found the country alongside the river to be ‘very scrubby’, without elaborating on or describing the type of scrub.52 They tended to describe the country as either ‘well grassed’ or being ‘not so good’. Their eye was particularly caught by the Manuherikia country, that had ‘plenty of green grass . . . scrub for fuel, and a river of the purest water’, and the two brothers later applied for two 100,000 acre blocks, one on each side of the river.53 They called their prospective runs Moutere and Galloway.

Alexander Garvie, Assistant Surveyor for the Otago Provincial Council, who traversed some of the same country as the Shennans, left some of the best descriptions of the landscape and vegetation of early Otago. He found the pasture near the mouth of the Manuherikia to be ‘very fine’ but the ground ‘much encumbered by rocks and stones’.54 He observed that east of the Manuherikia the grass became ‘rather thin’ and consisted ‘almost entirely of one species – a kind of oat grass, with a black seed’. The scrub that prevented the Shennans getting near the Clutha was, according to Garvie, ‘matakuru’ (matagouri), but he thought that it was always a sign of good land and that it could be ‘completely destroyed by fire in two or three years’. Garvie noted other beneficial effects from burning. In the Tapanui District he saw that on one side of a creek that had not been burned the vegetation was ‘course [sic] snow grass’, whereas on the side that had been burned ‘superior pasture, consisting of brood-grass, anise, &c.’ could be found.55

Garvie had noticed the change in vegetation as he travelled inland. Fern, flax, tutu and ‘scrub’ dominated the pasturage within 5 or 6 miles of the coast. The fern began to disappear as he travelled away from the coast and often he found it only in gullies in association with tutu. He thought this coarse pasture in the coastal zone inferior to that in the inland regions, although at elevations above 2000 feet (609.6 metres) the pasturage again became coarse and dominated by ‘snow grass, spear grass, and shrubs’.56

Garvie’s superior, John Turnbull Thomson, the Chief Surveyor for Otago, was also a good observer of the landscape and vegetation. However, it must also be born in mind that both Garvie and Thomson often followed in the wake of earlier explorers and so they observed country that had already been subject to modification, in particular by fire. In his report on a journey through southern districts of Otago early in 1857, Thomson noted:

The natural grasses are always found to grow in bunches known by the name of tussocks, and these tussocks vary in colour and dimensions with the qualities


of the soil and the nature of the climate. In the lower and moister districts near the sea, the tussocks are sombre coloured, varying from red to brown, and attain considerable dimensions, rising above the ground at times to the height of four and even five feet. In the higher and drier districts the tussocks are light coloured and small, affording fine and soft pasture.57

In late 1857 and early January 1858, Thomson travelled through North Otago, the Upper Waitaki, the Upper Clutha and parts of Central Otago assessing the pasturage and observing a significant range of quality within relatively short distances. In the Kakanui Mountains and Horse Range, the southern quarter possessed inferior pasturage overrun with fern, and the eastern side, he noted, contained poor pasturage dominated by coarse tussock and snowgrass, whereas the northern section had the finest pasture in the Otago province.58 Immediately north lie the Waitaki Downs on the south bank of the Waitaki River, between Kurow and the sea, which Thomson thought was ‘the largest and generally finest pastoral country in the province’.59 Inland, on the Upper Waitaki Plains, which lie at a higher altitude than other Otago districts, Thomson thought the grasses were ‘generally scanty’. His assessment of the Manuherikia that Watson Shennan had called ‘a very land of promise’ was more mixed.60 He acknowledged that the lower end of the valley had ‘much fine pasturage’, but thought it deteriorated at the head of the valley towards the Dunstan Mountains.61

Flax, tutu, fern, matagouri, speargrass, tussock, snowgrass (Chionochloa sp.) and manuka (Leptospermum scoparium) dominated descriptions of plant communities in the accounts of exploring pastoralists and surveyors. However, Garvie did make an attempt to describe some of the smaller plants in the grassland mix, referring to anise, oat grass and brood-grass. By the mid-1860s a more formal approach was being made not only to describe and categorise the plants of New Zealand but also to show the sequences of vegetation that were occurring. For example, in Sketch of the Botany of Otago that he wrote for the 1865 New Zealand Exhibition, John Buchanan noted that in the relatively recent past most of Otago had been covered with forest and that at the time of European settlement ‘large tracts of the province were being reclothed with bush’; when this was burned off by explorers and pastoralists, a ‘luxuriant growth of native grasses appeared without a seed being sown’.62 Twenty years earlier David Munro had also observed that the grasslands in Canterbury had once been forested, but Buchanan made explicit the relationship between the forest, the shrublands and the grasslands. He realised that at some time in the past the forest trees had been destroyed by fire, and the shrublands and grasslands were


transitional stages on the way back to a forested landscape. In more recent years this conclusion has been supported by scientific enquiry using carbon dating and pollen studies.63

Several points arise from the contemporary accounts of early exploration and settlement. The descriptions of the vegetation of the grasslands were broad and general and, by the time that scientific enquiry began, most of the open country had already been modified by burning and grazing. Significant differences in the vegetation occurred within relatively small areas. On one side of a range of hills Thomson assessed the pasturage as the best in Otago, while on the other side he considered it some of the worst. Even on the plains, soils and vegetation changed within a matter of a few miles.

Finally, the early land assessors looking for pastoral country knew that what they wanted for their sheep was short pasturage. They understood that the overgrown tall tussocks and shrubs would provide little value as stock food. Moreover, sheep could not push through the dense growth of prickly plants such as matagouri and Spaniard. Burning, then, proved to be an essential management tool for pastoralism to be viable in the grasslands of the South Island. This issue will be addressed in the following chapter.

Learning to Read the Weather

The early boosters disseminated a good deal of misleading information about New Zealand’s natural abundance and its climate. For example, Robert Bateman Paul described Canterbury’s climate as being so equitable that the growth of grass was never sufficiently checked as to affect the condition of the stock.64 However, settlers soon discovered that the climate was not always as benign as the boosters had led them to believe. Their early accounts not only noted the marked variation in both the landscape and vegetation over the tussock grasslands, but also commented on the variability of the climate, both across different areas within the region and from year to year.

The Deans brothers noticed the variations in the seasons in the first two years after settling at their Riccarton farm. The summer of 1844 was dry, whereas the following summer, according to John Deans, ‘was very different’ as they had an ‘abundance of rain’ and that resulted in a good season for their crops.65 They found the winter of 1846 to be particularly severe, with more wind, rain and snow than they had experienced in New Zealand up to that time. In fact it was so wet that they were unable to prepare the land to sow wheat.66 The Kennaway brothers noticed a similar contrast in weather. They arrived in September 1851


and described the weather as perfect, being ‘bright clear and exhilarating for months’; however, the winter of 1853 proved to be one of weeks of incessant ‘sou’west’ storms and almost continuous floods of rain.67 Laurence Kennaway later recalled the ‘storms of winter, which swept over the unsheltered plains behind us, the roar of the wind around the thin walls at night was wild and deafening’.68

These early descriptions of the weather allude to several features that characterise the climate of the eastern regions of the South Island. Periods of drought could often be followed by cycles of storms and floods; and then there was the wind. Alexander Lean observed the pattern of wind and weather as being a ‘norwester’ followed by a ‘southerly buster’ then perhaps a few settled days before the cycle was repeated.69 Samuel Butler described the norwester as a ‘remarkable feature in the climate of the settlement’, being hot, dry and ‘excessively violent’ and able to blow for days at a time.70 Like Lean, Butler noted that a period of norwesters would often be followed by a sudden change to the souwest, ‘the cold, rainy, or snowy wind’. Barton Acland wrote to his son Henry in 1886 about this weather pattern saying, ‘I remarked to Moffat [the gardener] this morning that this was an awful country. His reply was it was “a terror” ’.71 This discussion had been instigated by the weekend’s weather: on Friday there had been a ‘howling’ norwester, with a shift to the souwest and rain on Saturday; on Sunday it had been fine in the morning, before it turned to rain and hail and left snow on the hills. In summer this weather pattern became less pronounced and settlers noted the north-easterly as the prevalent wind. Butler described it as blowing with ‘delightful freshness during the greater part of the day’.72

For pastoralists and settlers living in open country without the shelter of trees, the wind could be overwhelming. Lady Barker found it ‘hardly possible’ to describe the ‘force and fury’ of a norwest gale rampaging across the exposed plains.73 Mark Pringle Stoddart was another who commented on the ferocity of the norwester. He took up The Terrace (originally called the Rakaia Terrace) Station just below the Rakaia Gorge, and found it such a windy place that he sold the run to John Hall and his brothers within two years. He described his experience of the winds there in a poem:

I’ve witnessed all the winds that blow, from Land’s End to BarbadoesTyphoons, pamperos, hurricanes, eke terrible tornadoes.All these but gentle zephyrs are, which pleasantly go by ye,To the howling, bellowing, horrid gusts which sweep down the Rakaia.74


Early settlers took some time to come to terms with the variation in rainfall across the region. The western ranges are subject to heavy rain from the westerly winds crossing the Southern Alps: the homestead at Glenthorne Station, 20 kilometres from the main divide, has an annual rainfall of 1546 mm (61.5 inches). Moving east, the foothills along the western edge of the plains have an annual rainfall of around 1000 mm (39.37 inches) that generally comes from the south; the plains are drier, with Christchurch averaging about 640 mm (25.2 inches) a year.75 The inland regions of Central Otago and the Mackenzie Country lie in the rainshadow of the Alps and are sheltered from the southerly and so are very dry; Alexandra averages 340 mm (13.4 inches) a year. Southland and West Otago are exposed to weather from the west and south and are much wetter; Invercargill’s annual rainfall is 1040 mm (40.9 inches).76

The variation in rainfall over relatively short distances is the result of a combination of local factors, including the way that mountains and hills deflect or channel rain-bearing winds. Table 1.1 below shows the average rainfall for Christchurch, Oamaru and Dunedin for 1864 to 1910. Oamaru is approximately 240 kilometres south of Christchurch and about 110 km north of Dunedin, yet despite the three towns being on the same coast and relatively close to each other, the rainfall differences are marked. In 1878 Christchurch experienced one of its driest years, yet Oamaru’s rainfall was only slightly below average. In 1881 Oamaru had one its worst droughts and Christchurch’s rainfall was above average, while in both of those years Dunedin had 65 per cent of its average rainfall.

TABLE 1.1 Average Rainfall for Christchurch, Oamaru and Dunedin, 1864 to 1910, and the Years 1878 and 188177

Ave. rainfall 1878 rainfall 1881 rainfall

Christchurch 25.26 inches (641.6 mm)

13.54 inches(343.9 mm)

28 inches(711.2 mm)

Oamaru 21.88 inches(555.7 mm)

20.26 inches(514.6 mm)

13.47 inches(342.1 mm)

Dunedin 38.61 inches(980.4 mm)

25.26 inches(641.6 mm)

25.26 inches(641.6 mm)

Altitude is another factor contributing to the variation in rainfall. This can be seen in Table 1.2 where the rainfall nearly doubles as the altitude increases from 240 metres above sea level to 900 metres. This conferred considerable advantages to sheep farmers as it meant that higher altitude country on the same


run could provide good summering feed when the lower altitude pastures dried out in the summer months. Conversely, the higher country was also subject to heavier snowfall so that stock needed to be brought down off the high country before the winter set in.

TABLE 1.2 Altitude Effect on Rainfall at Blue Cliffs Station, August 1947 to July 194978

Altitude Rainfall 1/08/1947–31/07/1948 Rainfall 1/08/1948–31/07/1949

800 ft (240 m) 23.9 inches (607 mm) 23.7 inches (602 mm)

1500 ft (450 m) 32 inches (813 mm) 32.4 inches (823 mm)

3000 ft (900 m) 45.6 inches (1158 mm) 43.6inches (1107 mm)

The effect of altitude is more significant than just the change it brings to rainfall; it also modifies the temperature and consequently the seasonal pattern of grass growth. The Kennaways found this when they explored the upper Canterbury plains and the foothills in 1854. After a freezing night in the open, they realised how ‘the climate, from elevation, was much more severe than that which we had hitherto experienced’.79 Christchurch Airport, at 30 metres above sea level, experiences about eighty-three ground frosts a year, whereas Molesworth Station at 893 metres suffers 217 ground frosts a year.80 Thus the rise in altitude clearly limits the length of the growing season, which in the high country can be very short. For example, at Tara Hills Station, near Omarama, high evaporation/transpiration rates in summer can stop pasture growth throughout January and February, while frosts can limit growth from May to August depending on the season.81 This results in grass growth being shut down for six months of the year. On a run with a good balance of sunny and shady country, this pattern of pasture production can be extended, as the sunny slopes will have an earlier growth period in the spring and will grow later in the autumn, while shady country will continue to grow pasture through the high summer period.

In addition to having a shorter growing season, higher altitude country has historically suffered from extreme snow events. Leo Acland listed the years 1862, 1867, 1878, 1887, 1888, 1895 (the worst of all), 1903 and 1908 as being years of severe snow in Canterbury.82 Laurence Kennaway wrote a poignant description of the 1862 snow at Clayton Station, when he and his partners lost most of their sheep.83 They sold the run the following summer. Lady Barker described her experience in the 1867 snow when her husband, Frederick Broome, and his partner lost 4000 sheep out of their flock of 7000.84 The loss broke Broome


financially and he sold out to his partner the following year. The snow of 1867 lay for months and when it thawed it caused devastating floods. In Otago and Southland, the 1878 snow killed half of the 22,000 sheep on Glenfalloch Station (now known as Nokomai), and on the nearby runs of Fairlight and Glenquoich 40,000 died out of 78,000 sheep being wintered.85 The big snow of 1895 killed 33,000 sheep, almost half of the total flock, at Lauder Station and over a third of the station’s flock died in the winter of 1903.86

The climate of the South Island grasslands, while erratic, was seen by the early pastoralists as superior to that of Australia, as they did not suffer the prolonged droughts that made farming so difficult across the Tasman. Yet cycles

Lauder Station, Central Otago, 1873. The stark landscape of Central Otago is captured in this painting of Lauder Station from 1873. The open tussock grassland is broken with outcrops of schist rock. The region was bare of natural timber, and even firewood was difficult to obtain for the early settlers. Trees have been planted for shelter, but in this high, dry climate the growing season is very short, so trees grow very slowly. Buildings were made from material that was at hand, being either cob from the earth or stone from the abundant rock outcrops. The haystack indicates that some land had been cultivated and sown down with ‘English’ grasses. At the time this painting was done, Lauder Station comprised 24,280 hectares (60,000 acres) of leasehold run country, with 92 acres of freehold and 548 acres of agricultural lease. It was running 25,000 adult sheep and 8000 lambs. In 1883 Lauder became part of the enormous Ross and Glendinning empire that included the runs of Lauder, Hawkdun and Blackstone Hill. In 1893 the area of their runs peaked at 69,650 hectares (172,089 acres) and all of it managed by James Elliot. About the time that Ross and Glendinning took over the station, rabbits invaded necessitating an enormous effort and cost to try to control them. After the notorious winter of 1895, sheep numbers never returned to pre-1895 levels, and the winter of 1903 was nearly as bad. Ross and Glendinning relinquished the leases of these runs in 1907. Painting by A. R., 1873, National Library of Australia, nla.pic–an2904347


of drought and flood, storms and snow did create challenges. The settlers had to learn to read weather patterns in order to survive economically, and when they got it wrong the costs proved high. The other feature of the climate that settlers had to learn was its variability across the South Island; while one area suffered from drought, the people in the next valley might be enjoying a good season. Oliver Scott Thomson, manager at Mt Peel, made that very point in a letter to his stock firm in April 1898, saying that at Mt Peel feed was ‘plentiful’ and the sheep were looking ‘wonderfully well’, whereas the plains were in the grip of a bad drought.87

Clearly, in the early years of the pastoral expansion, for pastoralists to be successful an accelerated process of land assessment and environmental learning needed to occur. This raises the question of how the pastoralists learned the business of sheep farming in the new environment. The next section examines Barton Acland’s initiation into the industry.

John Barton Arundel Acland: Learning the Business

In spite of Sewell’s doubts about Acland’s prospects as a pastoralist, within three weeks of landing in the colony he left Christchurch to take a closer look at the practicalities of the business. Acland joined Belfield Woollcombe, who was taking a load of wool packs to his station Hawkeswood, which lay between the Waiau and Conway rivers. Woollcombe, J. Stuart Wortley and Thomas Hanmer had established the station in partnership in the spring of 1852, but recently Hanmer had withdrawn to manage a new run being set up by George Duppa.

Woollcombe and Acland travelled by way of Kaiapoi to Double Corner, a station on the south bank of the Waipara River leased by Charles Hunter Brown. Hunter Brown was a Pre-Adamite (a settler who arrived before the first four ships) and had taken up the run under license from the New Zealand government early in 1850. Their next stop was Motunau, arguably the oldest station in Canterbury. The Greenwood brothers established the run in 1847, but when Acland and Woollcombe stopped there Motunau was leased by John Scott Caverhill, another pre-Adamite. Caverhill had also explored the country across the Hurunui River from Motunau, and in 1851 established another station that took in a large block of land between the Hurunui and Waiau rivers. Caverhill called the place Cheviot Hills and ran it from an outstation known as The Retreat, where Acland and Woollcombe spent the night.

Four days after setting out from Christchurch, Woollcombe and Acland crossed the Waiau on to Hawkeswood to find that Wortley and his men were

Mount Alford, 1876. A shepherd is taking a newly washed mob of sheep away from the washpen on Alford Station. Washing was a practice carried over from sheep farming in England and arose from the old practice of folding, or holding sheep onto small areas of land. Dirt and dust so contaminated the wool that buyers could not assess its quality unless it was washed. The wool of sheep grazed on the open country of the South Island stayed much cleaner, but English buyers were so used to handling washed wool that unwashed fleeces were heavily discounted. Washing away the grease and dirt also reduced the weight of the wool, making it cheaper to transport. The washpen in this painting, with its different pens, is much more elaborate than the system described by Acland at Hawkeswood. Indeed, some of the early washing facilities were very primitive. Leo Acland, in The Early Canterbury Runs (p.235), described how a traveller came across Robert Ford Thomas, the manager of Easedale Nook Station, and three shepherds washing sheep in the Kowai River. They had a hurdle yard jamming the sheep in a big hole and a man ‘about three chains up the river with a bag sprinkling soda, as Thomas said, just to soften the water a bit’. Conversely, facilities on some stations were very sophisticated and some properties installed large boilers and washed the sheep in hot water, which was much more effective in cleaning away the grease and dirt. However, gathering the entire flock for washing and then keeping the sheep clean until they were shorn was often difficult. Slowly, washing fell out of favour and by the mid-1870s many stations had given up the practice. Charles Barraud, Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington, B-175-001


camping out at the site where they washed their sheep before they were shorn. Here Acland got his first taste of colonial sheep farming. At the washpen the men took it in turns to stand in the water, which was 4 to 5 feet deep, and wash the sheep as they were thrown in. In this way they were able to handle about 600 sheep a day and as each mob was washed it was taken to a quarantine yard to be held there until it was shorn.88

Unlike the Australian system where the sheep were close shepherded through the day and yarded at night, the Hawkeswood flock, which numbered about 2800 sheep, ran free in separate mobs on different parts of the run. This system of management had the advantage of requiring little labour for day-to-day shepherding, but it had the disadvantage that on the unfenced hills the sheep did not necessarily stay where they were put. One of Acland’s jobs while he was at Hawkeswood was to look for a mob of sheep lost on steep hills that he estimated to be 3000 to 4000 feet high.

At Hawkeswood Acland noted the rough and ready ways of colonial sheep farming. He wrote that bed sheets were seldom used on sheep stations ‘on account of the trouble of washing’ and the custom was to sleep between blankets.89 He also came across his first ‘parlour shepherd’ or cadet. Acland described the position as being someone who ‘lives in the house as a gentleman but works as a shepherd’, adding, ‘[it] is what I shall be when I settle down on a station’.90 A cadet worked unpaid, except for his keep, and at the same time paid the station owner a fee to learn the business. Although the system was widely practised throughout the early pastoral era, it did have its critics. Butler had two cadets at different times, but concluded that ‘the system is a bad one for all the parties concerned in it’.91 He thought that cadets soon got sick of working for no wage, and since they paid for the privilege they could choose to be idle if they wished.

It was at Hawkeswood also that Acland made his first acquaintance with colonial shearers. He described them as men ‘with no fixed abode’ who travelled from station to station from November to February working for a rate of 25 shillings for every hundred sheep they shore. Depending how fast they were, shearers could earn between £50 and £80 over the season. However, according to Acland, they then wasted their hard-earned money on a ‘buster’, when they travelled down to town, put their money in an innkeeper’s hands, and ‘spent it in two or three weeks drinking champagne and brandy mixed in a bucket’.92

Acland helped out for ten days at Hawkeswood, washing, mustering, shearing and stacking oats. He then joined Tripp and Hanmer who had arrived at Hawkeswood to take charge of a mob of sheep and drive them to Duppa’s


new run, St Leonards. The party was made up of Hanmer, Acland, Tripp, Darell Duppa (a nephew of George Duppa and his cadet), a shepherd named Bob, three saddle horses, three pack horses, two colts, a mule, three dogs and the 2000 sheep.93 They camped the first night in a dry river bed, but because of a full moon the sheep would not settle. Acland watched over them until about ten and then called on Bob to stand watch for the rest of the night. After three more days’ travel they arrived at the new station which consisted of a couple of tents. There were no buildings or yards, and the drinking water came from a hole dug in a nearby swamp. Acland commented that Hanmer hoped to have a house up before winter.94 One morning Acland was given the job of walking to the neighbouring station 6 miles distant to borrow ‘some things and some meat’.95 He returned later in the day carrying a side of mutton.

Malvern Hills Station, 25 January 1863. Barton Acland was a cadet at Malvern Hills Station in 1855. Sir Thomas and Henry Tancred had taken up the run in January 1852, and Henry lived on the station and worked it with the help of managers and a series of cadets. In 1863, when this photograph was taken, the station was leased by two sons of Bishop Harper, George and Henry. Leo Acland has written that the first wire fence erected on hill country in this part of Canterbury was a boundary fence between Malvern Hills and Rockwood stations. The hills behind the buildings have been burned in the recent past and they consist of a short-tussock sward. The mix of cabbage trees, flax and tall tussocks in front of the buildings is more like the vegetation that the first settlers would have found in higher rainfall regions, wet gullies and swamps. A. C. Barker, Canterbury Museum, 5278


The rough conditions that Acland and Tripp experienced on their journey to the Amuri District did nothing to dampen their enthusiasm for sheep farming. Indeed, Sewell wrote that they ‘returned from their up-country expedition, marvellously smitten with everything’, and added pithily, ‘It is all couleur de rose at present.’96 Soon after returning to Christchurch, they sought positions as cadets. Acland discussed the prospect of becoming a cadet with Henry Tancred who held Malvern Hills station in partnership with his brother, Sir Thomas Tancred.97 Tancred was agreeable, but insisted that Acland inspect the station before making his decision. Acland thought it a very rough place, writing that it was ‘perhaps the roughest I have seen’.98 Considering his recent experience at St Leonards, conditions at Malvern Hills must have been very primitive indeed. Meanwhile, Tripp became a cadet at Halswell Station with Michael John Burke.

In early 1855 Burke was in the process of establishing a new station, Raincliff, in the fork of the Opihi and Opuha rivers in South Canterbury, and towards the end of March Tripp and Acland joined him on an expedition to take supplies to


the run. The convoy consisted of three drays, one pulled by six bullocks, one by four bullocks and a lighter dray pulled by six horses. In addition to the drays there were four saddle horses. The party also included Edward Corker Minchin, a runholder from the Amuri District who wanted to go south to look for land; Mr Thompson, who was going down to the Otaio run that he held with his two brothers; and the bullock driver with his wife.

Raukapuka Run, 1867. Acland and Tripp crossed the Raukapuka run on their trip to Raincliff with Burke in 1855. Alfred Cox held the run from 1854 to 1870. Colonel Alexander Lean visited Raukapuka in early 1855 when he was looking for country on which to establish a run. In his diary, Lean noted that William Dumoulin, who was managing the property for Cox at that time, was living ‘in a neat hut built for him by the natives of toi, the interior being lined with reeds’. Acland and Tripp later employed Dumoulin’s brother Henry as their first overseer at Mt Peel. Chevalier’s painting captures the openness of the treeless and often wind-swept tussock-covered Canterbury Plains. The Mt Peel Range stands out in the middle of the picture, with the Four Peaks Range to its left. To the north is Mount Somers and between Mount Peel and Mount Somers is the high, snowy Taylor Range that was part of Clent Hills Station. The downs in the left foreground have been planted with shelter trees and hedges to form paddocks. Nicholas Chevalier, Canterbury Museum, 16171


Burke had a reputation for being a slow traveller as he tended to start late, often not getting under way until mid-morning. Acland described their routine: upon rising they built a fire and boiled a billy to make tea; breakfast consisted of bread, butter and cold meat; the bullocks were caught and yoked up, and the horses caught and harnessed; then they packed up the camp and the convoy got on its way. In the evening they repeated the same process in reverse, except that they enhanced the evening meal with potatoes boiled in the camp oven.99 They lost one day of travel when the men spent most of the day searching for the bullocks that had wandered away during the night. After crossing the Rakaia River, all hands spent the morning cutting a track up the steep face of the terrace to get the drays onto the plain.100 Such events were a normal part of travelling before roads and bridges were established, and the fourteen-day journey gave Acland and Tripp the opportunity to gain experience and to assess the country and its suitability for sheep farming.

After his trip to Raincliff, Acland returned to Malvern Hills, which remained his base for most of the following year. Through this time he worked closely with Tancred’s shepherd, Laing. This experience gave him some practical insights into the day-to-day running of a sheep station. Laing taught him how to mark out and build a ditch-and-bank fence and how to shear. Acland learned how to bleed sheep after the wethers got ‘tutted’.101 He helped sort out sheep to be sold and to lamb down the ewes. They tailed lambs in late November, and in the middle of December washed the sheep in preparation for shearing. At shearing time Acland’s participation was erratic: shearing went for twenty days and Acland was around for ten of those. His best day’s shearing only amounted to thirteen sheep shorn, but he was also busy with rolling and pressing the fleeces.102

Despite Butler’s misgivings about the benefits of the cadet system, both Acland and Tripp wrote positively about their experiences as ‘parlour shepherds’. In 1858 Acland returned to England for a brief visit. In an address to the Bath and West of England Agricultural Society he suggested that any prospective sheep farmer should first spend ‘six to twelve months on a sheep station, where he will learn his business, and probably gain some experience without paying too dearly for it’.103 Tripp went back to England in 1862 and at a lecture at his home town of Silverton he too suggested that it was unwise to invest in sheep farming within twelve months of arriving in New Zealand without gaining practical experience first.104

Leo Acland reported that Tancred gave Barton Acland several pieces of advice. When choosing a site for his homestead it should be handy to water and firewood, with a stand of cabbage trees where he could make a garden because


that was a sure sign of good land. Tancred also suggested that he should never work alongside one of his men, because either the man would slow down so as not to embarrass his employer, or ‘the employer knocked himself up trying to get full work out of the man’.105 Later, when it came to selecting the site for his homestead, Barton Acland followed Tancred’s recommendations.

Exploring Mt Peel and Setting Up the Station

By the beginning of 1855 over a hundred runs had been taken up in the wider Canterbury region between the Hurunui River in the north and the Waitaki River in the south and from the sea to the foothills.106 The timing of the occupation of these runs suggests that, although there was some assessment being made about the natural resources of the country, many runs were applied

Mackenzie Country, early 1860s. The Mackenzie Country was the last region opened up for sheep runs in Canterbury. Edmund Norman sketched this panorama of the Mackenzie Country when he was a boundary keeper on Haldon Station between 1862 and 1864. The sketch portrays the vastness and the open nature of the country. Norman drew this scene from the hills in the south-eastern corner of the basin looking north. The Tekapo, Pukaki and Ohau rivers cut through the landscape draining their respective lakes, before joining to form the Waitaki River. All the land south of the Ohau River, from the Waitaki back to Lake Ohau, became part of Robert Campbell’s Benmore Station. The flats and low hills in the junction of the Tekapo and Pukaki rivers made up Simons Pass Station, the pass being named for a Maori who guided the first European settlers in 1856. Andrew Burnett managed Simons Pass before taking up Mt Cook Station. Aoraki/Mount Cook can be made out beyond Lake Pukaki in the centre of the painting. Although the Mackenzie Country was largely treeless, on the western ranges there were pockets of remnant forest. At the time of settlement, it was mostly a mixed tall-tussock shrubland, with short-tussock species on the shallowest soils. Edmund Norman, Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington, D-007-003


for simply because the country was available. After formal settlement had been established, the pastoral expansion spread from Christchurch, generally with the handiest country being the earliest selected, although there were some exceptions. All the flat land and easy hills between the Waimakairi and Selwyn rivers were taken up in 1851 and 1852, apart from Field’s and Guinness’. The following year all the country between the Ashley and Rakaia was occupied, as was all of the easier country between the Orari and Opihi rivers in South Canterbury, a block that included Burke’s Raincliff Station. It is interesting that the prospective pastoralists traversed the light stony plains between the Ashburton and Orari rivers to take up this better country. However, in 1854 all the plains between the Ashburton and Orari back to the foothills were applied for, regardless of the quality of the land. The pattern of the occupation of the plains bore little relationship to Torlesse’s assessment that the better country lay along the coastal strip and the western plains.

With all of the land on the plains taken up, Acland and Tripp decided to explore the mountainous country to the west to assess its suitability for sheep farming. They had seen the Mt Peel country on their journey to Raincliff with Burke and decided that it would be a good place to start. Until this time, prospective pastoralists had avoided the high mountain country that bordered the western plains. Although some steep hill country had been claimed as early as 1853, notably Snowdon, Highpeak and the Acheron Bank, people were sceptical about Acland and Tripp’s prospects. Laurence Kennaway later commented that Acland was looked upon as a ‘harmless maniac’ for taking up a run in the ranges.107

Acland and Tripp left Christchurch on 5 September 1855, having already applied for 57,500 acres each in the Mt Peel area, although they had only ever seen the country from a distance.108 On their expedition south, they spent a night at Ashburton Station when a souwester went through. In the morning Mrs Hayhurst, the manager’s wife, called them out to show them that the country they were going to explore ‘was perfectly white’ with snow, although the lower hills thawed during the day.109 Two days later, Acland and Tripp stopped at Russell’s station, Gawler Downs. Russell laughed at their plans, saying that the banks of the Rangitata were perpendicular, and that he would not take a horse down there for £50; moreover, the country opposite was impassable. The explorers’ response was ‘that it was very likely, but we had a fancy to look at it’.110

The next day they arrived at the Rangitata and found the banks to be as bad as Russell had described; however, they eventually found a stony gully that gave


them access to the river bed. After finding a ‘pretty fair crossing’, they forded the river and set up camp at about 3.30. They then ‘set fire to the country as [they] found it would be impossible almost to go far without burning’.111 By 7.00 in the evening the fire had extended for miles and was seen 60 miles away. Acland was able to write his diary by the glare of the fire alone and stated that it ‘certainly beat any illumination I ever saw’.112 After spending the following three days exploring and burning, the pair headed back to Christchurch where they made new land applications as a consequence of their discoveries.

On 5 October Acland and Tripp returned to Mt Peel and spent a fortnight exploring. They found the country below the Rangitata Gorge rough with thick manuka scrub, wild Irishman and speargrass, and the approaches up the banks were steep and difficult. This time they gained access to the country above the gorge and found it altogether easier. Acland noted that there was not so much matagouri and ‘hardly a blade of snowgrass’.113 Clearly he viewed snowgrass as one of the undesirable plants as it left little room for anything else to grow. In his diary Acland described it as a tussock grass and ‘so near together are the tussocks that a man could jump from one to another for half a mile’ and that ‘after burning the mass that remains is . . . one foot in height and two in diameter’.114

The two explorers continued up the Rangitata valley and found the Spaniard to be ‘terribly bad’ for much of the way, so they continued to burn as they went. Acland had brought along clover seed and on the way back down the valley he sowed it over the burned ground as he rode along. Below the gorge he continued to sow clover seed. They also saw wild pigs for the first time, although they had seen signs of them earlier.115

On their third trip in February and March 1856, Acland and Tripp explored more of the Mt Peel country and then took an extended trip into the upper Ashburton River. It was on this expedition that they gained first-hand experience of the difficulties of crossing sheep over the rivers that cut across the plains. At the Rakaia River, Acland and Tripp came across ‘Nabob’ Wilson’s son, who was driving 5000 sheep to their new run, Cracroft.116 By that stage Wilson and his men had already been at the river for four days and had managed to get only 300 sheep across. With Acland and Tripp helping, they got another 400 over, but the next day all they managed were 200 to 300. In the end it took nine days to get all the sheep over, with the main mob of 4000 eventually crossing in about two hours.117 There were many similar tales about the frustration of crossing large mobs of sheep over these rivers, although Alexander Hewson reckoned that good drovers seldom lost a sheep in the process. He also recalled that a mob


travelling from Glenmark to Lake Wanaka had to camp at the Waitaki for three months as the river was in flood.118

After three trips exploring the country and making new claims for land, Acland and Tripp decided it was time to establish their station and in late April 1856 their party left Christchurch for Mt Peel. They had taken on Robert Smith as a farm worker and he was accompanied by his wife and three children, aged three, two and nine months; W. Sharp, a friend of Tripp’s, had been engaged as a cadet; there was William Wyatt who had been employed as a carpenter; and at Ashburton Station they hired Ned Samson, who was described as an ‘old hand’, which was the term for someone who had been in the region before organised settlement. All the stores were on a dray pulled by eight bullocks, while Acland, Tripp and Sharp were mounted, and there was a spare horse.119

The party reached the bank of the Rangitata on 1 May, a week after setting out, and began to make a cutting to get the dray down the steep bank and onto the bed of the river. At this stage Acland and Tripp engaged Abner and Robinson Clough as station workers for six months and one year respectively.120 The Clough brothers, who were the sons of a former whaler and a high-born Maori woman, were experienced and knowledgeable hands. Abner worked for the Deans family at Homebush and Robinson had recently been employed at Peel Forest Station. After six days of hard work, the men completed the cutting down the terrace and the following day cuttings were made across the river bed to make access easier for the dray. On 8 May 1856 they crossed the dray with half the stores onto the site of the new station and two days later they brought over Mrs Smith, the children and the rest of the supplies.

Their immediate priority was to build accommodation for the Smith family. They burned off the site and felled about a hundred cabbage trees for the house.121 The building, which took ten days to complete, also served as a dining room for the men and had a loft for the stores. The rest of the party spent the winter sleeping in tents. In 1862 Tripp recalled the experience cheerfully enough, writing:

The first six months Mr Acland and myself were on the run we slept on the bare ground, with a sheet of mackintosh under us, with our clothes for a pillow, and only a horse rug and a blanket apiece. I did not want for any more, and was as happy and jolly as if I had been lying in the best house in England.122


Mt Peel Station

The site chosen for the station buildings was near the eastern end of the run. Acland described the area, writing:

The hills are very steep – they may be said to commence about one or two miles from the [Rangitata] river but their base averages about 400 feet above the river – in this intervening space of one or two miles are regular sets of terraces one above the other perfectly flat – then a sudden rise like a river bank from 50 to 100 feet – so steep that it is often difficult to find a place to take a horse up.123

These terraces were cut by four deep gullies running from the hills to the river and were difficult to cross, with easiest access being from the river bed. Acland described the gullies as being ‘more or less wooded and very pretty’.

While still in the process of establishing their station, Acland and Tripp continued to explore the surrounding country and adding to their run. The whole of Mt Peel Station was, in fact, taken up in seven different runs over a period of five years, with the final block being applied for in May 1861. In all, the pair at one time held nearly 300,000 acres (121,410 hectares) including Mt Peel, Mt Somers, Mt Possession, Orari Gorge, and parts of Mesopotamia and Hakatere.124 Mt Possession was sold in June 1861, and in June 1862 Acland and Tripp dissolved their partnership. By then they had both married: Tripp to Ellen Shepherd Harper, third daughter of Henry John Chitty Harper, first Bishop of Christchurch, in September 1858; and in January 1860 Acland married Ellen’s sister, Emily Weddell Harper. By this time the partners were running 18,368 sheep. The decision of who got what assets held by the partnership took some negotiating. After the toss of a coin, Tripp got to decide how the division should be made, with Mt Somers and Orari Gorge being one lot and Mt Peel the other. Acland got first option: he chose Mt Peel.

At the time Acland took over Mt Peel, the seven runs that made up the property took in about 105,000 acres (42,500 hectares).125 It was a particularly well-balanced station and it is no surprise that Peter Newton, a former musterer, station manager and author thought it ‘one of the best [high country] stations in Canterbury’.126 The outstanding feature of the property was nearly 30 miles (48 kilometres) of sunny country between the Rangitata River and the Mt Peel Range. Compared with most high country properties, this is relatively low-altitude country, with the homestead lying at just on 1000 feet (300 metres) above sea level, and the western boundary at Forest Creek under 1500 feet


(450 metres). The lower country along this valley is made up of river flats, fertile terraces and easy hills, with the higher country being steep hills rising to 5700 feet (1737 metres) at Mount Peel. The highest parts of the station were the Ben McLeod Range at 6500 feet (1981 metres) and the high ridge between Butler’s Creek and Forest Creek at 7000 feet (2133 metres).

The back side of the Mt Peel and Ben McLeod ranges took in the Orari country consisting of about 40,000 acres (16,000 hectares) of steep tussock hills. Most of this is cold country, but because it lies away from the sun it does not dry up in summer and so provides ample feed for sheep in that season and in the autumn. There are some areas of sunny faces above the Phantom River; however, it is higher than the Rangitata valley and, consequently, in bad snow years Mt Peel lost thousands of sheep on this side of the range. The problem of snow on this dark country was exacerbated by the fact that the only access between the Orari side and the safe front country along the Rangitata was over Stew Point Saddle, which lies at 1220 metres (4000 feet). Consequently, in a bad winter stock on the Orari side were trapped there.

MAP 1.5 Mt Peel Station, 1861 to 1912


Underwood, Peel Forest, late 1870s. James Preston’s painting shows Underwood, a farm near Peel Forest, with Little Mount Peel and the Mt Peel Range in the background. The Mt Peel homestead is sited on the opposite side of the range near the Rangitata River. This view shows the Orari side of the station; the cold side. James Preston, Canterbury Museum, w/c NZ, Sol.7

As well as having a good balance of sunny and dark country, Mt Peel lies in a high rainfall zone, although rainfall varies considerably over the station, with the homestead area receiving, on average, 1140 mm (45 inches) annually whereas at the western boundary at Forest Creek the annual average is 756 mm (30 inches). The high rainfall, in conjunction with the extensive area of sunny country along the Rangitata, ensured that the station grew feed from early spring through to late autumn and drought was a rare occurrence. In fact a dry season was preferable to a wet one at Mt Peel, when footrot became a major animal health problem. Despite the widespread drought during the summer and autumn of 1898, the manager, Oliver Scott Thomson, made the observation that Mt Peel’s sheep did ‘very much better’ in a dry year and had ‘been in splendid condition all through this season and also cut a lot of wool’.127

However, as Mt Peel is a mountain run it is subject to occasional ex treme weather events, and over the station’s history wind, rain, flood and snow have all


taken a heavy toll. The station is situated in a gorge that channels the prevailing norwest wind between ranges of hills and increases its intensity. Acland often referred to the norwesters in his diary, describing them as ‘furious’, ‘frightful’, ‘violent’ and ‘extreme’.128 Episodes of intense rainfall are often associated with extreme norwest storms, and Mt Peel suffered considerable damage from floods that arose from those storms. E. R. Chudleigh has left us with this wonderful description of a flood at Mt Peel in December 1865 that resulted from a norwest storm. He noted that the river ‘had risen to the greatest height ever known’:

It rolled over all the river flats covering fences and quite threatening the woolshed, the water rising into the yards. Trees and boulders kept sweeping by. The trees past [sic] by like racing monsters and the boulders with a grinding roar that spoke of an irresistible force, the banks falling in up and down the river with an unpleasant encroaching sound.129

Winds and floods caused damage to the land and improvements such as fences, tracks, bridges and their approaches; and to station buildings, paddocks, haystacks, shelter trees and gardens at Mt Peel. But snow killed sheep in their thousands. Snow is a normal part of the winter in the high country, and over the seventy years that are the concern of this book there were seven winters during which snow caused high stock losses in Canterbury and on Mt Peel: 1862, 1867, 1887, 1888, 1895, 1903 and 1908.130 The snow of 1862 was the heaviest experienced on the plains but, although it was a hard winter on the station, Mt Peel did not suffer too badly as it was understocked and all the sheep were wintered on the safe Rangitata country. The station did not get off so lightly in 1867 when it lost one-third of the flock: 10,000 out of 31,000 sheep.131 It was this snow that put Frederick Broome out of Steventon and killed 60,000 sheep at Moa Flat. The worst snow in Canterbury’s recorded history was in 1895. At Mt Peel, Oliver Scott Thomson claimed to have put out 51,000 sheep for the winter, but only 32,769 were shorn the following year; this meant the loss of 18,200 sheep, or 35 per cent of the flock.132

Despite suffering these extreme events, Mt Peel was a special property. Few other high country stations possessed such extensive areas of relatively low-altitude sunny country with fertile terraces, river flats and easy hills in such a reliable rainfall zone. Moreover, the station also included large areas of steeper tussock-covered hills that were ideal for summering sheep in order to give the better front country a rest. No other high country run in Canterbury consistently ran more sheep than Mt Peel and the station was able to maintain


its stock loading up until the time it was subdivided in 1912. In Otago there were larger runs that carried more stock in the early years, but few of those were able to maintain their stock loading after the rabbit invasion.

Conclusion

Pastoralists and surveyors found the landforms, vegetation and climate of the eastern regions of the South Island highly variable, with the result that there were considerable differences in the natural resources on the runs that were established in the pastoral era. This was accentuated in the hills and mountains where altitude and aspect are so important, but even on the plains there were significant differences between runs, with some having better and deeper soils while others possessed shallow and stony soils and were less fertile and more prone to drought.

The evidence from the pattern of the selection of runs suggests that in many cases little regard was given to the quality of the country in the period of the pastoral expansion. It appears that luck might have had as much a part to play

MAP 1.6 The Subdivision of Mt Peel Station, 1912

Mount Peel from the North Bank of the Rangitata, c. early 1880s. Reverend Alfred Hands’ painting shows the peak of Mount Peel and some of the hill and terrace country of the lower run below the gorge. The snowy tops in the background are on the Ben McLeod Range. The open tussock hills had been covered in shrubs and tall tussock before being burned by Acland and Tripp when they first explored the area in 1855. As they hoped, burning and grazing reduced this coarse vegetation and it was replaced naturally with short-tussock cover, ideal for sheep grazing. Over the years the lower hills were oversown with cocksfoot and the flats and terraces cultivated and sown down with ‘English’ grasses.

In the early 1880s the deep gullies between the hills still carried considerable bush and scrub cover. When Acland and Tripp first explored the area, they found these gullies impassable. The country in the foreground is on Shepherd’s Bush Station. There is evidence of burning here, with blackened clumps of tall tussocks remaining after the fires and some old cabbage trees having survived unscathed. The prevailing wind here is the norwester and Hands must have painted this scene during a ‘blow’. The cattle beast is hunkered down trying to get some shelter from the wind and the leaves of the cabbage trees are bending before it. Reverend Alfred Watson Hands, Canterbury Museum, 279/78


in the selection of Mt Peel as an eye for good country. Tripp recalled his and Acland’s first visit to the place, saying ‘we thought, if it could produce such coarse herbage, with that burnt off regularly, and well stocked, it must produce fine grass in time’.133 Their supposition proved correct but it was supposition nonetheless. Others who made similar assumptions about the potential of run blocks did not necessarily meet with the same success.

Tripp’s observation about the need to turn the coarse pasturage into fine grass was found in many of the assessments of the pasturage made by land hunters during the exploration phase. It appears that the early surveyors and pastoralists were mindful that the shrubby, tall-tussock country was not suitable for sheep grazing and in order to make it into sheep pasture it needed to be burned. In time this became one of the most controversial practices of land management in the pastoral era. The next chapter deals with this issue in depth.

Looking Towards Mt Peel Station from the Eastern Boundary, 1890s. This scene, taken from the Peel Forest boundary, shows the flats and hills of the Lower Run on Mt Peel Station in the 1890s. The vegetation is mostly open tussock country, with pockets of bush that break up the wind and the monotony. The high hill with the cap of snow in the middle of the scene is on the Harper Range, situated on the north side of the Rangitata River above the gorge. Macmillan Brown Library, No.1995/2, AC296

41

CHAPTER TWO

Indiscriminate Burning? Fire as a Management Tool1

In her book station life in new zealand, first published in 1870, Lady Barker wrote a chapter entitled ‘The exceeding joy of burning’ in which she described the delight that she got from setting fire to the tussock hills on Steventon, the run leased by her husband Frederick Broome and

his partner Henry Hill. ‘In the height of the burning season last month I had Alice S___ to stay with me’, she wrote, ‘and to my great delight I found our taste about fires agreed exactly.’ On finding they shared this pleasure, the ladies decided to go out and do some burning. ‘After . . . we determined on our line of fire, we set to work vigorously, and the great thing was to see who could make the finest blaze. I used to feel very envious if my fire got into a bare patch . . . and languished, whilst Alice’s was roaring and rushing up a hill.’2

This passage has been widely accepted as typifying the use of fire on pastoral runs. Stephen J. Pyne, in Vestal Fire, his authoritative account of human fire use and the environment, concluded from Lady Barker’s writing that burning by pastoralists ‘went beyond necessity’.3 James Belich also saw Lady Barker’s ‘joy of burning’ as encapsulating the attitude of other pastoralists, claiming that some runholders ‘became addicted to arson’.4 Like others who have seized on to this excerpt from Lady Barker, both Pyne and Belich have conflated two separate concepts. The ‘exceeding joy of burning’ described Lady Barker’s feeling of elation upon setting fire to tracts of tussock grassland; it is not a statement about the use of fire as a tool in the management of a pastoral property. Moreover, both


of these writers have drawn sweeping conclusions on the burning practices of the early pastoralists from this meagre evidence.

Pyne and Belich have not been alone in making judgemental assumptions about tussock burning from limited sources. There is, in fact, a widely held view that pastoralists in the tussock grasslands of the South Island were indiscriminate in their use of fire as a management tool, and this view has been accepted with little critical appraisal. There have been too many untested, untenable and emotive statements made about tussock burning and, to date, there has been precious little sustained historical research on the issue. A more measured assessment of the past management of the grasslands in New Zealand is overdue. Before we make a judgement about tussock burning, we need to understand why pastoralists burned, when they burned and how often they burned. The evidence from diaries and memoirs of people involved in the pastoral industry in its formative phase, when the settlers were coming to terms with the climate, soils and vegetation of their ‘new’ land, shows that burning was a crucially important tool and proved critical to the successful management of pastoral properties. Without burning, sheep farming in the South Island would not have been viable. Furthermore, the data from station diaries illustrate that burning practices of these runholders were characterised by discrimination: burning took place in particular years, in particular seasons, on particular sites and for particular reasons.

The Critique of Burning

The schism between the pastoralists and their critics over the impact of tussock burning began almost at the outset of the pastoral expansion, although criticism of the practice became more strident in the twentieth century. A study of this criticism shows that much of it is merely the repetition of opinions that have become accepted as ‘truths’ simply because they have been repeated often enough.

Alexander Garvie and John Buchanan were two early observers of tussock burning in Otago, the latter much quoted by later critics of the practice in support of their argument. Yet neither was opposed to burning per se. Garvie saw instances of burning that he thought improved the quality of the pasturage, but elsewhere observed that ‘reckless and unseasonable burnings’ had caused widespread deterioration of the vegetation.5 Buchanan expressed concern at a similar outcome in arid districts.6 Interestingly, two vehement critics of pastoralism, soil conservator Chris Kerr and botanist Alan Mark, have both

INDISCRIMINATE BURNING? 43

misrepresented Buchanan’s observation in their attacks on tussock burning, supposedly quoting him in different papers as saying: ‘Nothing can show greater ignorance of grass conservation than repeated burning which is so frequently practised.’7 In fact, what Buchanan wrote was: ‘Nothing can show greater ignorance of grass conservation than repeated burning of the pasture in arid districts [my emphasis], which is so frequently practised.’ Professor Kevin O’Connor’s more balanced conclusion was that what Garvie saw was the beginning of the transformation of the grasslands from tall tussock to short tussock due to the impact of burning and grazing.8 What Buchanan was referring to was the effect of grazing vegetation that was recovering after burning, which he noted was more likely to be destructive in arid districts. It was not the wholesale destruction of the pasturage that has been implied by other writers.

Biologist A. H. (Alfred) Cockayne, writing in 1910, acknowledged that burning had a useful role in the management of the grasslands, but condemned what he described as ‘ruthless burning’, which he claimed would lead to the depletion of natural grazing in the drier parts of the South Island.9 According to Cockayne, ‘as much country as possible was burnt over in spring’, and he also said that ‘large portions of this country may again be burnt later in the year’, claiming that much firing was done in midsummer and autumn. Cockayne provided no evidence for these assertions. Nor do they stack up: country that had been burned in spring would simply not have enough vegetation to carry a fire again within the same season. Cockayne’s article drew an immediate response in the form of a letter to the Timaru Herald by a writer who commented, ‘Whoever heard of a practical high country man burning in either the summer or the autumn?’10 Indeed.

The expression ‘indiscriminate burning’ was coined to describe the use of fire by pastoralists as early as 1868, and it has since become so widely used that it is often applied with little reflection.11 In a letter to the editor of the Otago Witness in August 1895, the writer, ‘Kea’, suggested that hundreds of thousands of acres in Central Otago and the Waitaki had been turned into a barren waste ‘from the ravages of rabbits, indiscriminate burning and the dryness of the climate’.12 Since then the triumvirate of indiscriminate burning, rabbits and overgrazing by sheep has been seen as the cause of vegetation depletion throughout the tussock grasslands. An article on the montane tussock grasslands of New Zealand published in 1919 by Leonard Cockayne, father of Alfred, referred to ‘indiscriminate burning’ three times in two pages.13 The 1920 parliamentary commission of inquiry into the condition of the southern pastoral lands (of which Leonard was a member) also condemned ‘indiscriminate burning’.14


Many writers, among them McGillivary, Hilgendorf, Cumberland, Relph and Mather, have since applied the phrase arbitrarily.15

New Zealand-trained botanist V. D. Zotov, after a nine-week tour of the South Island, published the findings of his survey of the tussock grasslands in 1938 and concluded that ‘fire is the primary cause of depletion’ of the vegetation.16 This supported earlier critics’ concerns that the firing of the grasslands led to the depletion of the vegetation, but Zotov went on to resurrect an argument that had been put forward by Leonard Cockayne in 1900, that burning could also lead to mass erosion. In his presidential address to the Philosophical Institute in Christchurch, Cockayne had made the claim that ‘above a certain altitude burning . . . could result only in turning well grassed areas into shingle-slips’.17 Zotov agreed and claimed that the decline in the vegetation cover exposed the soil to the forces of erosion, which ultimately resulted in whole hillsides being covered in ‘stony debris’.18 Zotov’s condemnation of the ‘annual’ burning by early runholders relied on sketchy sources: he quoted Buchanan’s criticism of repeated burning in arid regions but applied it to all the grasslands, including those outside the arid zones; he ‘conversed’ with ‘old settlers’, who remained nameless;19 and he created a model of the grasslands at the time of colonisation to assess the deterioration that had taken place, while admitting that this reconstruction had ‘many difficulties’.20

Geographer Kenneth Cumberland was another vehement critic of the runholders’ burning practices. Following Zotov, he claimed that ‘annual haphazard’ burning in association with the rabbit infestation and the spread of tussock insects destroyed tussock species that, in the hills and mountains, resulted in the increased downhill creep of ‘shingle slips’ and mantles of wasting talus.21 However, in 1945 when he conducted a survey of burning on sixty runs that took in nearly one million acres, Cumberland discovered that the results did not match his expectations. He found that runholders burned in certain seasons, at certain times of the day, on selected sites and for particular reasons. He also noted that the intervals between burns depended on environmental factors and wrote: ‘In the drier areas burning is very limited; it is more frequently and widely resorted to in damper situations’.22 According to Cumberland, the results ‘demonstrated clearly that burning . . . is very rarely indiscriminate’. Yet he did not trust his own findings, and in his discussion fell back on the supposed claims of Buchanan, and the arguments of the Cockaynes and Zotov to criticise tussock burning, and concluded that ‘in the latter part of the last century annual [his emphasis] burning was often the rule’.23


Geographer R. H. Relph studied early photographs of the landscape of the upper Waimakariri valley, an area that had been burned by exploring pastoralists in 1857. While providing no evidence to support the argument he went on to make, he wrote that ‘severe and frequent burning continued to be normal management practice for several decades [after 1857]’, and fires were ‘widespread, and often indiscriminately-lit’.24 However, Relph found that a comparison of photographs from 1882 with the contemporary vegetation ‘show but a slight evidence of decreases in cover’.25 Relph had a real dilemma here: the evidence of his own research did not conform to the literature, which had told him that the practices of the pastoralists had set in motion a process of depletion of the vegetation that led to accelerated erosion. In the end he had to conclude that ‘much of this accelerated erosion was initiated in the early years of settlement [that is, after 1857], and since 1882 at least, it has been active but unspectacular’.26

Despite his questionable conclusion, Relph’s research was a worthwhile and novel approach in the attempt to understand the impact of European settlement on the grasslands of New Zealand’s South Island. Other writers preferred the established method of relying on the accepted wisdom of earlier commentators. Without providing a source, geographer R. P. Hargreaves wrote that ‘the tussock was burnt off every year, usually in summer’, and from a single instance claimed that the tussock was fired on many occasions for no apparent reason.27 Referring only to Cumberland’s writing from 1944 and 1945, Alan H. Grey, in Aotearoa and New Zealand: A Historical Geography, claimed that burning and overgrazing exposed the soil to weathering ‘which underwent greatly increased mass movement that left scars plainly visible today . . . in Marlborough, the Canterbury foothills of the Southern Alps and the basin and range country of Otago’.28 A. D. McIntosh needed only anecdotal supporting evidence to justify this statement in his provincial history of Marlborough:

The prodigality of the early pastoral methods soon set in motion the inexorable law of diminishing returns and the magnificent natural pastures . . . of the 1850s are today characterised by patches of indifferent tussock and scabweed with masses of rock and shingle where once there were feet of soil.29

Some critics have made a link between burning and severe flooding. The author of a recent history of the South Island high country, published in 2008, wrote that flooding became more prevalent as forests were felled, and that burning off, trampling by stock and drying ground increased erosion. As evidence of

Snow Gate, Trelissick Station, West Coast Road. John and Charles Enys bought Castle Hill Station in 1864 and built a new house that they called Trelissick – it was not the name of the station as the title of this photograph suggests. Castle Hill is a high run and can be subject to heavy snow. The man on the horse is demonstrating how the snow gate works. After a heavy fall, snow has to be dug away from behind a normally swung gate in order to open it. In this case the gate lifts vertically out of the snow and is then slid through the double gate posts and to the side of the road. The homestead and station buildings are nestled among native beech trees that would have provided shelter, firewood and building material. The tussock grassland in the foreground shows evidence of burning as the vegetation has been reduced to a largely short-tussock sward. The Torlesse and Craigieburn Ranges provide a backdrop to the scene. These mountains are heavily eroded and covered in massive scree slopes. In the past it was thought that this erosion was caused by overgrazing and indiscriminate burning by pastoralists. It is now known that these scree slopes are a natural phenomenon that pre-date European settlement. Modern photographs of the same mountains show little change in the balance of shingle and vegetation cover. Burton Brothers 1527, Hocken Collections, 3332


this she referred to the storm of February 1868 that caused the Clarence River to rise ‘30 feet higher than any previously known level’.30 The same storm had the Waimakariri River breach its banks, resulting in widespread damage to Christchurch and the surrounding districts. In October of that year, W. T. L. Travers complained in Parliament that the wanton destruction of the forests at the headwaters of the river had led to this situation.31

These claims warrant some interrogation. First, it is clear from contemporary newspaper reports that the February 1868 storm was exceptional. Wind and flood damage was reported from Nelson, where 330.2 mm (13 inches) of rain were recorded over three days, to Otago and on both the west and east coasts.32 Timaru, Oamaru and Dunedin suffered as badly as Marlborough and Christchurch. At the Totara Estate, just south of Oamaru, nine people were drowned when several houses were washed away by a normally placid local creek.33 There is no question that most of the eastern South Island suffered from the storm and the flooding that it caused, but was this flooding the result of burning by pastoralists?

A brief examination of the situation in the catchment of the Clarence River casts some doubt upon the claim. At the time of settlement, the area was largely shrub and grassland with forest cover near the lower stretches of the river. In 1868 runs in the valley and in the river’s headwaters were very lightly stocked. In fact, because of the difficulty of getting wool out of the Clarence valley, many of the runs grazed only cattle. An example is the Ottley Fells run, a 12,100 hectare (30,000 acre) station first taken up in 1858. Before 1869 it was used as a cattle run, and the leaseholder described it in that year as ‘a splendid bit of country, quite open and up to the knees in grass’.34 Most of the Clarence runs were not fully stocked until the early to mid-1880s. The explosion in rabbit numbers that occurred about that time led to a dramatic reduction in the vegetation cover. Consequently one would expect that if denudation of the vegetation caused the river to rise 30 feet (9 metres) above previous flood levels in 1868, then floods from the late 1880s should have been far worse. That has not been the case

Similarly, an examination of the situation in other regions that were badly affected by flooding in 1868, such as Canterbury, South Canterbury and North Otago, also raises doubts about burning and heavy stocking as the cause. The first sheep runs in the upper Waimakariri were not established until 1857, and in 1868 stock numbers were still at a low level. Without question there had been considerable burning of the tussock lands, but with such low sheep numbers the vegetation recovered quickly. In many places the mass of vegetation had been reduced, but there is no evidence that the country had been so denuded as to


open it up to the forces of erosion. In South Canterbury there had been very little deforestation since European settlement and even less in North Otago.

It is much more likely that the floods of 1868 were the result of an intense storm – what is now known as a weather bomb – rather than the actions of pastoralists. One old-timer suggested that the 1868 flood was caused by the great snow of 1867, which lay frozen ‘to a depth of from 10 to 50 feet’ in many gullies in the backcountry.35 In February 1868, when the rain set in, the snow thawed and ‘left the hills all in a body’, causing the widespread flooding.

It is clear from the previous discussion that the view that early pastoralists burned the grasslands of the South Island indiscriminately has become a powerful dogma in New Zealand’s environmental history. The story has become self-perpetuating, with later writers simply repeating the earlier literature. Where the evidence has not fitted the accepted orthodoxy, as with the research of Cumberland and Relph, it has had to be explained away or watered down. Cumberland found that runholders in the 1940s did not burn indiscriminately, but assumed, using only the evidence of earlier writers, that the pioneer pastoralists of the nineteenth century must have done so. Relph found that there was little difference between the contemporary vegetation cover and that seen in photographs from 1882, so assumed that all the erosion he saw must have taken place between 1857 and 1882. The doctrine of reckless annual burning has become so entrenched that writers such as Hargreaves, Belich, McIntosh and Grey, working outside their areas of expertise, have felt little need to provide evidence to support their sweeping statements on burning and its consequences.

Beyond the Rhetoric of Indiscriminate Burning

Scientists have led the reappraisal of the history of the tussock grasslands and have provided a different perspective on the impact of tussock burning to that found in the rhetoric of earlier critics. These scientific studies suggest instead that this burning neither caused the wholesale destruction of the native vegetation, nor precipitated the processes of erosion that created the scree-covered mountains of the South Island.

From the results of a burning and top-dressing experiment in snow tussock, one researcher, O’Connor, observed that neither tall-tussock nor inter-tussock plants were killed or unduly affected by burning, and postulated that the damage to plants came from grazing immediately after burning.36 O’Connor has since concluded, from this and other experiments involving repeated defoliation of tall tussocks, that it was this combination of burning and grazing that reduced the


dominant grass on the open country from tall to short tussock, and that this was a deliberate practice by the pastoralists. Pastoralists found that the unmodified tall-tussock grassland could not support sheep production, and the shift to a vegetation regime dominated by short tussock was seen by them as improving the pasturage.37 O’Connor has also made the point that the transformation of the grasslands that had been noted by Garvie, Buchanan and others was this very process of purposeful transition taking place.38

The claims of Zotov, Cumberland and others that burning and overgrazing ultimately led to extensive soil loss and widespread mass movement that created the shingle slopes so typical of the hills and mountains of the South Island are now disputed. In a study comparing landscape photographs from the past with present day sites, Ian Whitehouse, a geomorphologist, reached a similar conclusion to Relph: there has been little change in the distribution of bare eroding areas in the last 100 years.39 However, where Relph decided that the erosion must have occurred within the first twenty-five to thirty years of the pastoral occupation, McSaveney and Whitehouse concluded that the erosion scars found in the early photographs were much older, so they could not have been caused by burning by the pastoralists.40 In fact Whitehouse and A. J. Pearce found that many scree slopes were very old and wrote in 1992: ‘Erosion has always been rapid in the high country and more related to high rainfall and steep slopes than the activities of pastoral farmers. Screes originally thought to be a result of overgrazing and burning in the nineteenth century are now seen as older natural features.’41

Scientific methods – carbon dating, pollen analysis, the dating of screes, vegetation transects and repeat photography – have given us a new understanding of the processes that formed the tussock grasslands of the South Island and have cast doubt on some of the claims made by critics of the burning practices of the early runholders. Until relatively recently, a glaring absence in the research has been the lack of systematic analysis of archival material. This material yields up a story that is very different from that based on received opinion and unsubstantiated assertions. For example, geographers Holland and Hargreaves assessed tussock burning as part of their analysis of the diaries from The Point Station for the 1860s and 1870s. They noted that burning took place between the end of August and early October in order ‘to promote fresh, palatable growth and to control the spread of native shrubby plants as well as gorse’.42 They found that burning normally involved one man and, on average, took place on six days each year. American agricultural historians Hoy and Isern researched the diaries of three runs, Benmore, Clayton and Rakaia Terrace, looking for dates when


burning took place.43 They found that burning was seasonal (mid-August to mid-October) and in some years burning was not recorded at all. In terms of its analysis of burning practice, the research was simple in its scope, looking only at when and if burning took place. However, it showed clearly that burning did not take place annually and therefore was undertaken with some discrimination.

The Grassland Vegetation

The early surveyors and explorers of the South Island’s grasslands found a vegetation cover that appeared to be in transition. Dr Munro and John Buchanan were just two who concluded that the grasslands had once been forest and that the forest had been destroyed by fire.44 Buchanan, in South Otago, noted areas ‘covered by an impenetrable growth of shrubs and young trees’, and believed that at the time of settlement large tracts of the region were being ‘reclothed in bush’.45

These observations have been confirmed in recent years by scientific analysis of the ecology of the region. By using carbon dating of charcoal and pollen analysis, botanist B. P. J. Molloy found that before the arrival of Polynesian hunters and gatherers between 800 and 1000 years ago lowland and montane areas were clothed in forest. Massive fires, whether accidental or deliberately lit, destroyed much of the forest on the plains and mountains east of the Southern Alps, and because the forest trees ‘were weakly resistant to disturbance with restricted powers of regeneration . . . [they] were easily destroyed and difficult to re-establish’.46

The removal of the forest cover allowed the spread of grasses into zones that they had not previously occupied. McGlone, a palynologist, supported Molloy’s view that the fires that destroyed the forests occurred in the early period of settlement of the region by Polynesian hunters and that subsequent periodic fires prevented regeneration.47 His research, and that of botanist H. E. Connor, suggested that short-tussock species, which had occupied islands in braided river beds and drier areas with poor and shallow soils, were the first to benefit from the extensive fires and quickly extended their range.48 Burrows, a botanist, has concluded from his long-term study of the Cass District in inland Canterbury that snow-tussock (tall-tussock) species, which had been restricted to the zone above the tree line, migrated downwards after the fires.49 Tall-tussock species advanced slowly, but came to dominate the open country, while short tussocks were increasingly confined to unstable sites.50 Later, burning and grazing with sheep reversed this process and encouraged the spread of short-tussock species.


The grasslands that attracted the pastoralists to the South Island were anything but a simple environment of waving grasses. Along with tall tussock, which could grow to a height of 6 feet, was a wide variety of woody plants, herbs and other grasses.51 Buchanan had called it ‘an impenetrable growth’, and three species in particular made access difficult even for people on horseback. These were: Discaria toumatou, a large thorny shrub called tumatakuru by Maori and matagouri or wild Irishman by English and Scottish settlers; the sharply pointed Aciphylla sp., known as Spaniard or speargrass; and the tangled, thorny vine, Rubus schmideliodes, which was given the name bush lawyer or lawyer. People exploring new run country burned these plants to make travel easier and to open up the land for stock. An example of this practice occurred when Barton Acland and Charles Tripp explored the Mt Peel country in 1855: they set fires that burned for days and spread across an area estimated at 50,000 acres.52

The Cutting, Peel Forest. This photograph shows the road through Peel Forest. Peel Forest is a remnant of the mixed podocarp forests that once covered much of lowland Canterbury. It was one of several forests found along the wetter foothills on the western edge of the Canterbury Plains at the time of colonisation. Early station owners and settlers used the forest as a source of timber, but it has been a reserve since 1909. In the early years, Peel Forest prevented easy access between Mt Peel Station and other runs on the south side of the Rangitata River. A track existed for people on horseback, but all heavy goods going in and out of Mt Peel had to go across the Rangitata River. The track was widened in late 1874 and a cutting made so that carts could negotiate the drive. On 28 January 1875 Michael Mitton recorded in the farm diary that he drove through the forest for the first time. The road was upgraded in 1878 with the help of money from a government subsidy. The road cost £1,759 of which the government paid £743, the rest of the cost being met by Barton Acland. W. M. Ferrier, Hocken Collections, 692.01056


The tangle of tussock and scrub made it particularly difficult for drovers taking sheep to newly opened regions. In March 1852 Edward James Lee and Edward Jollie drove the first mob of sheep overland from Nelson to Canterbury. On reaching the area now known as Jollie’s Pass, they were unable to push through the tangle of matagouri, speargrass and tussock. They held their sheep on the opposite side of the Clarence River and set the country alight. The fire burned for several days, forcing the party to sit tight until it burned itself out.53

Laurence Kennaway related a similar situation that confronted his brother and their partner F. W. Delamain when they drove sheep to their new run at Burke’s Pass. They reached an area so overgrown that they could not push their horses through, let alone the sheep. They held the mob in a river bed and set a fire that burned through the night. The next day the party passed through the charred and smoking country while the fire burned on ahead of them.54

Mt Peel Station, early 1900s. The vegetation in the foreground of this photograph illustrates what the country would have looked like at the time of early European settlement. Cabbage trees, toi-toi, flax, manuka, other shrubby plants and tall tussock made up the suite of plants found in high rainfall areas and on heavy soils across the South Island. Burning and grazing reduced this mass to a short-tussock grassland, as seen here on the flats and terrace face. This pocket of shrubs and tall tussock was probably saved from the fires because the swampy ground on which it grew was too wet to carry a fire when the early burning took place on Mt Peel. Macmillan Brown Library, 1995/2 Neg. A299


Tasman Glacier, 1882. This dramatic painting by Reverend William Spotswood Green shows tussock burning on Mt Cook Station. In 1882 Green led the first party to attempt to climb Mount Cook and this scene shows Green’s camp with lines of fire blazing on the Leibig Range across the Tasman Valley. In his memoir, The High Alps of New Zealand (p.176), Green wrote that as evening fell the fires were still burning brightly, ‘circling the rugged peaks with a cordon of ruddy light, and forming the most wonderful contrast to the dark blue gloom which shrouded the valley’. This is an example of burning outside the normal spring burning season. It may have been that spring burning was not possible on Mt Cook Station because it is in such a high rainfall area that fires could not take. Certainly, the Burnett family, who first took up the run and who have held it ever since, have always had a reputation for being careful managers and Mt Cook Station has never been described as overburned or overgrazed. William Spotswood Green, Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington, A-263-011

Even on the drier plains the mass of decayed vegetation made travel difficult and grazing for sheep impossible until it was burned. Alex Hewson, an early settler, recalled that on the Canterbury Plains there was a foot or two of decayed tussocks in places and this mass of material blocked up water courses and created swamps.55 Runholder W. H. S. Roberts noted the same feature in Southland where the matted roots of plants and the long ‘grass’ meant that the soil remained damp.56 Without burning, this country would have been unsuited for sheep grazing.


Burning as a Management Tool

Burning by exploring pastoralists opened up the country to provide access and grazing for sheep. Subsequent burning was evidently used as a management tool as it had been in the uplands of the British Isles for generations. The early pastoralists came from Britain and brought farming techniques used in the pastoral hill districts of Scotland, Wales and parts of England. One of the practices they used was burning. In the upland areas of Exmoor, Dartmoor, the high Pennines, the Lake District and the Scottish Highlands, large areas of moorland and heathland were grazed extensively by sheep. Since sheep are such selective grazers, these areas were burned regularly to prevent the invasion of woody plants and other species that sheep did not eat. Moreover, burning promoted the growth of palatable and nutritious young shoots.57 In his discussion of the relationship between sheep farming and the use of fire in upland Britain, Pyne commented that ‘the torch was as much a complement of the flock as was the shepherd’s staff’.58 Typically, shepherds burned a tenth of the moorland each year in spring and the practice continued into the twentieth century. In 1912 Frank Elgee wrote that ‘in spring, small fires could be observed sending their columns of smoke high above the moorland of north-east Yorkshire’.59

It was natural to transpose the use of fire as a management tool from Britain to New Zealand. In 1858 pastoralist Barton Acland, on a trip back to England, gave an address to the Bath and West Agricultural Society on sheep farming in New Zealand. He described burning as ‘the only way in which a sheep-walk . . . is cultivated’. He noted that, after a fire, ‘the grass comes up young and tender, and the sheep delight to feed on it; but after some months it comes up rank, and the sheep will almost starve than feed on it’.60 Acland claimed that in the year following a burn there were some young and tender grasses between tufts of tussock for the sheep and in the third year it would all burn again.

Acland’s rule of thumb that a run could be burned on a three-year rotation has been picked up as a given fact. Lady Barker likewise indicated that her husband hoped to get round the run in a burning cycle in three years. In his doctoral thesis ‘Speed The Plough’, R. P. Hargreaves wrote that it was common for a run to be burned every three years.61 This is unlikely. For country to have enough material to carry a fire, stock need to be removed from grazing for at least a growing season and often longer. Furthermore, taking a third of the run out of production each year for burning would have been physically impossible before fencing was erected and would have been economically unsustainable for most runholders unless they were still understocked in the establishment phase. Station diaries

Mesopotamia Station, c. 1871. Sealy’s photograph shows the Mesopotamia Station buildings nestled on a small flat, surrounded by short-tussock-covered downs. At this time the station was held by the Campbell bothers who purchased the run in 1868 and sold it in 1885. The tidy homestead with its veranda and thatched roof stands in front of Samuel Butler’s cottage (only its roof is visible in the photograph). The building on stilts is a whata (often written as futtah) and was erected to hold the station’s stores. On remote stations, stores, such as flour, tea, salt and sugar, were brought in only once or twice a year when the bullock wagon arrived back from town after delivering the wool clip. To the right of the homestead is a neatly laid out vegetable garden, which is protected from the westerly wind by a hedge; an orchard had been planted in this area as well. These features are not obvious in this photograph, but show up in another shot taken at the time. The downs behind the station building show the result of burning, with the short-tussock cover being a uniform size and few signs of the matagouri, tall tussock and shrubby plants that would have covered the area when Butler first arrived. A fence line of hedging can be seen crossing the downs. Behind the low-tussock country rise the mountains – the Sinclair Range on the right and the steep face of the Ben McLeod Range to the left. The party in the foreground is posing on the croquet lawn laid out by the Campbells. Some hoops can be seen in a line to the right of the ladies. E. P. Sealy, Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington, F386 MNZ ¼


in fact illustrate that burning was carried out in a much less regimented fashion than this and that particular areas were burned as the need arose and not just as a matter of course.

Samuel Butler, who held Mesopotamia Station between 1860 and 1864, observed that burning made for contented and well-conditioned sheep. He also commented that on a well-burned run a fire was less likely to spread onto a neighbour’s property and burn their stock. He prescribed how to burn so as to avoid the problem of fire running out of control:

Burn . . . in early spring, on a day when rain appears to be at hand. It is dangerous to burn too much at once: a large fire may run further than you wish, and, being no respecter of imaginary boundaries, will cross on to your neighbour’s run without compunction and without regard for his sheep . . . . Burn, however, you must; so do it carefully. Light one strip first, and keep putting it out by beating it with leafy branches. This will form a fireproof boundary between you and your neighbour.62

Butler’s admonition, ‘[b]urn, however, you must; so do it carefully’, provides us with a sense of the ambivalence with which the pastoralists viewed fire. It was seen not only as an essential practice, but also as a dangerous one. In fact, burning inspired a sense of awe and fear, as there was a real personal risk for people involved in lighting and fighting fires, as well as a risk to livestock. E. C. Studholme of Te Waimate Station echoed this in his history of the run, writing that ‘It was probably the spice of danger attached to burning that made it such a fascinating job.’63

In spite of the care that Butler advised, it was not uncommon for tussock fires to get out of control and the consequences were serious. Henry Sewell noted in 1854 that firing the tussock was a dangerous practice and that it should be regulated so that it was ‘not allowed to approach too near inhabited places’.64 Alex Hewson recalled a fire in 1863 that started by accident and burned a huge spread of countryside on the northern side of the Rangitata River. The fire started above Cracroft Station and spread eastwards to the coast and westwards into the Rangitata Gorge where it burned for six weeks.65 According to Hewson one of the reasons for the size of this fire was that in 1863 thousands of acres on the plains had not yet been burned, so that there was a large source of fuel. A compelling example of the danger presented by uncontrolled fire occurred during a severe drought in the summer of 1885–86 when a fire that started accidentally on Glenmark Station got away and killed 4000 sheep. A week later


another accidental fire on the same run burned 50,000 acres of tussock and killed a further 10,000 sheep.66

L. R. C. Macfarlane of Kaiwara Station in the Amuri agreed that a tussock fire could travel for long distances and be very dangerous; however, in places where tussock was ‘big and thick and lusty’, without burning nothing else could grow as the giant tussocks smothered everything else.67 Burning had to be done carefully and, echoing Butler’s admonitions four decades earlier, Macfarlane gave a careful and prescriptive account of the art of burning:

The secret in burning is to select a time when the spring of the year is just appearing, and sap is rising; then make sure, very sure, that the base, the heart of the tussock, is moist enough not to burn. Then if possible burn in the afternoon, when there is every chance of a heavy dew that night. Avoid nor’west weather, but seek a breeze as fire will then run across the land and do less intensive burning. The real art is to just scorch the tops and open out the land between the individual tussocks so that the other plants can see the sun and receive the life it gives.68

Macfarlane also warned against ‘underburning’, where only small patches of a block were burned. In this situation sheep camped on the small burned patches as the feed was sweeter there, which did not allow these areas to recover. This point had come up in a debate over the subdivision of the Mackenzie Country runs in 1910. ‘Observer’ wrote to the newspaper about the bad effects of burning and overgrazing, and reported an instance where about 200 acres had been burned by accident in a block of many thousands of acres. He claimed that the sheep grazed this bare and continued to return to feed on the area every time a shoot appeared until nothing grew.69 Bryant and May retorted that it was obvious that the problem was underburning and not overgrazing and the rest of the block needed burning as the sheep ‘have crowded off rank and sour feed to eat out the sweeter burnt country’.70 Macfarlane would have agreed, as he thought it preferable to overburn a block than underburn it.71 Bryant and May, and Macfarlane were making the point that burning was an important tool for manipulating where sheep grazed. Judicious burning attracted sheep into parts of a run where they would otherwise not graze and so prevented the overgrazing of parts that the sheep normally found preferable. The practice allowed for the grazing of a larger area of a station.


Station Diaries

The diaries and memoirs from the early years of pastoralism provide a counterpoint to Lady Barker’s ‘exceeding joy of burning’. They show that the pastoralists were much more circumspect in their use of fire than has been allowed by the writers who have accused them of arson. The diaries, which were selected at random, provide accounts from ten different stations and cover the years from 1853 to 1912.

John Hall, with his brothers George and Thomas, bought the Rakaia Terrace run in May 1853.72 They kept a very detailed diary for their first year and burning was not mentioned. Similarly, on nearby Rockwood Station the only burning described in the diaries, which covered the period from July 1855 to November 1857, was of a fire lit on the neighbouring Snowden Station. The fire got out of control and threatened the Rockwood outstation. All the hands were called out to fight the fire and protect the buildings on the property.73

Harry Ford managed the Grampian Hills in the Mackenzie Country from October 1862 to March 1866 and then took up the manager’s position at Holme Station. He kept a detailed diary of the daily farming activities on the two runs from October 1862 until December 1873, yet there is very little said about burning. The Grampian Hills Station had been taken up in 1859 and, following common practice, it is likely to have been burned at this time. However, there is no record of burning in Ford’s diary for the three-and-a-half years he managed the run. At Holme Station, Ford did burn, but only on a few occasions. In the spring of 1866 he burned the downs at the head of the property and some of the hill country was fired. Unfortunately, the fire got away and burned an area of bush and eighty-five cords of wood that had been cut and stacked to dry. The following spring he had a man burning on a part of the station called ‘the wether run’ and Ford burned the ram paddock.74 He gave no other account of burning in the remainder of his diary. This suggests that Ford fired specific parts of the run only when he felt the country needed it.

Seventeen-year-old Frank Mathias went to work as a stockman at Lake Coleridge Station in October 1859. After a year he moved to Glenthorne for six months and then he shifted to the Rakaia Forks run, which he helped establish. There are several references to burning in his diary; however, none of them amounts to the ‘ruthless’ burning for which the early pastoralists have been criticised. He described only one fire on Lake Coleridge and that spread from a neighbour’s burn. Station staff and neighbours fought the blaze and rescued about 1400 sheep.75 His diary makes no reference to any burning on Glenthorne;


Lake Coleridge, 1870. Lake Coleridge was one of the first backcountry runs taken up in Canterbury. The easy hills and terraces along the north bank of the Rakaia River provided ready access to this otherwise remote area. Runs bordering the Rakaia along this axis – The Point, Snowdon and Acheron Bank – were established in 1852 and 1853, with Dr Barker, R. J. S. Harman and Cyrus Davie applying for Lake Coleridge in 1855. When young Frank Mathias went to Lake Coleridge as a stockman in 1859, the station was still being set up and he helped build stock yards and finished the shearers’ quarters. This sketch from 1870 shows the station looking settled with the flats subdivided by fences and hedges. There is a large woolshed, and the homestead is nestled amongst trees. Across the lake are the easy downs and steep hills of the Acheron Bank run and behind that the mountainous country at the headwaters of the Rakaia River. Mt Algidus Station, which was established by William Rolleston and was originally known as the Rakaia Forks, is hidden by the Acheron Bank hills in this sketch. J. S. Browning, Canterbury Museum, 91/78 10377

but there are several for the Rakaia Forks, a new run being established by William Rolleston. In line with what we have already seen, it was burned as it was opened up for stock. In May 1860 Mathias noted ‘a great smoke from Rolleston country’. The following September he saw ‘large columns of smoke rising from Rolleston’s’, and wrote, ‘it was a most magnificent sight’.76 The next year, when working for Rolleston, Mathias and another station hand mustered sheep off a block and then went back and fired it. He commented that they lit a backfire ‘to guard the snowgrass as Rolleston did not want it burnt’.77 That hardly suggests ‘indiscriminate burning’.


The Levels Station was taken up by the Rhodes brothers in 1851. When they sold the run in 1865, 60,000 of its 153,000 acres, nearly 40 per cent of the country, remained unburned and only lightly stocked, probably because the sheep would not push into it. William Soltau Davidson, working for the new owners, burned this area carefully over a three-year period. At each firing, firebreaks were burned first to control the course of the main burn. In 1870, nineteen years after the run was first established, 7000 acres remained untouched by the lucifer match.78

John Alfred Sutton purchased Waitangi Station in late 1886 and his descendants, who still own the station, hold diaries recording the day-to-day activities on the run for sixteen of the twenty-five years from 1887 to 1912. The diaries show that burning took place on only twenty days over that time on Waitangi and the small amount done was all in the last days of July or the months of August and September. Burning on run blocks was recorded on only six days in sixteen years and on each occasion it was carried out by the owner or manager.79 The rest of the burning was to control the spread of scrubby weeds, in particular sweet briar, and most of this was on paddocks or small blocks near the homestead. It is apparent that fire in this low rainfall country – Waitangi’s annual average rainfall is between 457mm (18 inches) and 558 mm (22 inches) – did not involve large-scale tussock burning to create a fresh pick for the sheep in spring; rather, it was used to clear overgrown areas and to control weeds. The diaries illustrate that the burning on Waitangi could not be described as ‘reckless’, ‘unseasonal’, ‘ruthless’ or ‘indiscriminate’.

Burning on Mt Peel

From the station diaries of Mt Peel Station I have looked at burning over a ten-year period from January 1877 to December 1886.80 The first point to note is that almost all the burning was done in the months of August, September and October. Only once, on 2 November 1885, did any burning take place later in the year. Spring burning had several advantages. There was usually plenty of moisture in the soil for regrowth to come away readily, whereas on sunny country soil moisture levels were too low in summer for plants to recover after burning and burned areas could remain blackened and bare until autumn rains freshened up the land. Another advantage of springtime burning was that the days were short and the early onset of dew helped to prevent fires burning on into the night. Consequently, fires lit at this time of the year were relatively easy to control. Runholder E. C. Studholme wrote that it was ‘very noticeable how


fires, unless burning very strongly, will die down at about four o’clock in the afternoon during early spring, although there may be no apparent moisture in the air’.81

At first glance, it appears that the amount of burning that took place during this spring burning season on Mt Peel was excessive. Over the ten years there are, on average, nineteen references each year to burning. For example, in 1883 burning took place on seventeen days between 15 August and 15 October. However, on closer reading, a pattern emerges that a lot of this was on specific, selected sites and they were small-scale fires. On 15 August 1883 Alexander McLeod burnt on the Little Mt Peel Spurs. A month later sheep were mustered off the block. Clearly, the burning must have been very localised otherwise these sheep would have been at risk. This example of burning on a block while it was still stocked was common practice on the station. Another example comes from 18 August 1885 when a man was sent to burn a block called the Razor Back. Ten days later, 2700 ewes were mustered off the same country. That a good deal of the burning was localised can be gleaned from the language used in the text: burning took place on the Isolated Hill, or in Burke’s Flat, implying that it was intended that only parts of these blocks be burned.

Another example that illustrates that burning was localised, site-specific and small-scale was that fires were often lit immediately after rain or snow when large-scale fires would have been impossible. In August 1883 it rained on three consecutive days, yet two days later a man was sent out to burn on the Ram Spur. Later in the same month, it snowed on the twenty-ninth with dull conditions and hail the following day. Yet on the thirtieth and the thirty-first, a man was again sent out burning. A week later it snowed over night, but burning took place the following day. From this distance it is difficult to comprehend what burning under these conditions might have achieved, but clearly, these burns were not intended to set large areas of country alight.

Burning provided an important tool in the management of run properties and fires were lit for a range of specific purposes: to clear fence lines and drains, to clear ground before ploughing, to get rid of gorse trimmings and before sowing grass seed. A major reason for burning was to clear areas of scrub. In July 1881 a man was sent to burn fern and lawyer on the Ram Spur. A month later another burn was carried out on the same block. In October there was more burning on the Ram Spur. The following March, Godwin was sent to cut a track through the fern on the lower part of the block. Clearly, the growth of fern and lawyer on the block created a problem for stock and, when burning failed to clear the scrub, the job had to be done by hand, which was more labour intensive and time


consuming, and was obviously a last resort. This is a rare example of repeated burning carried out within the same tract of country, although the fires were obviously small and localised to the problem area.

There are numerous references where burning was used to clear ground before sowing grass seed. On 7 October 1882 Stevens burned and then four days later sowed grass. On the twelfth he burned again and the following day sowed grass seed. In August the following year Stevens burned the Lower Ram Spur; a fortnight later he sowed grass seed on the block. This practice of burning before hand-sowing seed had several benefits: it cleared the ground so that seed could fall on the soil where it could germinate; it destroyed ground cover and so reduced competition, at least in the short term, for the young grass seedlings; and importantly, the minerals released by the incineration of the existing vegetation cover were beneficial for the germinating seedlings.

Reasons for burning on Mt Peel, taken from the station diaries, include:

• openingupnewcountryforaccessforsheep;• openingupnewcountryforgrazingforsheep;• preventingscrubbyweedscompetingwithstockfeed,inparticular:fern,

matagouri, Spaniard, bush lawyer;• clearinggroundbeforesowinggrassseed;• clearinggroundbeforeerectingfences;• clearinggroundaroundexistingfencelines;• clearinggroundbeforedraining;• clearinggroundaroundexistingdrains;• gettingridoftussocksandothervegetationfromnativegroundbefore

ploughing for the first time;• clearingstubbleandtrashoffgroundpreviouslycultivatedbeforeploughing;• removingrankandovergrownvegetationtoencouragesheepintoless

favoured areas; and• removingscrubtomakemusteringeasier.

One of the reasons for the large number of burns carried out on Mt Peel is that it is in a 45-inch rainfall district where woody weeds, scrub and trees grow readily. Since burning has become unacceptable as a management tool, fern, gorse, broom and other weeds have taken over areas that, photographs from the nineteenth century show, were once clean tussock country. The regular small-scale burning was an effort by the station’s management to keep the country open for sheep to graze. This supports the findings of Whitehouse who observed


that recent photographs indicated a marked increase in scrub, in particular matagouri, in the upper Waimakariri following restrictions on burning from about 1950.82

Conclusion

The orthodox assessment of the burning carried out by the early runholders has lacked objectivity. Pastoralists have been criticised for firing the country all year round, for burning without any apparent reason, for burning annually and for burning indiscriminately. Analysis of the station diaries brings into question the validity of this criticism. Apart from the initial firing of the country when it was first explored, almost all of the fires in the diaries occurred in late winter or spring. Even Lady Barker wrote about the burning season being from September to November.83 Thus the evidence from the diaries shows that discrimination was applied to the timing of burning: in some years no burning was carried out at all; in years when there was burning, it was carried out in the season that minimised the risk of fires getting out of control and when the conditions were ideal for plants to recover.

The criticism of ‘annual’ burning in the literature is based on assumptions about a term that appears to be ambiguous: ‘annual’ could imply that pastoralists burned every year, or that the same country was burned every year. Regardless of the confusion created by the term, the diaries illustrate that neither implication is valid. Only one of the runs researched here, Mt Peel, burned ‘annually’, but the same country was not burned repeatedly, year after year. The diaries point to tussock burning as being carried out with discrimination. A comparison of burning on Mt Peel with Waitangi Station in the nineteenth century mirrors exactly what Cumberland found in the 1940s: in drier areas burning was very limited; it was more frequently resorted to in damper situations.

The impact of burning on the vegetation of the grasslands of New Zealand’s South Island remains highly contentious. However, there is no doubt that burning, in association with grazing, rabbit plagues and introduced weeds, has irrevocably changed the vegetation cover of the region. The tall-tussock grasslands, which were susceptible to the combination of burning and grazing, were quickly transformed into short-tussock grasslands. Inter-tussock plants that provided much of the grazing for sheep in the early years were eaten out or failed to thrive in the new environment. Zotov has argued that this loss of inter-tussock plants and the expansion of short tussocks, which are unpalatable to sheep, forced pastoralists to burn more frequently. After burning the tussocks


sprouted highly nutritious and palatable young shoots. As this new growth matured it became increasingly unpalatable and so it needed to be fired again. Thus he argues that repeated burning became an acquired behaviour resulting from the change in the vegetation that was itself a result of the initial burning, a self-perpetuating cycle.84

The diaries used here do not support this view. The evidence from Harry Ford’s diary, from The Levels and from Waitangi suggests that burning was not regular enough or extensive enough to provide the large sheep flocks on the runs with a continuous supply of fresh green tussock regrowth. On Mt Peel burning was carried out much more regularly, but again there is nothing in the diaries to show that the burning was on a great enough scale to provide the station’s flock with fresh feed – particularly when it is borne in mind that for the ten-year period under consideration here, the station carried on average over 43,500 sheep annually. Moreover, as Pyne has shown, regular spring burning was a traditional practice that the pastoralists brought with them from Britain. It did not need to be acquired; it was part of an established system of management.

The diaries referred to in this chapter do not provide an exhaustive account of burning in the grasslands of New Zealand’s South Island, but the evidence from them suggests that Lady Barker’s ‘exceeding joy of burning’ was not typical of the attitude of the early runholders as has been claimed by many writers; it was not the sentiment expressed in her phrase as much as the interpretation and judgement of it that was the problem. Condemnation of burning by pastoralists, much of which has been based on anecdotal evidence, has been pervasive for many years. This chapter provides an alternative to that view. The evidence from the ten stations used here supports the findings of Hoy and Isern, and Holland and Hargreaves. These runholders were discriminating in their use of fire.

The orthodox explanation of the transformation of the tussock grasslands posits that the interaction of burning, overstocking and rabbits created a degraded landscape during the pastoral era. Some argued that without burning and overgrazing with sheep, the rabbit irruption could not have happened. As with the claims about indiscriminate burning, this assertion needs to be tested.

65

CHAPTER THREE

‘Rabbits on the Brain’

In july 1886 barton acland wrote to michael mitton, his station manager, complaining that he had ‘rabbits on the brain’.1 The following year he signed off a letter to his nephew in England, declaring ‘[w]ell this letter has been rabbit, rabbit, rabbit, but I have little else to say’.2 In that

letter he described the disaster that had resulted from the rabbit plague in Otago where flocks had ‘diminished to half or quarter their former number’; where one man had spent £3,000 a year killing rabbits, and another £20,000 in five years; where one runholder had killed 300,000 rabbits; and one said he had a hundred men at work killing rabbits.3 Acland’s anxiety about rabbits was evident in many of the other letters he wrote in the 1880s. Yet rabbits had not been a problem on Mt Peel and Acland himself admitted in 1887 that ‘for my own case I have no rabbits at present’.4 However, in his role as a member of the Legislative Council, Acland had been part of a parliamentary commission established to examine the rabbit plague. The evidence he heard made him very concerned about the risk the pests posed if they reached his station. He wrote to his brother, Sir Thomas Dyke Acland, in July 1887 saying ‘if [rabbits] get a hold it means “ruin” as from want of grass the flock diminishes besides the loss of wool and lambs . . . and the expense of fighting by men and dogs, traps, poison and co’.5

Acland’s letters illustrate the concern that the first rabbit plague caused landholders throughout the tussock grasslands of the South Island. Yet not all properties were affected and the impact of rabbits varied in different parts of the country, on different stations and at different times.


In the first two decades of the first rabbit irruption, the problem was seen as largely an economic one. Pastoralists became faced with expensive measures to control the pest while production from their land and sheep declined, and the government that leased the land to them lost the income from rents when runs were abandoned or re-let for less money. The decline in the carrying capacity of affected runs indicated that vegetation depletion was taking place, but the emphasis focused more on the economic than the environmental impacts.

However, beginning in the mid-1890s, this decline became a focus for criticism, and some began to argue that it was pastoral practice that actually created the environment that enabled rabbits to thrive. Since then the relationship between pastoralism, rabbits and land degradation has become a central theme in the literature on land history in the South Island of New Zealand. The orthodox explanation of the rabbit irruption maintains that the pest could not have thrived and spread had it not been for the pastoralists’ practices of burning and overgrazing.

The Orthodox Explanation of the First Rabbit Plague

There have been plenty of writers prepared to speculate on the reasons for the first rabbit irruption in New Zealand and most of them offer a very simple analysis of the phenomenon: it was the pastoralists who made the rabbit plague possible through their practices of indiscriminate burning and overstocking with sheep. Such opinions have evolved into doctrine, even in the face of research that has found the linkages between rabbit irruptions and pastoral practices to be tenuous. For example, in Australia researchers have concluded that the reasons for the spread of rabbits in the nineteenth century are now only a matter for conjecture,6 and P. C. Bull, when discussing the early spread of rabbits in New Zealand, wrote that ‘it is very difficult to get a clear idea of exactly what happened’.7

The evidence to support the anti-pastoralist sentiment comes from two main sources: from personal observations made after the event; and from data demonstrating declining stocking rates. Leonard Cockayne in 1919, Thomson in 1922 and Zotov in 1938 all concluded from what they had seen that New Zealand’s tussock grasslands must have been depleted before the irruption of rabbits, and they are the most widely quoted sources for this line of argument. Zotov declared ‘that [rabbits] are very few in number where the vegetation is fairly healthy. However, directly one reaches depleted areas rabbit burrows are to be seen in their thousands.’8 Zotov made his observations about sixty-five

‘RABBITS ON THE BRAIN’ 67

years after the beginning of the rabbit plague and about forty years after it had peaked. By 1938 rabbits remained widespread, but they had withdrawn from less favoured sites and massed in the most favoured habitats: the semi-arid areas of Marlborough, the drier parts of the Amuri District, the Mackenzie Basin and Central Otago. He observed settled populations of rabbits, whereas the first rabbit plague involved an irrupting population moving into a ‘virgin’ landscape. Clearly, the dynamics of a settled population and an irrupting one are quite different.

With limited evidence to support his claim, Zotov wrote that ‘the rabbit is not itself a major agent of depletion, and that at least without the aid of sheep and especially of fire it would not have exerted any influence on the vegetation’.9 He went on to say that rabbits do not invade, and, in fact, barely maintain their existence in ‘normal grassland vegetation’. These are remarkably bold claims that have not been subject to rigorous examination, yet Zotov has been widely followed by others writing on the topic of the first rabbit plague. Biologist K. A. Wodzicki accepted Zotov’s argument when discussing the deterioration of the land.10 The 1987 report of the Hughes Commission that investigated the proposal to introduce myxomatosis into New Zealand referred to Zotov to support its contention that ‘[t]he tall or short tussock associations would have provided an inhospitable habitat for rabbits, whereas the depleted grasslands provided an ideal habitat’.11

Leonard Cockayne recognised that ‘overstocking’ by rabbits may render a sheep run valueless, but also observed that much of the depletion of the vegetation in Central Otago was ‘not altogether the effect of the rabbit. There has been indiscriminate burning and more or less overstocking with sheep. But the climate is the driest in New Zealand, and this to no small extent is also responsible for the state of affairs in Central Otago.’12 Cockayne’s analysis linked the role of fire and sheep grazing along with rabbits in vegetation depletion, but added a caveat restricting the depletion to the semi-arid regions. Zotov, Wodzicki, the Hughes Commission and many others have not been so careful, and there has been a pattern where writers have considered the rabbit plague in the context of the worst affected areas, such as Central Otago, but have then generalised the same results for all the tussock grasslands.

The orthodox argument, then, is that the management practices of the pastoralists – burning and overstocking with sheep – created a habitat that enabled rabbits to invade the grasslands. Critics of these practices cite O’Connor’s analysis of changes in the stock loading in the semi-arid district of Vincent County as evidence of overstocking. O’Connor concluded that the stock


loading of the native grasslands in the county declined by 60 per cent within twenty-five years of sheep numbers reaching their peak about 1880.13 It is worth noting here that this is the very time when the rabbit plague from Southland hit the district in full force, thereby causing the drop in sheep numbers, but we will get back to this point later. The Hughes Commission referred to O’Connor’s model to support its claim that overgrazing triggered severe rabbit infestations.14 A. S. Mather, a visiting Scottish geographer, used Buchanan’s comments on burning and O’Connor’s work to conclude that the indiscriminate use of fire and overstocking with sheep initiated the degradation of the landscape in Central Otago before the irruption of the rabbit pest.15 Rachael Egerton wrote an essay on rabbits in 1993 and quoted Mather’s article as a reference for her statement that ‘the condition of the land was already deteriorating before the arrival of the rabbits, and it was its poor condition which made it an even more ideal habitat for the rabbit’.16 There is a familiar pattern here of the uncritical acceptance of sources where, if a claim is repeated often enough, it becomes a ‘fact’.

Contrary to these assertions, it has been shown in trials and in the wild that rabbits are capable of modifying open country through heavy grazing and burrowing during phases when their numbers explode. Moreover, sheep numbers were not in decline in South Island pastoral districts, even in the semi-arid zone, before the arrival of rabbits. What we see is that in the semi-arid parts of the South Island tussock grasslands, rabbits found a habitat that bore many similar features to their natural environment; they were pre-adapted to this landscape. A critical point is that the impact of rabbits on the land varied according to the nature of the country they invaded. In the open country of the South Island, the first rabbit irruption was almost inevitable once rabbit populations became established, regardless of the sheep farming methods practised in the pastoral era.

Key Characteristics of the First Rabbit Plague

Perhaps the most striking features of the first rabbit irruption, features that have received most comment, were the numbers of advancing rabbits and the speed at which they extended their range. The language that has been used conveys some idea of this spectacle. Burdon wrote that ‘their enormous numbers burst upon man’s realisation’, and that rabbits ‘swarmed into Tapanui’.17 Wodzicki had rabbits ‘pouring south into the Amuri district’.18 James Begg described rabbits as passing over the country ‘like a prairie fire’.19 Author Joan Druett wrote of the rabbits moving into the Amuri as ‘hordes descending south from


Marlborough’.20 This moving wave of rabbits spread at a rate of about 15 kilometres a year, a remarkable speed when we consider the dynamics of the expansion of the range of rabbits later in this chapter.21

Another feature of the first rabbit plague, less dramatic but just as problematic, was that as the moving front passed on it left behind a resident population of rabbits against which landowners were forced to wage a long and continual battle. Begg’s analogy comparing the spread of rabbits to a prairie fire portrays some idea of the desolation left behind by both phenomena. However, after a prairie fire the land will soon recover given suitable conditions. After the moving wave of rabbits had gone through, in some areas a population of rabbits stayed behind and colonised the land, causing on-going devastation. A new set of dynamics affected rabbit numbers after they formed settled populations, and their impact on the landscape varied depending on environmental differences in different localities.

Another characteristic of the first rabbit plague was that rabbits in vast numbers pushed into areas that are now considered outside the normal rabbit habitat. Rabbits reached plague proportions in high rainfall areas of western Southland and the moist, heavy country of south and west Otago. Rabbits spread across the main divide from Central Otago and swarmed in the Wills and the upper Haast river valleys – areas where ‘indiscriminate burning’ or overstocking with sheep had not occurred and where there is an annual rainfall in excess of 2500 mm a year.22

The Rabbit and its Natural Habitat

In order to understand the rabbit plague in New Zealand, we need to appreciate the habitat to which the rabbit is naturally adapted. The European rabbit, Oryctolagus cuniculus, originated on the Iberian Peninsula.23 The region’s Mediterranean climate is unpredictable and the rabbit has adapted to cope with dry seasons and to take advantage of good seasons. Australian biologists Rogers, Arthur and Soriguer described the rabbit as ‘a biological opportunist bound by ecological constraints, particularly those of terrain, climate, and predation’.24 They proposed that rabbit populations can flourish only where the soil is suitable for establishing burrows or where rocky outcrops provide the animals with protection from predators.25 Nutrition governs the reproductive rate of rabbits and the amount of feed available is dependent on the climate. In seasons when food is plentiful or where there is an extended growing season, rabbits will produce several litters of young, and young born early in the season may


themselves breed later in the same season. In years of severe drought, rabbits may not breed at all. Predation provides a constraint on a rabbit population, affecting young rabbits in particular. In Spain an array of predators, as well as parasites and diseases, all play a role in controlling rabbit numbers.

Research in Australia supports the view that rabbits thrive best in sandy soils where they can burrow or in scrubby country and rocky outcrops where they are protected from predators.26 Rabbits live in a defined range where they mark out territorial boundaries. This range will expand in times when feed is scarce, such as in periods of drought, or when winter restricts vegetation growth.27 New Zealand research has found that the territorial nature of rabbits means that they rarely move away from their home range, although rabbits that become lost may move large distances.28 Those rabbits that do shift away from their home range are subordinate or unattached adults, or young rabbits that have been ejected from burrows to make way for the next generation of young. An understanding of these behavioural characteristics of rabbits and of their original habitat can provide an insight into the dynamics by which several small localised populations in Marlborough and Southland became a destructive plague.

The Dynamics of the Spread of Rabbits in the South Island

Rabbits were initially introduced to New Zealand as a food source and also for sport, and several writers have emphasised how difficult it was to get them established. Wodzicki suggested that this was because some of the first liberations were fancy breeds that were ill-adapted to living in the wild. However, even the common European rabbit initially struggled to establish itself here.29 The population that was the source of the rabbit plague in Southland, Otago and southern Canterbury became established in an ideal rabbit habitat: sandhills covered by a grassy sward that provided excellent conditions for burrowing and ample feed. They had only two native predators to contend with, the Australasian harrier (Circus approximans) and the weka (Gallirallus australis), and neither took adult rabbits but preyed only on the young. Yet even with these advantages the initial phase of increase was slow. It may have been wetter seasons in 1864 and 1865 that helped to keep the rate of increase low as high rainfall affects rabbit mortality either directly, through flooding of burrows, or indirectly, by lowering the animals’ resistance to disease.

Bull proposed that the slow build up of the population simply followed the logistic curve that is typical of many wild animal populations.30 In this model there is a slow initial increase as the population struggles to adapt to the


environment and where life is precarious. Once the population reaches a certain level, the constraints that provide a brake on the small population no longer remain effective, so there follows an extremely rapid increase that continues until the population encounters ‘environmental resistance’, including food shortages, lack of suitable shelter, disease and the effects of crowding. As a result, the rate of increase stalls and the population growth curve levels off. Bull thought that this pattern accounted for the slow increase in the rabbit population in Southland until about the early 1870s.31 A similar process unfolded in Marlborough and Kaikoura, where rabbits had been released in 1858 and 1862 respectively, but were not reported as becoming a problem until the mid-1870s.32

By the end of the 1860s, rabbits had become well established in the coastal sandhills between Invercargill and Riverton. In 1871, 1872 and 1873, rainfall in the district was below the annual average and at this time the grasses that held the sandhills together were grazed out and the sand became subject to wind blow.33 We know that the rabbit range extends when feed is scarce and that, although adult rabbits rarely shift their range, in this case the destruction of their habitat would have been a trigger for them to spread. Rabbits moved up the river beds of the district to the plains inland from the coastal sandhills. Here, despite the dry seasons, the plentiful feed would have led to high reproductive levels and the dry conditions would have resulted in a high survival rate amongst the young rabbits. Moreover, hawks and wekas would have had little effect on the burgeoning rabbit population since predators could not eat enough young rabbits to affect rabbit numbers once they reached this stage of the population growth curve. The young, being turned out of the burrows to make way for the next generation, would have been forced out of their home range and on to new territory. In this way the rabbit population increased and spread.

The rainfall through the middle years of the 1870s was average or a little below, so that mortality would not have been high and the rate of increase continued.34 Dry years in 1879 and 1880 may have helped increase the range of the rabbit territory, but the reproductive rate would not necessarily have declined as the population could always expand into ‘fresh’ country. By this time the rabbit population had moved well into the high growth phase that Bull described and, with females able to produce perhaps forty-five young in a year, there was nothing to constrain it.35 The rabbits were always able to move into new territory where there was plenty of feed; and tall tussock and matagouri scrub, and in Central Otago a landscape of rocky outcrops, provided shelter. There is no evidence that disease was a problem as the rabbits spread on to new country.


Cuthbert Cowan, who had Okaiterua Station on the Oreti River, about 70 kilometres from Invercargill, first noticed rabbits on his property early in 1872. In his evidence to the Select Committee of the House of Representatives of 1876, Cowan stated that he did not take much notice of them at first, but complained that in ‘the last eighteen months . . . the nuisance assumed immense proportions’.36 Captain William Fraser of Earnscleugh Station, on the south side of the Clutha River at Clyde, claimed in his evidence to the committee that in the middle of 1873 ‘it would have been a day’s sport to shoot half a dozen rabbits’ on his run, but that they had increased within a very short period.37 Several releases of rabbits had been made in the vicinity of Lake Wakatipu in

Cromwell Bridge, c. 1865. This is a scene looking down the Clutha River towards the Cromwell Gorge. This photograph was taken before the rabbit plague hit the district. It illustrates how rocky and barren the lower slopes were even in this early period of settlement. The low rainfall, a shallow soil profile and high evaporation rates meant that this country was not well-grassed even before pastoralists arrived here. The higher hills in the background receive more rain than the lower slopes and carried an excellent cover of native grasses. Within a decade of this photograph being taken, rabbits began to overrun this country and it proved to be a rabbit paradise. The rocky ground provided good cover for them and the dry climate ensured high survival rates among the young. Alexy Simmons, Hocken Collections, 87.00046


earlier years, but historian Peter Chandler suggests that it is doubtful that they survived and the rabbit irruption of the 1870s probably came from the pest spreading up the Mataura River and the Oreti/Von catchments. By 1875 rabbits were ‘becoming numerous’ at Mt Nicholas Station and had reached the head of the lake.38 By 1881 observers noted that rabbits were increasing in the country immediately south of the Waitaki River in North Otago, and the agricultural and pastoral reports from the Otago counties published in the Otago Witness show that rabbits had become widespread through all parts of Otago and Southland by 1884.39

In 1887 John Baker, Commissioner of Crown Lands, toured the Mackenzie Country, the Upper Waitaki and North Otago to assess the rabbit problem in relation to the value of rentals of the Canterbury Crown lands for the runs that were to be re-let in 1890. He found parts of the Upper Waitaki swarming with rabbits and wrote, ‘I do not think that even in Southland I ever saw them in denser numbers than in the Omarama country.’40 He acknowledged that neither the Ahuriri nor Ohau rivers was likely to stop them spreading into Canterbury. Rabbits had already established themselves at the head of Lake Ohau and had reached Glentanner Station on the western side of Lake Pukaki. Lower down the Waitaki Valley, by 1887 rabbits had crossed the river, the boundary between Otago and Canterbury, and were reported to be ‘very thick’ on Te Akatarawa Station and were spreading on to Waitangi Station.41

In Marlborough rabbits had been released at various sites from the late 1850s, and by 1887 they had devastated thousands of acres of grassland and were moving out from these areas to invade new country. William Smith, a runholder from Kaikoura, recalled silver-grey rabbits being released in the district about 1862, although they did not become a problem for several years. By 1876 they had spread throughout the district, although from evidence given to the 1884 Joint Committee on the Sheep and Rabbit Act it appears that they never achieved the densities on the wetter front hills that they did in drier zones inland.42 G. F. Bullen, who held a station near Kaikoura, claimed that rabbits never took possession of the country because ‘they were never allowed to’. Similarly, Sir Norman Campbell of Cloudy Range Station reported that rabbits were never very numerous on his country, but knowing what had happened elsewhere he set about getting rid of them as best he could.43

Common brown rabbits had been liberated inland from Blenheim in 1858 and another release was made in 1865.44 Within a few years these rabbits had become established throughout the Wairau and Awatere valleys and were spreading into the Clarence Valley. In 1881 Joseph Ward of the Wairau Valley


stated that a run he knew had carried 10,000 to 12,000 sheep in the past, but was eventually forced to be totally de-stocked because rabbits had destroyed ‘everything’.45 By 1887 rabbits from this region began to encroach into the northern part of the Amuri District, while silver-grey rabbits from Kaikoura moved into the eastern Amuri.

With rabbits invading from the north and the south, it seemed inevitable that Canterbury would also succumb. The Mackenzie Country was overrun in the 1890s; in 1903 newspapers reported that rabbits were increasing alarmingly

Swyncombe Station, c. 1885. Swyncombe was one of the runs in the Marlborough region where rabbits were first released. Charles and George Keene purchased Swyncombe in the Kaikoura District in 1859. At one time they also held the Greenhills and Kaikoura runs but sold them in the late 1860s. The Keene brothers were given a breeding pair of silver-grey rabbits and, after breeding up their numbers, released them on Swyncombe. By the late 1860s rabbits were becoming a pest and 10,000 were trapped on Swyncombe in six months in 1869. In that year the Keenes had 14,000 Merino sheep on their run, but by 1882 their flock was down to 6300 and they were forced to sell up. When this painting was done, W. D. Wood owned Swyncombe, which then consisted of 5800 hectares (14,277 acres) of freehold and 5650 hectares (13,950 acres) of leasehold land (J. M. Sherrard, Kaikoura: A History of the District, p.127). Wood began to develop the station with fencing and cultivation. Within five years he had increased sheep numbers to over 20,000. Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington, F 154871½


in the Selwyn and Ashburton districts; and, after a mild winter in 1905, rabbits reportedly swarmed over the Port Hills near Christchurch.46 However, apart from the semi-arid Mackenzie Country and parts of the Amuri District, the depredation caused by rabbits in the first rabbit plague was insignificant in Canterbury compared to their impact in Marlborough, Otago and Southland. In subsequent irruptions, some parts of Canterbury did not escape so lightly. When the Hon. W. Nosworthy took over Mesopotamia in 1917, it carried 23,000 sheep. However, the explosion of rabbits that occurred after World War 1 reduced the station’s sheep flock to 5000 by 1921.47

Impacts on the Pastoral Production of the Tussock Grasslands

Rabbit irruptions in the South Island in the last three decades of the nineteenth century, and periodic outbreaks since, have left parts of the country so devastated that they have not recovered. The most severe and lasting damage occurred in the driest regions: Central Otago, the Upper Waitaki, the Mackenzie Country, the Amuri and inland Marlborough. In moist regions there has been a considerable recovery of the biomass, although it has not necessarily been made up of the same suite of plants that formed the pre-rabbit vegetation. Pastoralists at the time gauged the impact of rabbits not so much in terms of changes in the vegetation, but in economic terms: in reduced stock numbers and declining productivity, and in increasing costs.

However, there is no evidence from contemporary sources that sheep numbers or sheep productivity were in decline before the rabbit irruption. Wodzicki, whose writing is widely quoted in the literature on the rabbit plague, does not make this point explicitly, but his chronology of the irruption and the timing of the decline in stock numbers support this contention.48

Some of the contemporary examples presented to illustrate the declining productivity of the country demonstrate that the carrying capacity of runs fell dramatically after the arrival of rabbits and other measures of productivity also declined. Cuthbert Cowan reckoned the pest caused the reduction of his sheep flock from 16,000 to 7000.49 Another measure of declining productivity was the reduced ability of the country to fatten stock. A run that three years earlier carried 16,000 sheep and had fattened 2300 in a year soon ran barely 5000, with scarcely any of them fit to be killed.50 Runholders reported a marked decline in the percentage of lambs surviving on affected runs. In 1875 in the western district of Southland, the natural increase was 20 per cent, rather than the usual 65 to 70 per cent. Wool production also fell: a drop from 250 bales to 150 in one


case and in another a drop from 900 bales to 750.51 Not only did the quantity of wool produced decline, but so did its quality. In the London wool trade, the term ‘rabbity’ began to be used to denote the short and wasted wool grown on stations overrun by rabbits.52

There are numerous examples of the explosion in rabbit numbers and their impact on the productivity of the grasslands. On Castle Rock Station, across the Oreti River from Cowan, the flock was reduced from 50,000 to 20,000 and the loss to the owners estimated at £5,000 a year.53 In a single year, rabbiters took 300,000 rabbit skins off the run. Rabbiters took 244,000 skins off Kawarau Station in 1884 and 283,000 in 1885. The lambing percentage on that station dropped from 70 to 45, the death rate of the total flock rose from 3.5 to 10.5 per cent, and the wool cut fell by 1lb 4oz per sheep.54

The stations near Lake Wakatipu seem to have been particularly hard hit by the incursion of rabbits. Taylor White, who held the 75,000-acre (30,400-hectare) Mt Nicholas Station in partnership with his brother, recalled that the run easily carried 20,000 well-fed sheep in their time. The Whites sold to J. A. and H. K. Hodge and their partner McArdell in 1874 and, according to White, within four years of the first rabbit being killed on the station the new owners were practically ruined by rabbits. In 1888 the station carried only 2000 sheep.55 At the head of Lake Wakatipu, John Butement held North Station and before rabbits appeared he depastured 40,000 sheep on the station’s 138,050 acres (55,900 hectares).56 Rabbits grazed out the flats and depleted the country where the station wintered its sheep. Sheep numbers declined from 37,000 in 1880 to 17,600 in 1886.57 The following year Butement was bankrupted, and the New Zealand Loan and Mercantile Agency Company Limited that held the mortgage took possession of the various runs that made up the station. The company was unable to find a purchaser to take up the runs, so it abandoned them.58

The 1880s saw thousands of hectares of leasehold land abandoned as a result of the rabbit irruption. Between 1877 and 1884, lessees gave up seventy-five runs in Otago, sixty of them in the Wakatipu–Lakes region. By 1885 only 20,700 hectares (51,200 acres) in four blocks had not been re-let, but the rest had been leased out at reduced rentals, at a significant loss of potential income to the Crown.59 An 1887 report on runs abandoned because of rabbits found that 545,000 hectares (1,346,554 acres) had been given up in Otago with the resulting loss of revenue to the government being £32,803. The Land Board re-let the greater portion of this area at considerably reduced rentals. However, twenty-three runs making up 167,500 hectares (414,000 acres) remained unoccupied


at the time the report was tabled.60 Southland runs were also severely affected by rabbits. W. G. Rees, who managed Galloway Station for Robert Campbell, gave evidence to the Rabbit Nuisance Committee in 1881 that Campbell had abandoned 101,100 hectares (250,000) acres in Southland due to the depredation of rabbits.61 Moreover, after the auction of leases in 1887 several runs in the Mararoa and Manapouri areas remained unoccupied.62

The first rabbit plague overwhelmed Southland, Otago, southern Canterbury, Marlborough and the Amuri District both with the speed of the spread of rabbits and with their vast numbers. Once rabbits were acclimatised after their initial introduction, they took advantage of the favourable conditions they found in the grassland environment: few predators, a plentiful food supply, good cover for

Rabbiter’s Hut, Kurow. This was one of several rabbiters’ huts erected on the terraces above the Waitaki River near Kurow in the 1880s and 1890s. According to Jon Brocas from the Kurow Heritage Centre, Bobby Wakefield, seen in the photograph holding a towel, lived here with his wife and eight children. Where did they put them all? Wakefield was known in the district as Bobby Notoes (he had lost his toes from frost bite). The visitor is possibly Joe de Malmanche, the proprietor of the Kurow Hotel. Although rabbits devastated the grassland environment, they were a valuable resource for many poor rural workers in the years of the long depression. Trapping for skins and meat provided a vital source of income when work on the stations and farms was hard to come by. North Otago Museum, 764


shelter and protection, and a healthy environment. After they moved out from the areas where they had been released, the impact of the irruption took place remarkably quickly. Sheep numbers and the productivity of affected runs rapidly declined. The costs to pastoralists and farmers, and the havoc wrought on the vegetation and landscape of the affected areas, were disastrous.

However, due to environmental factors, the rabbit plague has had different outcomes in different districts. Some of the regions that were badly affected initially recovered remarkably quickly from the devastation caused by explosion in rabbit numbers, whereas in districts where the soils, landforms and climate suit the pest, the battle against the rabbit has been ongoing and damage to the land has been irreparable in places. It is worth looking at how the rabbit plague affected some individual properties in different environmental zones.

Rabbit Buyer, Kurow, 1890s. A rabbit canning factory was established in Kurow in 1891. It was one of many similar rabbit processing plants that were set up in small rural districts throughout Southland and Otago in the 1880s and 1890s. This rabbit buyer worked for Tonkin and Company, collecting rabbits from trappers around the Kurow District and transporting them to the factory, where they were skinned and processed. Later in the decade, freezing superseded canning and rabbits from Kurow were railed to the freezing works at Pukeuri, near Oamaru. North Otago Museum, 992


Wallace CountyWallace County in Southland was overrun by rabbits in the 1870s; however, by the beginning of the 1880s stock numbers and productivity of some of the stations in the district had begun to recover. Rabbits and the 1878 snow reduced the sheep flock on Castle Rock Station from 50,000 to 20,000. Matthew Holmes then purchased the freehold of the station and began to develop it. In 1879 the property carried 25,000 sheep and thereafter numbers lifted slowly to reach 36,600 in 1896.63 In 1901 Holmes died and two years later the station was cut up and sold. The recovery at Castle Rock was bettered by the neighbouring Five Rivers Estate where sheep numbers more than doubled between 1879 and 1892. The reduction in rabbit numbers, cultivation, turnip culture, sowing down improved pasture species, and subdivision with post-and-wire fencing increased the stock loading on both stations.64 The development was not just about lifting numbers; the quality of the stock also improved. Holmes established a flock of Cheviot sheep at Castle Rock that was highly regarded by sheep breeders throughout the South Island.

The recovery of the vegetation in the district was, in fact, widespread, with a correspondent commenting in 1890: ‘Country that I have seen entirely denuded of every kind of grass except the tussock appears to have quite recovered its original condition, even the anise plant, which was supposed to be quite destroyed, is making its appearance again.’65 This is not to say that it was the end of the rabbit problem as, after a mild winter in 1900, newspapers reported that parts of the district that had been almost cleared of the pest were simply alive with young rabbits by the end of that year.66 It is apparent that although rabbit numbers fluctuated in subsequent years, Wallace County was never again overwhelmed by rabbits as it had been in the 1870s. This pattern of devastation and recovery was not unique to Wallace County, and outside the semi-arid regions it emerged as the normal course as rabbit numbers exploded and then declined.

Moa FlatMoa Flat Station suffered badly from the rabbit plague in the late 1870s and then later recovered. Before that it had been one of the largest and most productive stations in Otago. Moa Flat consisted of 32,400 hectares (80,000 acres) of freehold land, and the property took in a further 47,000 hectares (116,000 acres) made up of seven leasehold runs. John Fry Kitching undertook considerable development on the station. By 1878 he had 400 kilometres (250 miles) of fencing erected, 404 hectares (1000 acres) were cropped, 323 hectares


(800 acres) were sown in turnips for sheep feed and the station shore 120,000 sheep.67 But 1878 marked the end of the good years. The ‘big snow’ of that year and the floods that followed the thaw killed 60,000 sheep. Then came the rabbits. In 1880 Kitching gave up and William Joseph ‘Big’ Clarke took possession of the station. The continued encroachment of rabbits forced him to abandon most of the mountain leases.68 W. Quin described the decline of Moa Flat in an article published in 1882:

In the fertile valley of the . . . Clutha River, the natural vegetation was, in times gone by, extremely luxuriant; and possessed of a splendid climate, this valley carried stock in an almost equal proportion to the cultivated paddocks on the Taieri Plain. The rabbit plague has, however, so entirely altered the appearance of that part of the country, that it is almost unrecognisable. Hills and gullies that used to present a scene of perfect sylvan beauty, with variegated pasture, intermixed with sparkling streams flowing from alpine snow-capped ranges, and literally covered with sheep, now look like a deserted waste, as though some gigantic deluge has swept vegetation from off the face of the earth. [A] large estate [Moa Flat], over which it has been frequently my lot to traverse for years past, now grazes 40,000 sheep, in miserable condition, and yet, before the advent of the bunny, 120,000 were mustered yearly, in good order.69

Quin’s vivid description of Moa Flat after its devastation by rabbits was one of the earliest and most graphic accounts that we have of the impact of the rabbit plague on the landscape of Otago. Where most commentators provided statistics detailing losses in productivity to emphasise the extent of the rabbit plague, Quin provided a tragic picture of a wasted land. Yet he was at pains to assert the veracity of his portrayal of the countryside, writing: ‘readers residing at a distance from the plague-infested spot, will, I have no doubt, imagine that my colouring is overdrawn . . . but such is not the case’.70

Sheep numbers on Moa Flat fell from 80,054 in 1879 to a low of 36,155 in 1883, a decline of nearly 55 per cent in five years. However, after that they slowly recovered to nearly 60,000 in 1886. From that time sheep numbers were maintained at a consistent level until the management of the station began the subdivision of the property in the early 1900s. Furthermore, not only were sheep numbers maintained through this period, but also the productivity of the sheep improved and the station received top prices for its wool and surplus stock.71

The fight against rabbits on Moa Flat began in Kitching’s time when he employed nearly a hundred men for four months in 1879 to clear the pest from


his land.72 After Kitching lost the battle Clarke took it up. In 1881 William Fraser, a neighbouring runholder, reported that eighty-five men were employed trying to control rabbits on Moa Flat, but the pest increased in numbers.73 The station also began erecting wire netting fences to subdivide the country into manageable blocks where rabbits could be controlled more easily and to separate the improved freehold country from the unimproved leasehold.74 In 1886 Vincent Pyke, the local Member of Parliament, reported that a large portion of the property had been fenced off with rabbit netting.75 Trapping with large gangs of men continued until 1895 when Clarke changed to using phosphorised pollard poison after thoroughly testing its effectiveness in a series of trials.76 This method of control was successfully demonstrated when six men picked up 1200 dead rabbits in a day after pollard had been laid.77 The rabbit control measures on Moa Flat were apparently successful, as in 1905 Quin wrote that ‘[b]unny was there in places, but never in sufficient numbers to cause anxiety’.78

Moa Flat lies within the south-western rainfall belt, and the higher rainfall helped the vegetation recover from the damage caused by rabbits as well as increasing the mortality of young rabbits. Conversely, young rabbits thrived in the semi-arid region of Vincent County to the west and vegetation recovery was limited by the dry conditions. The report of the commission established to enquire into the condition of pastoral lands of the South Island in 1920 noted this effect and observed the ‘well-grassed’ country on the Moa Flat side of the Clutha River, and ‘on the opposite side . . . the depleted part of Central Otago’.79

Earnscleugh StationThe examples from Wallace County and Moa Flat demonstrated the recovery that took place in areas outside the severely rabbit-prone semi-arid country. By contrast Earnscleugh Station, in Vincent County and in the very heart of the intractable rabbit area of Central Otago, provided one of the most dramatic examples of the devastation that resulted from the rabbit irruption of the nineteenth century.80 A. C. Strode leased the 32,400 hectare (80,000 acre) station in 1860 and Captain William Fraser joined him the following year.81 It remains a particularly ‘sweet’ block of country well suited to raising Merino sheep and growing some of the finest wool in New Zealand. However, the very attributes that make it ideal for running high-quality, fine-woolled sheep also make it an ideal habitat for rabbits. Fraser described his run as ‘dry hilly country’ lying between 180 metres (600 feet) and 1500 metres (5000 feet) in altitude, and with light and rocky soil.82 The station receives about 360 mm of rain annually and has a water deficit for at least six months of the year.83 The


area receives high sunshine hours and much of the property is warm, north-facing country rising from the Clutha River to the tops of the Obelisk Range. The soils on the lower altitude country have been characterised as having a high risk of rabbit infestation, while the risk on soils on the higher parts of the station is moderate.84

Fraser claimed that miners introduced rabbits on to the station to provide a source of cheap food. In evidence given to the Rabbit Nuisance Committee in 1876, he stated that initially they were not a problem.85 However, soon afterwards Fraser was forced to begin a programme of systematically destroying the pests. In 1876, the first year of his war on rabbits, 5000 were killed; his men then destroyed 20,000, 40,000 and 80,000 in consecutive years. In 1880 he took 160,000 rabbit skins off the property. Fraser reckoned that this probably accounted for at least 400,000 rabbits as great numbers died in their burrows after taking poison.86

Methods employed to destroy rabbits changed over time. Initially Fraser used teams of men with guns and dogs, but he found that they had little effect on burgeoning rabbit numbers. He tried bisulphate of carbon to gas the rabbits in their burrows, but settled on grain poisoned with phosphorus as the best method to kill rabbits in numbers, saying that it was ‘the only one to have any effect at all’.87 To follow up the winter poisoning Fraser employed gangs of men in summer to trap and dig out remaining rabbits. Fraser also tried the ‘natural enemies’. Five ferrets were taken to Earnscleugh in June 1875 and were used by rabbiters to flush out rabbits that took to their burrows to evade their persecutors. In the early 1880s Fraser started breeding ferrets on Earnscleugh and released the first lot into the wild in 1884 and another hundred in 1886.88

The impact of rabbits on Earnscleugh is demonstrated by the dramatic decline in the number of sheep carried. Fraser battled on against the rabbit through the 1880s and early 1890s and tried to maintain his sheep flock. The sheep returns show that in 1886, ten years after the initial explosion in the rabbit population on the station, the property carried 23,000 sheep, only a thousand or two fewer than it had carried at the time of the outbreak. However, this was at the cost of declining productivity, as by 1881 the average wool weight shorn per sheep had dropped from between 7 to 8 pounds to between 6lb and 6lb 8oz.89 By 1894 the cost of fighting rabbits and the declining profitability of the station got the better of him and Fraser sold to W. S. Laidlaw. In 1897 with his flock down to 12,500, just over half the number of sheep carried in 1879, Laidlaw abandoned the leases of Earnscleugh. Unable to find anyone to take up the runs,


the government took over the fight and for four years the property ran virtually no sheep at all.

Despite destocking the station and with all their resources, government agencies had no more success in defeating rabbits on Earnscleugh than Fraser and Laidlaw. A writer to the Southland Times claimed that the government spent £1,500 on poisoning the property in a single year and that the rabbits were ‘no thinner than when they started’.90 In addition to the poisoning operations, the government experimented in establishing improved grasses on Earnscleugh. In 1898 between seven and eight tons of grass seed was sown on the station, but only germinated where the conditions were most favourable.91 Unfortunately, the plants that did germinate did not survive because rabbits grazed them out and even scratched up the roots for food. This is one of the earliest attempts by central government to re-grass areas devastated by overgrazing in New Zealand and served as a forerunner to nearly a hundred years of such experimentation.

In 1902 Stephen Thomas Spain took up the Earnscleugh lease. In his first five months, he employed thirty-two men who killed over 250,000 rabbits. In his effort to control rabbit numbers, Spain paid above-average rates as an incentive to his rabbiters. When £1 per 100 skins was the going rate, he paid 25 shillings, and when rabbits were scarce he paid £1 13s 6d per 100, to keep rabbit numbers as low as possible.92 Despite Spain’s determined approach to controlling rabbits, he failed to meet the rigorous standards demanded by the rabbit inspectors. Early in 1905 the court found him in breach of the Rabbit Nuisance Act and fined him £10, with £1 10s costs.93

Spain slowly began to build sheep numbers on Earnscleugh. He started with 1455 sheep in 1902 and built up to 12,030 five years later. Spain maintained the productivity of the flock as numbers lifted and an observer described the clip in 1907 as being ‘exceptionally heavy’.94 He maintained his flock at around 12,000 for the years 1907 to 1912. This was about half the numbers carried on the station thirty-five years earlier at the time of the outbreak of the rabbit plague.

The impact of rabbits on Earnscleugh provides an example of those runs in the worst affected areas of Otago and Southland where the cost of rabbiting, the decline in sheep numbers and the loss of productivity forced the runholders to throw up their leases. When the leases were taken up again, the stocking rates were invariably lower than they had been in the years before the rabbit irruption. However, on Earnscleugh, the timing of the collapse came much later. Runholders in the Lakes District and Southland were overwhelmed by rabbits soon after the initial invasion and the leases in these regions were given up in the 1870s and 1880s. At Earnscleugh, Fraser waged a war against


rabbits for eighteen years before succumbing to them, and Laidlaw battled on for another four years before throwing up the leases of the run in 1898. This twenty-two-year period between the onset of the rabbit plague on Earnscleugh and the abandoning of the leases was probably due to a combination of factors – including Fraser’s financial strength, his determination and the fact that Earnscleugh was a favoured run in terms of its natural endowment. Yet even with these advantages rabbits brought financial ruin to two runholders and ecological destruction to the property.

Mt PeelBarton Acland was concerned about the threat that rabbits could present even before the irruption of the pest in Southland and Marlborough in the 1870s. Rabbits had been released on an island in the Rangitata River, about 24 kilometres down river from Mt Peel Station in 1858 and thrived there.95 Acland referred to the place as the ‘rabbit island’ and, in June 1863, with his neighbour Ben Moorhouse and a visitor he rode down to try to clean out some of the pests.96After that rabbits were hardly mentioned in the diaries or correspondence of the station in the next twenty years. Indeed, other pests were considered much more of a problem.

Mt Peel was regarded as a bad place for wild pigs and Acland paid a bounty to his staff for killing them. Pigs were a nuisance because they killed and ate young lambs and for the damage they caused by rooting up good grazing land. In 1875 two of the hands brought in 182 pigs tails for which they were paid a shilling a tail.97 The following year the station paid a bounty for 407 pigs and 65 kea.98 Kea were reported to feed on the kidney fat of live sheep and usually the sheep subsequently died from the wounds or from blood poisoning. The problem seemed to be particularly bad in certain districts. In the mountainous country at the head of lakes Wakatipu and Wanaka, sheep losses were reported to be as high as 20 per cent. 99 The headwaters of the Rangitata was another area where kea became predators of sheep. For many years the issue of kea as sheep killers was hotly debated, but there is no doubt that some do prey on sheep, especially in the winter months. Acland noted in a letter in June 1886 that ‘the keas are thinning the sheep on Burke’s Flat and Razorback. Sandie [Alexander McLeod, the head shepherd] is out late and early but cannot hear a sound, yet in the morning one or more [are] dead with a small hole, not to be found without looking for it, in the back.’100 Hares were also a problem at times because of the amount of feed they consumed, and in the late 1880s they were found in their thousands on the station.101


The first time Acland paid out a bounty for rabbits was in 1884 when eight were killed.102 Table 3.1 illustrates that rabbits presented only a minor problem for Mt Peel, at least into the early years of the 1890s. However, Acland remained wary of the threat that they posed. In May 1885 his son, Henry, killed a couple of rabbits in one of the gullies west of the station buildings. Acland wrote to his eldest son that he was sorry that rabbits were now on the run, but it was lucky that they had been found and that they would ‘now hunt the place well’.103 In the following months he had station hands out rabbiting when they were not required for other work.

TABLE 3.1 Numbers of Pigs, Kea, Hares and Rabbits for which a Bounty was

Paid in the Years 1875, 1883, 1889, 1892104

Year Pigs Kea Hares Rabbits

1875 182

1883 407 65

1889 124 40 1025 87

1892 194 53 289 226

In 1886 Sutton, the rabbit inspector for the Ashburton District, issued a report describing the spread of rabbits in the upper Rangitata and upper Orari country. He found that rabbits were numerous on Mount Harper, on the north bank of the Rangitata River opposite Mt Peel, and plentiful on parts of Mesopotamia, whereas he found none on the Rangitata side of Mt Peel, and only one was seen on the Orari side of the station. Sutton also found traces of rabbits on the Orari Gorge run.105

In 1885 inspectors discovered a population of rabbits on high unclaimed Crown Land between Mesopotamia and Richmond Station. Government rabbiters were sent in to destroy them in the autumn of 1886 and managed to kill 1400 before the men were driven out by winter snows.106 Acland was happy to see the job done, but was concerned that the shooting might have spread the rabbits. It was at this time that Acland wrote to Michael Mitton with his complaint that he had ‘rabbits on the brain’. He was particularly worried about the possible spread of rabbits from Mesopotamia, and told Mitton: ‘you must have a man constantly . . . keeping a rabbit boundary which is more important than a sheep boundary and if the man stops the first pair of rabbits getting onto Ben McLeod his year’s wages will be well spent’.107


At this time station staff did the rabbiting on Mt Peel in their own time, although when work was slack a man or two was sent out to kill rabbits. However, after Oliver Scott Thomson took over as manager in January 1894, rabbit destruction on the station became more organised. Whether this was because rabbits were increasing or because he came from the Amuri District and had seen at first hand the damage that rabbits could do is hard to know. In March 1894 Scott Thomson employed two men as full-time rabbiters when they were not working as packmen at mustering and shearing time. He paid them 15 shillings a week plus their keep, 3 pence for rabbit skins, a penny for a pair of hare’s ears, 2/6 for kea beaks and 4 pence for pigs’ tails.108

Early in April 1894 Scott Thomson spent two days riding over the run checking for rabbits. He found signs of rabbits in places, but there was no major problem. This was confirmed a day later when the two rabbiters came in with eleven rabbit skins after twenty-one days’ work.109 This sort of result became typical through the next few years and represents a low return for a high outlay. It also illustrates the determination of Acland and his manager to keep the pest under control in spite of the cost involved. Scott Thomson summed up their attitude in a letter saying, ‘[w]here there are any rabbits at all there is always a certain amount of anxiety. At the far end of the run which we call Forest Creek has always been considered rather dangerous for rabbits as there is nothing to hinder them from coming from the McKenzie [sic] country, and being a rough block, should they once get a good hold would be hard to keep down.’110

In May 1895 the two rabbiters spent thirteen days at Forest Creek and got eighteen rabbits and two kea.111 In January they hunted the Coal Block for nine days and killed thirty-one rabbits.112 In October 1897 they spent fifteen days at Forest Creek killing seventy-five rabbits.113 The following year the two men spent six weeks on the worst rabbit country on the station and got only 110 rabbits. Scott Thomson commented that he did not think rabbits were on the increase and he meant ‘keeping at them to prevent them getting the upper hand’.114

In spite of Scott Thomson’s prediction, the tallies of rabbits killed did increase over the years, yet compared with Earnscleugh the returns were insignificant. For example, in 1899 the rabbiters killed only 668 rabbits on Mt Peel over 115 man-days.115 In April that year they tried poison grain as a control method on the station for the first time. Until then, rabbit numbers had been so low that the traditional measures of trapping, dogging and shooting had been adequate to control the increase.

However, despite the relatively low rabbit numbers, the rabbit inspectors remained diligent in their administration of the Rabbit Nuisance Act, and Mt


Peel had annual inspections from as early as 1883 when rabbits were hardly seen on the station. In May 1901 the rabbit inspector sent up two men to poison Stew Point, the Coal country and the Isolated Hills. The job took nearly seven weeks, with the inspector expressing his satisfaction with the results.116 Scott Thomson seemed a little cynical about the need to do the job, and when he inspected Stew Point a week before the poisoners finished he commented tersely that he saw two live rabbits and a few dead ones.117 This did not represent a great return for six weeks’ work.

Clearly, rabbits were not the problem on Mt Peel that they were in southern districts. In September 1901 the two station rabbiters spent ten days out on the Orari country and killed 100 rabbits. The following month they were at Forest Creek for ten days and got only seventy. Fraser at Earnscleugh would have been delighted with such a result on his most rabbit-prone block.

Yet in early 1902 the rabbit inspector again notified Scott Thomson that he had to clear rabbits off Stew Point. Scott Thomson replied that he had a rabbiter on full time who had been working on the block in recent months. He sent the man out again to do the block and in a week he got thirty-seven rabbits, most of which were younger ones that he had dug out of burrows.118 Several months later Mt Peel again came into the sights of the rabbit inspector, and seven men were sent out to poison the backcountry, then to work their way down Forest Creek and on to the Rangitata country. This was a poisoning programme on a larger scale than anything employed before on Mt Peel, and Scott Thomson complained to the inspector that ‘there are less rabbits on our country than the last few years . . . it is rather hard that I should be going to considerable expense to keep the rabbits down and all the time they are coming up the Rangitata river bed’.119

In April 1905 Mt Peel again encountered trouble with the rabbit inspector who threatened Scott Thomson with court action over his non-compliance with the Rabbit Nuisance Act. Scott Thomson wrote to Henry Acland about his intention to send out six men with a packer to poison the Big and Little forks, and then after mustering they would do Forest Creek and Ben McLeod, saying, ‘[t]his ought to give them a good clean out, and with Cordy [the station rabbiter] and another man I have got keeping at them immediately after we ought to get them down. I dare say however we will have to go in for a spring poison as well. Of course it will cost money, but it will have to be done.’120

This pattern of large-scale poison programmes using outside labour, followed up by one or two station rabbiters who trapped, dug out, shot and spot-poisoned rabbits became the system that Mt Peel adopted to control rabbits. The wages book for the station from 1907 to 1913 shows gangs of between five and fifteen


men employed for up to ten weeks laying pollard on the property.121 Whether it was because of these control measures, or because much of Mt Peel did not provide a suitable habitat for rabbits, or because the peak of the rabbit plague had passed, rabbits never overwhelmed the station in the period up to 1912. This is reflected in the stock loading that increased over time. Accordingly, the vegetation on Mt Peel, up to 1912 when it was subdivided, never suffered the intense and sustained attack by rabbits that occurred in the Mackenzie Country, North and Central Otago, and Southland.

Comparing ExamplesThese studies of different properties demonstrate that different dynamics were involved in different areas of the South Island during the first rabbit plague. Rabbits overran Wallace County, Moa Flat and Earnscleugh, but not Mt Peel. Sheep numbers dropped dramatically on stations in Wallace County after the onset of the rabbit plague but recovered after rabbit numbers fell. By the end of the century the stock loads of some runs surpassed pre-plague levels. On Moa Flat sheep numbers did not fall until rabbits overwhelmed the property and, although they did not recover to pre-rabbit levels, once rabbits were controlled there seems little question that productivity of the sheep improved on the station. At Earnscleugh, Fraser tried to hold sheep numbers after rabbits invaded the run but the productivity of the sheep declined. The resulting devastation proved so severe that, after a period when the station was totally de-stocked, the carrying capacity could not be maintained at 50 per cent of the pre-rabbit level. Rabbits did not overwhelm Mt Peel and, although sheep numbers declined slightly after 1895, sheep productivity continued to improve.

These case studies do not provide enough evidence to draw a definite conclusion, but the data beg the question: was the depletion of the tussock grassland in the pastoral era due to the rabbit plague, rather than the management practices of the pastoralists? Another issue that arises is that rabbit numbers seemed to reach a peak then decline on the runs in Wallace County, Moa Flat and even Earnscleugh regardless of the efficacy of control measures. This important question is dealt with in the following section.

The Passing of the Plague

A significant feature of the first rabbit irruption was that, after devastating parts of the Amuri District, and large areas of Marlborough, Otago and Southland, it petered out as it approached central Canterbury. The plague barely affected the


region between the Waipara and Rangitata rivers, and most of South Canterbury east of the Mackenzie Country and the Hakataramea Valley. Gibb and Williams claimed that rabbits reached peak numbers around 1890; the number of rabbit skins exported was highest in 1893.122 I contend that 1895 was probably the point when numbers really began to decline. Thereafter the momentum of the spread slowed and at the same time rabbits withdrew from some of the country that they had colonised in Southland and Otago, but remained in considerable numbers on more favourable areas. This phenomenon raises questions about the dynamics of the plague itself: how can we account for the sudden irruption in rabbit numbers and then the surprisingly rapid passing of the plague?

We can speculate on some of the reasons for the passing of the plague using the knowledge that we have about the behaviour of rabbits in their natural habitat. Bull has hypothesised that the plague continued until it encountered ‘environmental resistance’, which included factors such as food shortages, lack of suitable shelter, disease and the affects of crowding.123 Rogers, Arthur and Soriguer reasoned that terrain, climate and predation provided constraints on the reproduction of rabbits.124 By applying both theories to the rabbit population in the South Island tussock grasslands in the 1890s, we can make a case that explains the decrease in rabbit numbers.

By the mid-1890s the preferred habitats had already been populated, forcing younger rabbits into high rainfall zones like the Wills and Haast valleys where they were less likely to survive bad seasons. Even in Canterbury the heavier and wetter foothill country east of the Mackenzie was a much less favoured region than the dry inland hills and plains. Yet the absence of ideal terrain, on its own, cannot explain the decline in the momentum of the invasion. After all, in the 1870s and 1880s the rabbit horde had been able to alter the vegetation of the grasslands as it spread. However, other factors came into play at this time.

Climate worked against the continued expansion in the mid-1890s. The Otago Witness commented on the ‘marked diminution’ of rabbits throughout Otago in 1894 and attributed it to excessive rainfall the previous spring and early summer, which had caused high mortality in young rabbits.125 The big snow of 1895 followed, destroying hundreds of thousands of rabbits in most of the areas where their numbers were highest. The Mackenzie Country was particularly hard hit, but Central Otago and the Canterbury foothills were also badly affected. This event would have resulted in a significant change in the dynamics of the spread of rabbits, as it brought into play the effect of predation. When the population was ever increasing, predators could have a limited impact on rabbits as they could not breed as fast as their prey. However, once the 1895 snow


reduced rabbit numbers, predators, and here we can include landowners and their rabbiters, could have a considerable impact on controlling rabbit numbers until the population built up to a level where it went beyond the constraint that predators could impose.

Disease was another factor that came into play. When the rabbit population was increasing and expanding into virgin country, disease was unlikely to have been a problem for the pests. However, once rabbits began to live in densely populated settled groups, disease became an important factor in the dynamics of reproduction and survival. A range of diseases and parasites came to New Zealand with their rabbit hosts, and coccidiosis and bladder-worm killed rabbits in the Wairarapa as early as the 1880s.126 Coccidiosis causes heavy mortality in young rabbits where the rabbit population is high. Bull has postulated that soon after rabbit numbers reached their peak, parasitic infection suddenly increased and remained at a high level for a year or so, before slowly declining.127

Once rabbits were forced to live within the constraints of a local environment, different population dynamics worked in different regions. The effect of climate on nutrition, survival of the young, and survival of predators and diseases, as well as the suitability of soils for burrowing, or the availability of scrub and rocks for protection, all shaped whether a particular district provided a suitable habitat in which rabbits could thrive or not. For example, the environment at Earnscleugh proved a much more favourable habitat for rabbits than at Wallace County, Moa Flat and Mt Peel Station.

An entirely different phenomenon, probably closely associated with an environmental cause, might account for not only the petering out of the rabbit plague, but also for the irruption itself. Both Bull and Wodzicki commented on the phenomenon where marked cyclical fluctuations in numbers occur over time in established rabbit populations.128 Professor Robert Wallace of Edinburgh University made the same observation after witnessing the rabbit plagues in Australia and New Zealand when he visited both countries in 1890. He later wrote:

There are times and seasons when animals, from some unknown cause, increase in extraordinary and exceptional numbers even in their own natural and original habitats and are subsequently reduced to their normal numbers in quite as mysterious a manner.129

Wallace noted the examples of a plague of voles in the south of Scotland over a couple of years in the 1870s and a plague of rats in parts of England and Scotland


in 1890. In both cases these plagues appeared suddenly and for no apparent reason, and passed almost as quickly. In the case of rabbits he commented that ‘[r]abbits tend to spread to new fields, and also to linger in certain parts where the surroundings are specially congenial to them’.130 Ecologist Charles Elton has explored similar cyclical patterns among lemmings in Europe and Canada and argued that the reasons for them are complex and unclear, although he was certain that climatic fluctuations played a controlling part.131

Wodzicki found that in rabbit populations in New Zealand there has been a periodicity of just over eleven years between peak years.132 However, it appears that there could be a longer periodicity at work as well. The years of the first rabbit plague varied between regions, but it was at its worst in the 1880s, the next main irruption was in the 1920s, a third peak took place in the late 1940s and early 1950s, and the most recent explosion in rabbit numbers occurred in the late 1980s and 1990s. That outbreak was stopped by the illegal release of the rabbit calicivirus disease in 1997. Controlling the spread of rabbits during the first irruption proved more problematic. When the plague was at its peak, it appears that none of the tools that landowners or government agents had available to them stopped the build-up in numbers and the spread, until the plague began to lose its momentum.

Thus there were distinct phases after rabbits became established and these involved different dynamic patterns. The initial explosion in rabbit numbers and the rapid expansion in territory took place in different parts of the grasslands between the early 1870s and 1895. Following the peak of the plague, rabbits withdrew from less favoured habitats and they congregated in the greatest numbers in their favoured semi-arid regions. Superimposed on that was a pattern of periodicity where rabbit populations passed through cycles of increase and decrease. In less ideal rabbit habitats, where the existing rabbit populations remained at a low level, these periods of increase created a nuisance for landowners. In the semi-arid regions, rabbit numbers remained high and the periods of increase lifted the population to extreme levels resulting in the on-going destruction of the vegetation.

Rabbits and the Decline in the Stock Loading

By the middle of the 1890s, newspapers began to comment on the barrenness of parts of Central Otago. The columnist ‘Drover’ blamed the rabbits alone for the destruction of the vegetation, saying that ‘they have . . . made some fine run country little better than a desert’.133 In 1894 ‘Agricola’ commented that


the natural vegetation of the grazing lands of inland Otago had disappeared. He was one of the first writers to associate tussock burning, sheep grazing and rabbits as being instrumental in that process, and wrote that fire and close-cropping by sheep ‘killed out the wild grasses, and what the sheep left the rabbits finished off’.134 His solution was the restoration of the land through cultivation and subdivision of the big stations so that the new generation of runholders would become sheep farmers. A similar solution was suggested by ‘Kea’ who remarked in 1895 that hundreds of thousands of acres in Central Otago and the Waitaki had become ‘a barren waste from the ravages of the rabbits, indiscriminate burning, and the dryness of the climate’.135 The answer, he said, was the cultivation of the land and a change in the land laws to give security of tenure. Donald Petrie, a contemporary observer of the rabbit plague, thought that although there had been a slow process of degeneration of the vegetation in the driest parts of Vincent County before the rabbit irruption, it was exacerbated by the increase in their numbers. He commented that ‘[b]efore the rabbit-invasion began these hill-slopes [of Central Otago] carried a fairly rich and varied covering of tussock and other grasses, and, except on the steeper rock sun-baked faces, had not been seriously depleted even in the early nineties’.136 However, he did note that after the arrival of rabbits the inevitable overstocking that followed, with rabbits and sheep, led to ‘the extermination of the grasses’.

There are several points that arise from these observations. Petrie, ‘Drover’, ‘Agricola’ and ‘Kea’ described the problem of the denudation of the sunny faces in the dry zones of Central Otago and the Waitaki. None of the contemporary observers commented that the same problem was found in other regions that had suffered from the rabbit plague. In the dry regions the continuous presence of high rabbit numbers, along with sheep, prevented the recovery of the vegetation. Outside the dry zones, once rabbits came under some semblance of control, the vegetation recovered, although not necessarily to its pre-rabbit condition. This contrast is supported by the stock loading data from Castle Rock and Five Rivers, stations outside the semi-arid zone. On Mt Peel rabbits had no impact on sheep numbers or their productivity at all.

The issue of the decline in the stock loading in association with the rabbit plague is complex. The decline in Vincent County, which takes in Earnscleugh and some of the most rabbit-prone land in the South Island, coincided with the outbreak of the rabbit irruption. In fact, the decline in sheep numbers in all the districts that were overwhelmed by rabbits began with the arrival of the pest. Moreover, the stock loading on many stations in Canterbury, which were


not affected by rabbits before 1912, did not decline at all. As Petrie observed, it was the combined grazing pressure of sheep and rabbits that took its toll on the tussock grasslands of Central Otago. The tussock grasslands in the region had undoubtedly undergone significant modification in the period before the rabbit plague, but there is no evidence that demonstrates that they were in ‘poor condition’, as has been claimed by Zotov and others.

O’Connor has made the point that ‘the pastoral industry was reluctant to adjust livestock numbers to the existing rabbit plague’.137 In many cases rabbits arrived so suddenly and in such numbers that stations were simply overwhelmed. However, many runholders did reduce sheep numbers as the vegetation became depleted. Examples from Castle Rock, Okaiterua Station and Moa Flat show that numbers fell soon after the appearance of the rabbit swarm. William Fraser, at Earnscleugh, is an example of a pastoralist who did try to hold numbers after the arrival of the rabbit plague. The 1880s and early 1890s were difficult economic times for pastoralists and farmers, and, for someone like Fraser, who faced the high cost of killing rabbits, falling productivity because of the rabbit infestation and declining wool prices, the issue was not just about the land, but also about economic survival. In the end the rabbits beat him.

Conclusion

The rabbit plague had a profound impact on some parts of the grasslands of the South Island after the early 1870s. Government agencies and landowners fought a long battle to overcome the pest, and by the turn of the twentieth century the great spread of rabbits had lost momentum. The cost to individual runholders had been high. Rabbits arrived at a time of declining profitability for pastoralists and killing rabbits cost money. The downturn in wool prices, the reduction in the carrying capacity of the land, the decline in the productivity per sheep and the direct costs of rabbit destruction forced some off their runs. For others the struggle to survive meant they had no capital left to invest in improvements. In the semi-arid regions, the battle developed into a long-term siege that continues to the present. Rabbits, by their nature, are well adapted to thrive in this region with its unpredictable climate and seasons of poverty and plenty.

The cause of the plague has been attributed to the indiscriminate burning and overstocking supposedly practised by pastoralists. Bold claims, based on scanty evidence, assert that those practices depleted the vegetation and that allowed the rabbits to invade the tussock grasslands. Yet there is no evidence to sustain Zotov’s theory that rabbits needed pre-existing bare ground in order to


colonise new country. There is plenty of evidence, however, that rabbits moved readily into tussock country. Contradicting Zotov’s claim, Bull concluded from trials he conducted that a large rabbit population ‘could modify the surrounding country and make a suitable habitat for themselves’.138 Evidence from Australia supports this assertion. Rabbits introduced onto islands off the Australian coast have completely destroyed or transformed the vegetation cover, without the aid of burning or sheep.139 The spread of rabbits into the Wills and Haast valleys, which had never been burned or grazed, adds weight to Bull’s conclusion. After rabbit numbers had reached a critical level, they were able to invade tussock country without any difficulty, particularly during periods of drought. Burning and grazing did not need to deplete the vegetation as Zotov and the Hughes Commission claimed. Considering the innate capacity of rabbit populations to take advantage of the abundant feed, the cycles of dry seasons and the predator-free environment, the sheep grazing methods of the pastoralists had little to do with the explosion in rabbit numbers that began in the 1870s. It also appears possible that all the effort and expense that went into trying to control rabbits may have done little more than slow the momentum of the first rabbit irruption, which eventually petered out due to natural, but as yet unexplained, causes.

95

CHAPTER FOUR

Overstocking, Overgrazing, Sheep Numbers and Stock Loading

Writers in the agricultural pages of the press and articles in the New Zealand Country Journal in the 1870s and 1880s regularly complained about overstocking, although more often than not their criticism was levelled at small farmers rather than

at large landowners. However, by the late 1890s some had begun to make a connection between overstocking by pastoralists and the depletion of the vegetation, particularly in the semi-arid regions of Central Otago, the Upper Waitaki and the Mackenzie Country. In essence, critics have claimed that the early pastoralists overestimated the carrying capacity of the country and that subsequent overstocking, in association with burning, led to a rapid decline in the pasturage.1 Overstocking, they say, resulted in overgrazing, which led to the depletion of the vegetation and finally the degradation of the land.2

This chapter explores the issue of overstocking and its consequences, and assesses changes in sheep numbers and sheep production on the ground at Mt Peel Station, with comparisons at a county level and on a selection of stations across the South Island tussock grasslands. We find that the established way of assessing the impact of overstocking – the decline in sheep numbers over time – is an inadequate measure. Moreover, there were many variables that influenced stocking rates on stations in the pastoral era, and the resource endowments of different stations were, perhaps, the most significant factor in the different outcomes of sheep grazing across the tussock grasslands between 1841 and 1914.


Overstocking and Overgrazing

At the outset we need to consider how overstocking can become a trap for livestock farmers. After all, it can hardly be in the interest of any farmer to overstock, since the practice results in a decline in the productivity of both the stock and the vegetation. Yet it would be fair to say that from time to time overstocking occurs on many farms throughout the country, even in today’s era of scientific farming. Why so?

Campbell Percy McMeekan, arguably one of New Zealand’s greatest agricultural scientists, observed that grazing management is a compromise between the immediate interests of the sward and those of the livestock, ‘for the productive survival of both’.3 The judicious matching of stock numbers to the available and potential stock feeding level of the vegetation is a skill learned by observation and experience. The number of stock that any given block of land can feed is governed by a range of variables that can change from month to month, season to season and from one year to the next, and farmers need to be ready to react to these changes.

The climate determines rhythms of life on the country’s farms, just as it did on the estates and stations in the pastoral era. Across the South Island grasslands, from the mild coastal country of Marlborough to the hardest high country run, late spring is the season when there is normally the greatest abundance of feed. If in spring a farmer stocked to a level to match this abundance his country would be overstocked for the rest of the year, as at other times of the year the feed might not grow at all. In the high country, for example, feed might not grow for six months of the year. Low ground temperatures restrict grass growth in winter, while in mid-summer high evaporation/transpiration rates can limit growth, particularly on lower sunny country. In coastal Marlborough grass grows through the winter, but the region is normally summer-dry, so farmers need to get most of their surplus stock sold before Christmas, when feed shortages start to appear.

Thus the art of stock farming is to balance stock requirements with the annual feed growth pattern in order to maximise stock performance without overtaxing the vegetation. This can be achieved in a combination of ways: by saving the surplus spring feed as hay or silage, which can be fed out when there is no other feed; or to build up a feed bank by using different parts of a run at different times of the year. For example, stock can be grazed on higher altitude and shady areas through the summer, while feed growing on the lower sunny country in late summer and autumn can be shut up and saved for the winter.

OVERSTOCKING, OVERGRAZING, NUMBERS AND LOADING 97

Management becomes complicated when the seasons do not follow the normal pattern, and throughout the South Island grasslands that can be a common occurrence. Drought is a regular visitor to the whole region and in certain areas – in particular, coastal Marlborough, North Otago, the Mackenzie Country and Central Otago – summer drought is often a normal part of the seasonal cycle. Not infrequently, droughts can become severe and protracted. It is not uncommon to go from a good spring when a run is understocked to a droughty summer where the same run can become overstocked in a matter of weeks, without any increase in stock numbers. A farmer’s management needs to be flexible enough to react quickly in order to adjust to this change: he can maintain stock numbers and feed out saved surpluses, such as hay, silage or grain; he can reduce the stock loading by selling off stock; he can find off-farm grazing for his animals; or he can combine these options. If the farmer does not do enough to lighten the stock load, the property will become progressively overstocked. Overstocking, then, is ultimately a management decision; overgrazing is the outcome of that decision.

However, factors other than climate can also influence whether or not a property becomes overstocked. Competition from pests can reduce the amount of feed available for stock. In the pastoral era, the first rabbit plague that ravaged parts of the tussock grasslands between the early 1870s and the late 1890s lifted the stock loading to many times the level that the country could carry, which resulted in severe overgrazing and the long-term depletion of the vegetation in semi-arid regions. Hares and some insect pests also compete with sheep for feed, a factor that can also result in lifting the stock loading to unsustainable levels.

Another factor that can influence overstocking is the economic strength of the farmer. One land historian concluded that, at times, pastoralists have tried to counteract the effect of falling product prices by increasing their stock numbers.4 He found that, counter to the overall trend showing a decline in stock numbers, between 1921 and 1935 stock loads on native grassland went up in years that followed falls in the Pastoral Product Price Index. Quite simply, farmers held stock when sale prices were low, thereby putting more pressure on their stock and land than they otherwise would have.

A significant influence on overstocking is lack of skill or the poor reading of the situation by the manager of a property, or the unrealistic assessment of the stock-carrying capacity of a particular property. These points have particular implications for the early years of the pastoral era when many runholders lacked practical experience in large-scale sheep farming and when they were learning to read their new environment.


Using Sheep Numbers for Assessment Purposes

Sheep Numbers and OverstockingThe standard way of measuring any decline in the vegetation during the pastoral era has been to assess changes in animal numbers – a decline in numbers representing a reaction to a decline in the available feed. A notable example of this sort of analysis was a study of changes in stock numbers on the tussock grasslands of Lake and Vincent counties in Central Otago during the pastoral era. The study found that the eruptive phase of the pastoral expansion took place within the first twenty years of the country being stocked; and this peak ‘was almost entirely gained by chewing into the native pasturage’.5 After reaching a peak, there was a short phase where numbers remained at a high level before they began a long steady decline. In Vincent and Lake counties, there was a drop of 60 per cent in the stock load of native grasslands in the years between 1881 and 1905.6 The obvious conclusion from these statistics was that the decline in stock numbers indicated that overstocking had occurred, which had resulted in tussock grassland deterioration.

However, there are problems with this analytical model: firstly, can stock numbers on their own really be used as a tool to measure the carrying capacity of the land; and is a decline in sheep numbers necessarily indicative of depletion of the vegetation cover?

Sheep Numbers and Stock LoadingThe reliance on using sheep numbers alone as a tool for appraising the carrying capacity of land has inherent weaknesses. Some farmers have found that by reducing sheep numbers they have actually increased the amount of meat and wool that they have produced off their land, illustrating that a decline in numbers does not necessarily reflect a decline in the pasturage. Changing to more productive breeds, increasing the size of sheep or changing the structure of the flock can change the stock loading on the land. This cannot be measured by using sheep numbers alone as an assessment tool. Farmers, agricultural scientists, financiers and others have long recognised this limitation and use a stock loading analysis to assess how much feed a particular flock may require. It is obvious that different classes of sheep utilise different amounts of feed and this can change through the year. For example, a young sheep might eat less than an adult; a ewe that is feeding a lamb requires more and better quality feed than a wether that is kept just for its wool. There have been several models used to elucidate different values for different classes of stock; the one used here


was developed by Ian Coop, an agricultural scientist. This method of assessing the stock load is based on a ewe with a live weight of 55 kg (120 pounds) that rears one lamb through to weaning. This is known as a ewe equivalent or one stock unit. Table 4.1 compares different classes of stock against a ewe equivalent, which gives us a much better picture of the stock loading on the land than a simple tally of overall numbers.

TABLE 4.1 Ian Coop – Table of Ewe Equivalents7

Class of stock Live weight (pounds) Ewe equivalents

Ewe (Merino) 80 0.8

Ewe 100 0.9

Ewe (Standard) 120 1.0

Ewe 140 1.1

Wether 80–90 0.6

Hogget 50–90 0.7

Ram 160 0.8

Beef Cow 1000 6.0

An example of how this measure works can be seen in Table 4.2, which shows three possible stocking options all running 3000 sheep; yet the stock loading, measured in Coop’s stock units, ranges from 1800 to 2700. Let us say the first column represents a farm on good country, perhaps on the upper Canterbury Plains or downlands, which comfortably winters ewes and replacement hoggets. The second column might be a harder hill farm with less wintering country, so it runs fewer ewes and has a wether flock that winters on the harder parts of the run. The third column represents a cold, backcountry run that can only safely winter wethers and has to buy in its replacement stock. The table demonstrates that the use of sheep numbers, as a means of assessing the stock loading of any given property, is far too simplistic a measure.

TABLE 4.2 Example of Three Stocking Loads Using Ewe Equivalents for Different Classes of Stock

3000 sheep 3000 sheep 3000 sheep

Ewes = 1 su 2000 = 2000 su 1000 = 1000 su nil

Wethers = .6 su nil 1000 = 600 su 3000 = 1800 su

Hoggets = .7 su 1000 = 700 su 1000 = 700 su nil

Total stock units 2700 2300 1800


This example illustrates how stock numbers and stock loading can vary on different properties according to their natural resources. There are other factors, too, that affect the stock loading on a single run over time. The development of refrigeration encouraged runholders to breed sheep for meat rather than for the fine wool market where prices were in decline. This led to a shift from small Merino sheep farmed for their fine wool to bigger, heavier crossbreds. It also led to an increase in breeding ewes and a reduction in wether numbers. Climatic factors also influenced pastoralists to change the stock loading on their runs. In the high country a series of snowy winters, which caused high and costly sheep losses, encouraged some to stock their runs more conservatively, while a run of dry seasons led to a similar re-evaluation of the sheep loading in other areas.

Case Study: Mt Peel

Sheep Numbers and Stock Loading, 1856 to 1912According to the Vincent County example, the rise and decline of sheep numbers on Mt Peel Station should follow a pattern where there was a rapid increase in numbers for the first twenty years after the run was initially stocked, a short plateau phase when numbers were held at a high level, then a gradual decline as the sheep population reduced the height and density of the vegetation and the species diversity. In fact, using actual sheep numbers on Mt Peel between 1857 and 1911, we find that there is only a tenuous similarity with the pattern of change found in semi-arid Central Otago. There is a similar steep rise in sheep numbers but the plateau is extended, and although there is an apparent drop off, it is neither steep nor prolonged.

Chart 4.1 shows that sheep numbers increased rapidly in the 1860s and early 1870s on Mt Peel. In 1873–74 the flock reached 40,000; two years later in 1875–76, twenty years after sheep were first brought onto the run, the flock passed 44,000. In a twenty-two year period between 1873 and 1895, Mt Peel shore on average 43,205 sheep annually, with numbers peaking at 46,291 in 1886–87, thirty years after the station was first stocked. The big snow of 1895 ended the high plateau of sheep numbers on Mt Peel when losses accounted for 35 per cent of the flock and numbers did not recover to the highest levels of the 1880s and early 1890s.

Using only sheep numbers as a measure, it could be argued that, because Mt Peel was a good property, the plateau phase lasted longer than on less favourable runs, but that the outcome was the same and in the end the fertility of the soil


declined, the vegetation became depleted and the sheep numbers dropped. However, measures of production other than sheep numbers reveal that the output of the station continued to increase throughout the period under review. Moreover, the fall in sheep numbers on Mt Peel after 1895 can be accounted for without recourse to the argument that it was driven by overstocking and subsequent deterioration of the vegetation.

Measures of Productivity on Mt PeelChart 4.2 reveals that from 1858 to 1899 the weight of wool shorn per sheep steadily increased. In 1858 the average wool cut per sheep was a low figure of 2lb 5 oz, probably because of the high number of young stock that had been purchased to establish the flock. By the 1860–61 shearing, wool weight increased to 3 pounds per head; by 1873–74 it reached 5 pounds per head; and by the 1885–86 shearing, wool cut per sheep passed 6 pounds. In 1891 it reached a peak of 7lb 6oz, although 1897–98 was not far behind this with 7lb 5oz per sheep. So we have through this period a rising level of wool production per sheep. This is not indicative of a station on the verge of environmental collapse.

CHART 4.1 Sheep Numbers on Mt Peel, 1857 to 1911


CHART 4.2 Mt Peel Wool Weight Shorn per Sheep

CHART 4.3 Mt Peel Wool Production


The sum of wool cut per head and sheep numbers gives us the overall wool production from Mt Peel from 1870 to 1898, which is illustrated by Chart 4.3. Although there were variations between years, due to the affect of climate, overall, wool production steadily increased on Mt Peel over this time. The dip at the end of the period was the result of the 1895 snow, when the station lost 18,200 sheep and the sheep that survived were in poor condition. However, indications are that wool production on the station soon recovered from this disaster.

Another statistic showing a steady increase in productivity at Mt Peel is the number of lambs marked on the station in the years from 1862 to 1911 (see Chart 4.4). As we know, a ewe that raises a lamb requires a lot more feed than a wether or a ewe that is dry. The numbers of lambs marked steadily increased throughout the period, apart from the dip caused by the 1895 snow. The increase in the number of lambs from the end of the 1880s indicates Mt Peel’s response to the establishment of the frozen meat trade, when the station set out to produce lambs for the burgeoning store sheep market.

All of these measures – wool weight per sheep, the overall wool production of the station and the number of lambs marked – are evidence of increasing productivity on Mt Peel. They do not indicate that over fifty years of grazing sheep on the property had led to the depletion of the vegetation.

CHART 4.4 Lambs Marked


CHART 4.5 Mt Peel Ewe Numbers

CHART 4.6 Mt Peel Weather Numbers


Flock structureThe change in the flock structure over time on Mt Peel also changed the stock loading on the station. The charts showing changes in ewe and wether numbers (Charts 4.5 and 4.6) again emphasise the point that the use of sheep numbers alone is a poor measure of the stock loading of a property.

The change in the balance between ewes and wethers represented a response to several factors, but most significantly to the changing requirements of the marketplace. In the early years the station needed a high proportion of ewes to build up the flock. Once the station was fully stocked, it became necessary to keep only enough ewes to maintain existing numbers. From the late 1860s until the development of the frozen meat trade in 1882, there was almost no demand for surplus stock, so it made no sense to breed more sheep than were needed. Wool provided almost the only income through this time, and since wethers grow more wool than ewes, given the same level of feeding, the station built up its wether flock and reduced its ewe flock. So we find that adult ewes made up 50 per cent of the flock in 1874, whereas by 1879 the percentage of ewes had dropped to 30. This policy changed after the establishment of the frozen meat trade. The charts show a rapid decrease in the number of wethers kept and an increase in the number of ewes retained, so that by 1906 the Mt Peel flock consisted of 52 per cent adult ewes, and only 21 per cent adult wethers.

TABLE 4.3A Changes in Sheep Numbers on Mt Peel8

YearMated ewes Dry ewes Wethers Hoggets Others

Total sheep

1875–76 11,000 10,835 12,282 5222 4729 44,076

1892–93 15,952 3340 16,506 6218 3809 45,825

1910–11 17,410 4004 9876 9581 324 41,195

TABLE 4.3B Changes in the Stock Loading on Mt Peel

Year

Mated ewes@ 1 su

Dry ewes@ 0.7 su

Wethers@ 0.6 su

Hoggets@ 0.7 su

Others0.7 (*0.8)

Total stock units

1875–76 11,000 7585 7369 3655 3310 32,919

1892–93 15,952 2338 9903 4352 2162 35,211

1910–11 17,410 2803 5925 6706 259* 33,103

Note: Table 4.3b converts Mt Peel’s actual sheep numbers (from Table 4.3a above) to stock units using Coop’s ewe equivalent value.


Tables 4.3a and b illustrate how the change in the structure of the flock changed the stock loading of the property. Over the thirty-six-year period represented here, overall sheep numbers declined by 2881, yet the stock loading, as measured in stock units, increased by 184 sheep. Notice that the major changes are in the number of ewes mated and the decline is in numbers of adult wethers.

Increased Body Weight of SheepAnother measure that needs to be taken into account when assessing the stock loading on Mt Peel is any increase in the size of the sheep over time and its influence on the feed demand on the run. After all, bigger sheep eat more feed. Merinos in the early years were small sheep: they weighed less than 50 pounds and cut 2-to-3 pounds of wool. Breeders in both Australia and New Zealand soon set about improving their sheep, and by the 1890s it had become common for Merinos to weigh 80 pounds or more, an increase of 60 per cent over the live weight of sheep in the 1850s. So if a run carried, say, 10,000 sheep in 1860 and only 8000 in 1890, the ‘numbers model’ would suggest that deterioration of the vegetation was having an impact on the flock. Yet if the sheep had increased in size by 60 per cent then the run, in 1890, would be carrying 12,800 equivalents of the 1850s sheep – an increase in the stock load, not a decrease.

There is little information on the weight of the Mt Peel sheep, so we cannot accurately reconstruct what changes were taking place. However, there are clues that the sheep did get bigger over the years. For example, the rise in wool cut per head, from just over 2 pounds to over 7 pounds, is a good indication of that increase. In the mid-1960s, Coop studied two flocks of Halfbreds and two flocks of Merinos for the effects of live weight on fertility and wool production. He found that ‘[on] average, each 10lb increase in live weight is associated with two-thirds of a pound increase in fleece weight’.9 Using Coop’s rule, a 1.8 kilogram (5 pound) increase in wool suggests an increase in live weight of the Mt Peel sheep in the order of about 30 kilograms (66 pounds). If we assume a low live weight to match the low wool cut of 900 grams (2 pounds), then the sheep at the outset were, say, 15.8 kilograms (35 pounds); whereas, by the turn of the century the average live weight of the sheep could have been about 45 kilograms (100 pounds).

The shift to cross-breeding would have also had a significant impact on the size of sheep. Stock breeders in the nineteenth century had a clear practical understanding of the value of hybrid vigour without knowing anything about Mendelian genetics. They were fully aware that the first cross of two breeds grew faster and bigger and was more productive than either of the parent breeds.


Sheep farmers began using English breeds over the base Merino flock early in the settlement of New Zealand. In the South Island, a shift away from Merinos was underway in the 1870s and the tempo of change increased markedly after the establishment of the frozen meat trade.

At Mt Peel, English Leicester rams were first used over Merino ewes in 1884, and by 1896 nearly half of the Merino flock were mated to rams of English breeds.10 In 1910, nearly 31,800 of the 41,000 sheep on the run were crossbreds; that represented over 77 per cent of the flock.11 This shift in breed away from Merinos would have resulted in an increase in the live weight of the sheep and an increase in the stock loading on the run. Tables 4.4a and b illustrate this point.

TABLE 4.4A Changes in Sheep Numbers on Mt Peel (as for Table 4.3a)


Total sheep

1875–76 11,000 10,835 12,282 5222 4729 44,068

1892–93 15,612 3340 16,506 6218 3340 45,825

1910–11 17,410 4004 9876 9581 324 41,195

TABLE 4.4B Changes in the Stock Loading on Mt Peel


Total stock units

1875–76su

7700@ 0.7

5417@ 0.5

4912@ 0.4

2611@ 0.5

2364@ 0.5

23,004

1892–93 su

12,489@ 0.8

2004@ 0.6

8253@ 0.5

3731@ 0.6

2285@ 0.6

28,481

1910–11su

15,669@ 0.9

2802@ 0.7

5925@ 0.6

6706@ 0.7

259@ 0.8

31,361

Note: Table 4.4b adjusts the ewe equivalent values to account for changes in body weight.

For the years 1875–76, I have accounted for a body weight for the mated ewes of 27 kilograms (60 pounds) and based the values for the other classes of sheep on that figure. In the years 1892–93, I have adjusted the weight of the mated ewes to 36 kilograms (80 pounds) and in 1910 to 45 kilograms (100 pounds). It is the last column that really tells the story here. Table 4.4a shows a decline in the total sheep numbers of 2873, but, using my estimated live weights, Table 4.4b illustrates that the number of stock units carried increased by 8357.


Table 4.4b demonstrates that there was probably a marked increase in stock units carried on Mt Peel as the station moved into cross-breeding and carrying more ewes to take advantage of the opportunities offered by the frozen meat trade. The figures I have used suggest there could have been a 36 per cent increase in the stock load on Mt Peel during the time that sheep numbers decreased by 2873. Thus an increase in the body weight of the sheep, their increased productivity and the change to the structure of the flock more than made up for the decrease in numbers after the 1895 snow.

This finding is speculative to the extent that we do not have actual live weights of Mt Peel sheep over time, but we know that throughout Canterbury and Otago sheep were getting bigger due to improved breed selection, cross-breeding and better feeding. We also know that the Mt Peel sheep were well regarded. The manager, Oliver Scott Thomson, wrote in 1901 that ‘the Mt Peel sheep are getting a good name amongst both farmers and dealers’. He went on, ‘so far we have made a record [price] for sheep in these parts and also I think anywhere in Canterbury, having got a pound a head net on the place for 1000 halfbred ewes’.12 Clearly, for the station to achieve a record price for its sale stock they must have been at least as well grown as other sheep on the market.

Accounting for the Decrease after 1895It would be a mistake to see the failure of the station to rebuild numbers in the years immediately after the 1895 snow as evidence of overstocking in former times with consequent depletion of the vegetation. Other reasons account for the reduction in overall numbers on Mt Peel after 1895. In part, it was a response to a deliberate policy to stock the property more conservatively. Scott Thomson made this point explicitly in a letter in May 1898, saying that the run could carry another 2000 sheep, but he felt it was always better to be understocked.13

Another factor to account for the reduction in sheep numbers was the loss of some valuable wintering country. The lease of Run No.3, which Mt Peel held, came up for auction in 1900. Acland could not bid for the run under the regulations of the Land Act, which were designed to reduce land monopoly and enforce the notion of one man/one run. The lease was purchased by a neighbour, Francis Barker, who was unable to stock it because he could not afford to pay the high prices that were ruling for sheep at that time; so Mt Peel rented it for the following year. However, Barker took over the run at the beginning of 1901 and Mt Peel lost 1092 hectares (2700 acres) of safe wintering country. 14 This reduced its stock-carrying capacity.


A third reason for the reduction in stock numbers was Acland’s precarious financial situation throughout the 1890s.15 This culminated in a crisis in 1898 when he came close to losing the station. These financial difficulties and the high prices for sheep in 1899 encouraged Scott Thomson to sell sheep that were capital stock to help reduce the station’s indebtedness.16 This, of course, reduced the number to be carried on the station.

Inclement weather in the early 1900s also took its toll on sheep numbers. Several severe snow storms in early spring of 1902 had Scott Thomson writing that he had ‘never had such a bad lambing’.17 The following winter was also a bad one, with heavy snow arriving in the middle of May. At shearing time in January 1904 the station was 6000 sheep short.18 Another big snow in 1908 caused widespread sheep losses throughout the South Island backcountry, and Mt Peel shore 8000 fewer sheep the following summer.

Thus the loss of wintering country, Acland’s financial difficulties in the late 1890s and high sheep losses due to a series of adverse seasons combined to prevent Mt Peel’s sheep numbers returning to their high levels of the early 1890s. There is nothing in the station records to suggest that a process of vegetation depletion had any influence on the stock loading fifty-five years after Mt Peel had first been stocked.

Contemporary Accounts of Overstocking

Overstocking received a good deal of criticism in the agricultural press from the late 1860s, by which time the runs in their native state were considered to be fully stocked and the lack of an outlet for surplus sheep became painfully obvious to pastoralists. A letter published in the Christchurch Press in 1869 raised this issue. It noted the ‘rapid and continued decline in the price of sheep’, and that with ‘[m]any runs practically now overstocked’ some runholders were ‘only too anxious to get rid of their abundance at almost any price’.19 The establishment of boiling down and meat preserving works provided only a limited market for surplus sheep, and it was not until the frozen meat trade became established after 1882 that there was a ready outlet for the natural increase of sheep on farms and stations.

Mt Peel was still stocking up until about 1874 when the flock reached 44,000. Thereafter the station’s management dealt with the problem of the lack in demand for sheep by concentrating on wool production and limiting the natural increase. From the mid-1870s the station increased the wether flock and reduced ewe numbers. It produced only enough lambs each year to replace those sheep


that had died through old age or misadventure. It is unlikely that Mt Peel was unique in adopting this approach when the demand for sheep collapsed.

However, even the attempt to hold sheep numbers at a constant level could mean that in difficult seasons, unless there was a deliberate policy to understock, a property could quickly become overstocked. This linkage between good and bad seasons and understocking or overstocking is found regularly in the agricultural press. ‘Ovis’, writing in the New Zealand Country Journal, summed it up concisely in 1897: ‘with dry weather comes overstocking – it is practically impossible to avoid it’.20 Similarly, in 1886 with drought taking its toll on crops and pastures in North Otago, one writer thought that ‘[o]verstocking may account somewhat for the severity of the dry weather being felt so soon in the grass paddocks.’21 After a dry summer in most districts in 1895, which had followed an ‘exceptionally heavy lambing’ the previous spring, ‘Ovis’ reported that the country was ‘stocked to its utmost carrying capacity and it is to be feared that before winter is over it will be found that it is considerably overstocked’.22

Conversely, there were many comments about the country being understocked during good seasons. In 1881, the year before the Dunedin sailed with its first shipment of frozen meat and when the country was supposedly stocked to capacity, the Country Journal commented on the ‘abundance of feed’ and noted that ‘most of the “stations” are insufficiently stocked’.23 By the early 1890s the numbers of sheep killed and shipped for the frozen meat trade had an impact on the stock load particularly in Canterbury, which dominated the trade though this period. In August 1900 we read that ‘Canterbury is . . . considerably understocked’ and had been so for the last four years.24 Moreover, it was not just the farms that were fattening stock for the frozen meat trade that were understocked. The Otago Witness reported that the sheep returns for 1900 showed a decrease of 33,085 sheep in the South Island as a result of the export trade. The writer commented on the situation, saying that ‘[i]t is not as though the runs were overstocked; on the contrary’.25 Thus it was apparent in the contemporary agricultural press that the variability of the climate and periodic dry seasons accounted for some of the overstocking that received so much comment.

Another factor that influenced overstocking was the management skills of farmers. In general, according to the farming press, small farmers were regarded as less competent than large operators. The Timaru Herald observed that a ‘large per centage [sic] of the small farms in the southern districts are owned by men who, in the first instance, are not practical farmers’.26 In an article on the shift from grain growing to the establishment of pasture for sheep farming after the


opening of the frozen meat trade, the Otago Witness noted the difference in management practices between large and small farmers, writing ‘[e]xcept on the large estates the importance of permanent pastures has not been sufficiently apparent to farmers’.27 The Country Journal made numerous comments regarding the issue of the management skills of small farmers. In 1894 ‘Ovis’ complained that the small farmer ‘lacks systematic management’; two years later he was at it again, writing that the ‘management of small flocks is not good’; and in 1897 he noted that ‘generally speaking medium and large flocks are better managed’.28 Part of his explanation for this situation was the rapid increase of small flocks after the subdivision of the large estates. Consequently, many new sheep farmers were coming into the business with ‘next to no experience’ and, he could have added, often with limited capital.29

Pastoralists, Cultural Values and Overstocking

Despite contemporary accounts that claimed the management of larger properties was superior to that of small farms, the criticism of overstocking has been loudest about the stations in the tussock grasslands. This begs the question, why would pastoralists overstock their land when the consequences were depleted vegetation and declining productivity of the stock? Three obvious conclusions were drawn: that the pastoralists misread the carrying capacity of the land; that their intention was to make a quick profit and return to Britain, so how they treated the land was of no relevance to them; or that they were simply incompetent at the business.

However, it can be argued that the first generation of pastoralists were improvers, by and large, who set out to establish long-term, viable businesses. Indeed, they spent considerable time, effort and money in improving both their stock and their land. The deliberate overstocking of the land would have negated this work and expenditure. Moreover, outside the semi-arid districts that were overwhelmed by rabbits, the productivity of the land was maintained or continued to increase until such time as the properties were subdivided.

An established argument in the history of pastoralism in New Zealand is that many runholders came to the colony to make a fortune from the business and then returned to England with the profits.30 George Duppa, who arrived in Nelson in 1841 and later established the St Leonards run in the Amuri District, and Samuel Butler, are famous examples of men who made handsome profits from large-scale sheep farming. The implication here is that those who came to make a quick profit in a short time were less likely to care for the land than those


who viewed the business as a long-term enterprise. However, a large majority of the runholders were not just fly-by-night sojourners after a quick profit, and most did not return to live in Britain. Of 245 individuals who took up runs in Canterbury between 1843 and 1865, 172, or 70 per cent, died as New Zealand residents.31 There are numerous examples of men like George Rutherford, John Hall, Acland and Tripp, John Cracroft Wilson and John Grigg who came to New Zealand with the intention of staying. It was not in their interests to overstock or deplete the land that they saw as their legacies to their families.

There has also been a good deal of debate about the backgrounds and motives of the early pastoralists in the South Island grasslands. Stevan Eldred-Grigg described them as ‘almost completely upper class and upper-middle class’ Englishmen who set out ‘to recreate aristocratic English life in the colony’.32 Jim McAloon does not agree with this analysis, arguing that the early pastoralists endeavoured to increase their ‘individual and family wealth’ and were ‘forward looking rural capitalists, not backward-looking feudal lords’.33 Indeed, McAloon has stressed that farming was very much a business proposition and that pastoralists at the time thought that success in the business was based on sound training and hard work.34

The values of hard work, enterprise and wealth creation together informed the entrepreneurial spirit in Victorian society, whether in Britain or its Empire, and this was reflected in attitudes of the first generation of pastoralists in the South Island grasslands. Peter Bowler, in his study of the Victorian era, contended that a fundamental belief of Victorian society was the conviction that individual effort was a driving force of progress.35 In Australia, D. B. Waterson concluded that the ‘chief idol’ of the early squatters on the Darling Downs was financial success, which ‘rested on one foundation, hard physical labour’.36 Butler noted the same values in Canterbury when he arrived in 1860, writing that ‘people here are busy making money; that is the inducement which led them to coming in the first instance, and they show their sense by devoting their energies to work’.37

Moreover, a passion for the business of sheep farming is found in the writing from the time. Butler described the first evening he spent in Christchurch with a group of pastoralists whom he described as ‘shaggy, clear-complexioned, brown and healthy-looking’.38 He was enthralled, at first, by their conversation:

The all-engrossing topics seemed to be sheep, horses, dogs, cattle, English grasses, paddocks, bush, and so forth. From about seven o’clock in the evening till about twelve at night I cannot say that I heard much else. I was rather startled


at hearing one gentleman ask another whether he meant to wash this year, and receive the answer ‘No’. I soon discovered that a person’s sheep are himself. If his sheep are clean, he is clean. He does not wash his sheep before shearing; but he washes; and, most marvellous of all, it is not his sheep which lamb, but he ‘lambs down’ himself.39

Word of mouth was one way by which ideas on farming were passed between established pastoralists and newcomers. More formal systems were also established to disseminate information amongst the sheep-owning community. The cadet system, where neophytes paid for their apprenticeships on stations in order to gain practical experience in the business, was established at the outset

Christchurch Club, 1863 and 1900. Twelve sheep owners founded the Christchurch Club in 1856 to provide accommodation and a place to meet when they came to town to do business. Barton Acland was one of the early members and was a regular visitor to the club. It was here, over a meal or a whisky, that the latest ideas about sheep breeding and news about the wool market were discussed in depth. Information like who were the best ram breeders, what type of sheep might suit different types of land and what was the best concoction for controlling scab would have been valuable for any newcomers to the business. The building seen on the left in the 1863 photograph is Collin’s Hotel. The Christchurch Club, following the tradition of such clubs in England, was for men only. The wives and children of runholders stayed at the hotel while the men stayed at the club. Canterbury Museum, 5184


of pastoralism in the grasslands. Butler was sceptical about the value of the cadet system, but Acland and Tripp, who were both cadets before taking up Mt Peel, thought it worked well.40

Agricultural and pastoral societies were formed in Canterbury in 1853 and 1859, and in 1863 they were succeeded by the Canterbury Agricultural and Pastoral Association which ran annual shows from that time. Similar associations were established throughout the South Island. In 1877 the Canterbury association established the New Zealand Country Journal to disseminate information to farmers and pastoralists. Farmers’ clubs were another means of spreading information, with the first club in Canterbury being established in 1858. In the same year the club arranged for the first ploughing match in the province.41 Farmers’ clubs often organised demonstrations of the latest machinery, such as reapers and binders, and steam ploughs. The enthusiasm for new ideas and new technology was a feature of the times. A note in Barton Acland’s letterbook emphasised this point: ‘men and women came out from Great Britain’, he wrote, ‘to reproduce the England of their youth in every [respect] and not only that but also to carry on in the new country every new invention which was brought out in the old’.42

The point here is that pastoralists were part of a community where there were systems for disseminating information and where there was a genuine enthusiasm for the business. They were also part of a society that believed that the world could be improved by hard work and technical innovation. It may have been that in the early years some did misread the environment and the carrying capacity of the country. Indeed, a learning process took place in the pastoral era whereby sheep owners came to terms with the landscape and climate of the region. Of course, in the early years the stocking rate was low, as it took some time to build up sheep numbers. Mt Peel was first stocked with sheep in 1857, but did not reach its long-term sheep load until the mid-1870s. These years gave the runholders and managers time to learn to balance sheep numbers with the interests of the vegetation. There was no advantage for men like Barton Acland to overstock or overburn their land; it was much more in their interest to establish long-term enterprises that they could pass on to their descendants.

Assessing the Sheep Loading on the Ground

Changes in the stocking loads varied considerably between different counties and between different stations across the South Island in the pastoral era. Perhaps the most significant factors to influence these outcomes were the


natural resources of the different stations. Using data from the annual sheep returns published in the Appendices to the Journals of the House of Representatives between 1879 and 1910, we can assess what changes took place on different properties and account for the reasons for these different outcomes.

Table 4.5 shows three Canterbury counties, three Otago counties and one from Southland. Perhaps the most telling information here is that the most precipitous decline in sheep numbers took place in Vincent and Lake counties, and that it was not matched elsewhere. Sheep numbers fell by 44 per cent in Vincent County, from 496,994 in 1879 to 277,630 in 1910. In neighbouring Lake County the decline over the same period was from 373,964 to 242,401, a fall of 35 per cent. It is likely that parts of the Upper Waitaki and the Mackenzie Basin suffered similar declines in sheep numbers, but both of these regions were parts of larger districts and any decline in numbers that they experienced was covered by increases elsewhere in their counties.

TABLE 4.5 Changes in Sheep Numbers by Selected Counties, 1879 to 191043

County 1879% Change 1890

%Change 1900

%Change 1910

% Changeoverall

Selwyn 537,276 ∧ 18.6 637,202 ∧ 1.6 647,419 ∧ 28.8 795,153 ∧ 48

Ashburton 508,262 ∧ 38 701,845 ∧ 5.2 738,816 ∧ 27 938,750 ∧ 84.7

Waimate 425,132 ∧ 50.38 639,353 ∨ 13.85 550,763 ∧ 7.6 592,754 ∧ 39.4

Waitaki 529,469 ∧ 2.2 541,209 ∨ 2.6 526,948 ∧ 12 590,666 ∧ 11

Vincent 496,994 ∨ 16.67 414,150 ∨ 29 294,153 ∨ 5.6 277,630 ∨ 44

Lake 373,964 ∨ 61.8 142,823 ∧ 11.75 159,603 ∧ 51.88 242,401 ∨ 35

Wallace 190,287 ∧ 123 424,537 ∧ 3.36 438,821 ∧ 18.78 521,254 ∧ 178.8

TOTAL 3,061,384 ∧ 14.36 3,501,119 ∨ 4.2 3,356,523 ∧ 17.94 3,958,608 ∧ 29.3

There a several other striking features in this table. First, the collapse in sheep numbers in Lake County occurred in the decade of the 1880s when a staggering fall of nearly 62 per cent was recorded. This was the time when the rabbit plague was at its worst in that region. The county experienced a slight recovery in the following decade, and then between 1900 and 1910 sheep numbers lifted by over 50 per cent. Of the seven counties recorded here, only Vincent County suffered a decline in each decade. In this largely semi-arid country, rabbits became endemic and the population remained high from the 1880s on. The combination of the dry climate and high rabbit numbers severely reduced the vegetation cover and gave it little opportunity to recover.


Some of the other counties enjoyed a considerable rise in sheep numbers over the period, the most spectacular being the increase of nearly 180 per cent in Wallace County. Wallace and Southland counties were the first to be overwhelmed by rabbits, and by 1879 sheep numbers had already fallen as a result. The subsequent decline in rabbits and increased cultivation and oversowing with grasses and clovers combined to lift pasture production and sheep numbers in the county.

Ashburton County experienced an increase in sheep numbers of nearly 85 per cent over the thirty-one year period. This rise came about from the large-scale regrassing of the plains that was associated with the cropping boom of the 1880s. After crops of wheat were taken, the land was sown down in ‘English’ grasses44 and clovers, lifting the stocking rates well above the levels that were run on the original native vegetation. A similar process took place in Selwyn and Waimate counties; the smaller percentage increases were due to the less extensive areas suitable for cultivation in these counties. None of these three counties suffered as severely from the rabbit pest as Lake, Vincent and Wallace over this period. Indeed, rabbits were not a problem in Selwyn and Ashburton counties throughout this time, but the pest did have an impact on parts of Waimate County, particularly the hilly areas that bordered the Mackenzie Country to the west.

Rabbits also had an impact on sheep numbers in Waitaki County. Parts of the county, especially the downlands around Oamaru, grew some of the best crops and grazed some of the best flocks in the South Island. However, the Omarama, Otematata and Kurow districts were overwhelmed by rabbits and sheep numbers plummeted. Moreover, the whole county suffered regularly from dry seasons and occasional protracted droughts which also kept sheep numbers down.

Another salient feature that shows up in Table 4.5 is that the 1890s saw an overall decline in growth across the whole region. During the previous decade, Wallace County had seen a 123 per cent increase in sheep; in the nineties the increase was only 3.36 per cent. The largest increase – 11.75 per cent – was in Lake County, which was recovering from the rabbit plague of the 1880s. There are a number of reasons why this trend occurred. First, as this chapter has emphasised, sheep were getting bigger so any slowing in the increase in sheep numbers does not necessarily reflect a decline in productivity. However, there are other factors that came into play that may also account for any slowing in the rate of growth. Climatically the 1890s were a difficult period for farmers and sheep owners. The 1895 snow killed many thousands of sheep, and a two-year drought in Canterbury, and North and Central Otago late in the decade

Te Waimate Station, c. early 1880s. The photograph shows the homestead and station buildings on a low terrace above the heavy flax-covered flats that were progressively ploughed and sown in grass. A small pocket of native bush can be seen to the right of the homestead. Originally there were two quite large stands of native bush within the station’s boundaries, but in 1878–79 fire destroyed much of the Waimate Bush.

The Studholme brothers took up Te Waimate in 1854 and it is still held by the family today, although it is now a farm rather than a huge run. The brothers were possibly the largest private landholders in New Zealand’s history, having held stations in Canterbury, Otago and the North Island. In 1879 they dissolved their partnership, and Michael Studholme took over Te Waimate on his own account. In 1880 the station comprised 18,600 hectares (46,000 acres) of freehold and 10,500 hectares (26,000 acres) of leasehold land and carried 82,000 sheep, 2500 head of cattle and 350 horses.

Michael Studholme was one of the more energetic improvers in Canterbury, and up to the time he died in 1886 the drainage undertaken at Te Waimate nearly matched that of John Grigg at Longbeach. As well as draining the swampland along the coastal strip, Studholme began to develop a belt of heavy flax-covered land that stretched from the Waimate Gorge nearly to the coast. As part of its cultivation programme, the station cropped about 1600 hectares (4000 acres) each year and then sowed the land down in ‘English’ grasses.

Despite the size of Te Waimate, like many other pastoralists, the Studholmes struggled during the 1880s and early 1890s. In 1886 the family began selling off parts of their freehold land, and in the big auction of the South Canterbury pastoral leases held in Timaru in 1889 they were outbid for their leasehold country and lost it. By 1895 the station had been reduced to 12,550 hectares (31,000 acres) of freehold land. Leo Acland, in The Early Canterbury Runs (p.197), wrote that part of their trouble was due to their development and that draining the Waimate Swamp cost more than the land was later sold for. Canterbury Museum, 574/1


caused sheep owners to lighten the stocking loads on their properties. The early nineties also saw a continuation of depressed prices for wool and sheep meat so that many farmers and pastoralists did not have surplus money to invest in improvements, such as cultivation and fencing. By the middle of the decade, the reduction in shipping costs led to an improvement in the profitability of exporting frozen meat. Farmers in Canterbury, in particular, exported so much sheep meat that they reduced their capital stock and had to import sheep from other regions to keep up their exports. This also resulted in slowing the growth of sheep numbers across the South Island.

The variation in sheep numbers across these seven counties is also evident in individual stations. A sample of twenty stations from Marlborough to Southland illustrates the sort of changes in sheep numbers found across the region. In general, there were five different outcomes for the stock loading on stations in the pastoral era. In the worst cases there was a complete or serious collapse of the stocking load. This was most evident on Earnscleugh, Morven Hills and Galloway in the semi-arid region of Vincent County. Flaxbourne, Molesworth, the Grampian Hills, Waitangi and Moa Flat also show a drop in sheep numbers that was followed by a readjustment of the stocking load at a lower level. Some stations, despite showing fluctuations over time, at the end of the period held similar numbers to those they had held at the start. This pattern is evident at Mesopotamia, Orari Gorge and Gladbrook. Another group, including Leslie Hills, Mt Parnassus, Glens of Tekoa, Mt Somers, Pareora and Castle Rock stations, increased their sheep numbers over time. It is notable that, although these properties can be subject to dry periods, they are in areas where rainfall is usually reliable. The fifth group, consisting of The Terrace, Springfield and The Mistake, demonstrated erratic shifts in sheep numbers.

At The Terrace and Springfield, the swings in sheep numbers did not represent overstocking and a subsequent decline in the productivity of the vegetation. Rather, Duncan Cameron at Springfield and John Hall at The Terrace adjusted their sheep numbers according to changing demands in the marketplace. Cameron increased or reduced his sheep flock depending on the relationship between crop and sheep prices. One year he sowed down 2226 hectares (5500 acres) in crop.46 He also fattened sheep for the frozen meat trade which reduced his flock numbers. Springfield remained one of the most highly regarded properties on the Canterbury Plains until it was broken up in 1908.

The Terrace was another highly regarded property and was renowned for the quality of its flock. The erratic pattern of sheep numbers seen in Table 4.6 was Hall’s response to the opportunities provided by the frozen meat trade; it was


not due to any loss in the productivity of the land. A report on The Terrace in the New Zealand Country Journal in 1889 noted that the station usually carried a flock of 30,000 sheep, but ‘owing to heavy drafts for freezing’ in 1888 it had shorn 27,473.47 The article reported that all the sheep were grass fed and that one-third of the station had been sown in ‘English’ grasses, with the balance in ‘tussock’. The high productivity of The Terrace was recognised in an article in 1893 about Canterbury stations that cut heavy clips of wool. Hall’s 26,784 sheep averaged 7lb 13½ oz of wool, representing one of the highest-clipping Merino flocks in the province.48

TABLE 4.6 Sheep Numbers and the Percentage Change in Sheep Numbers on Twenty Stations from Marlborough to Southland over a Twenty-two-year Period, 1879 to 190145

RUNAltitude athomestead (m)

Rainfall mm 1879 1901

% Change1879–1901

Flaxbourne 30 650 60,707 47,026 ∨ 22.5

Molesworth 893 640 28,727 35,526 ∧ 23.6

Mt Parnassus 106 950 30,369 37,380 ∧ 23

Leslie Hills 240 900 17,536 22,830 ∧ 30

Glens of Tekoa 360 1100 16,000 17,700 ∧ 10.6

The Terrace 210 900 28,781 29,698 ∧ 3

Springfield 244 840 19,600 25,719 ∧ 31.2

Mt Somers 457 1060 8932 10,000 ∧ 11.95

Mesopotamia 510 950 21,837 20,081 ∨ 8

Orari Gorge 285 1200 40,253 40,547 ∧ 0.7

The Mistake 720 750 11,000 7000 ∨ 36

Grampian Hills 600 500 19,700 16,893 ∨ 14.2

Holme/Pareora 150 650 40,527 60,000 ∧ 48

Waitangi 270 460 27,003 17,720 ∨ 34

Morven Hills 460 690 135,593 72,894 ∨ 46.2

Earnscleugh 200 360 24,000 Nil ∨ 100

Galloway 200 360 75,000 31,218 ∨ 58

Gladbrook 180 500 23,566 24,441 ∧ 3.7

Moa Flat 80 750 80,054 59,888 ∨ 25

Castle Rock 200 900 24,600 34,500 ∧ 40


Despite that apparent erratic pattern of sheep numbers, The Terrace and Springfield remained highly productive properties throughout the pastoral era. The same could not be said of The Mistake in the Mackenzie Country. The property, which is now known as Godley Peaks, runs from 720 metres (2400 feet) to over 2250 metres (7380 feet) above sea level. Although rainfall is more than adequate for growing pasture at 750 mm, the growing season is short due to the station’s altitude, which also makes the run subject to heavy snowfalls that have resulted in calamitous sheep losses. Moreover, there is a limited area suitable for cultivation so that the flock relied completely on the native pasturage. The station was badly affected by rabbits in the early 1890s and suffered heavy sheep losses in bad snow years. Consequently, The Mistake was one of the few stations outside Vincent County to demonstrate the sort of decline seen on Galloway and Earnscleugh.

Flaxbourne is representative of the stations where sheep numbers declined and then were held at a lower level. It was the first sheep station taken up in the South Island and included a huge area of easy to steep hill country along the Marlborough coastline and considerable areas of river flats and terraces. The annual rainfall averages 650 mm, although the region is subject to occasional severe and prolonged droughts. In the late 1870s and early 1880s, rabbits overran Flaxbourne and at one point the station was described as the ‘rabbit warren of the South Island’.49 By the early 1890s, the station management appeared to have had rabbits under control, and in 1905 Flaxbourne was reported to be ‘wonderfully clean’.50 The average stocking level on the station between 1879 and 1904 was 52,334 sheep. The 14 per cent decline in sheep numbers between 1879 and 1890 was almost certainly due to the impact of rabbits. It appears that the station’s carrying capacity was permanently reduced as sheep numbers never recovered to former levels after that time. However, the productivity of the sheep continued to improve, as demonstrated by this note in the Marlborough Express in December 1900: ‘With the shipment of 1400 bales of wool from the Flaxbourne Estate a record for the province for the output of wool from one station is established’.51 This evidence suggests that the stock loading of the station may well have increased over time, despite the decline in sheep numbers. This indication of increased production and the trend line for sheep numbers does not indicate long-term overstocking with sheep, but more of an adjustment to the stock loading to account for the impact of the rabbit plague.

In contrast to Flaxbourne, the overall trajectory of sheep numbers on the Glens of Tekoa was upward. Tekoa is a hard high country run in a high rainfall zone. The homestead lies at 360 metres (1200 feet) above sea level and the run

Glens of Tekoa Station buildings, c. 1895. William McRae, a Scot who had farmed in Ireland, took up the Glens of Tekoa and stocked it with sheep in the middle of 1858 and the station is still held by his descendants. The homestead and station buildings are sited by the Mandamus River about 3 kilometres upstream from the confluence of the Mandamus and Hurunui rivers. The name of the river comes from a legal term – a writ of mandamus being a court order that requires another court, government official, public body, corporation or individual to perform a certain act. It stems from a dispute between William Dampier and Alfred Domett, the Commissioner of Lands for the Province of Nelson. Dampier protested that the Glens of Tekoa was part of a block of land that he had claimed and that McRae had no right to it. Domett denied Dampier’s claim. In the end it all petered out, except that some wit named the river after the fracas. The first homestead was a further 5 kilometres up the Mandamus, but in 1865 the new homestead, built of bricks made on site, was established. It can be seen here, nestled among mature pine and poplar trees. The building closest to the river is the woolshed with its sheep yards. Other farm buildings and workers’ quarters are sited further up the terrace. At this time the station took in over 42,500 hectares (105,000 acres) and was running over 11,000 Merino sheep. The Glens of Tekoa is mostly hilly or mountainous country but several of the flatter areas below the homestead have been cultivated and fenced into paddocks. The lower hills behind the station buildings rise to about 853 metres above sea level, and are mainly short tussock grassland with some native scrub in places. The higher country in the background rises to over 1768 metres above sea level. Even today the Glens of Tekoa is a remote station, but in the pastoral era it was one of the more isolated runs. Despite that, it produced high quality sheep that were sought after at the local Culverden sales. Macmillan Brown Library, 1997/9 Neg 151-9


took in some steep and rugged hills and had only relatively small areas of land suitable for agricultural purposes. In the thirty-one years between 1879 and 1910, sheep numbers increased by 21.5 per cent. This increase may be accounted for, in part, because during this period the run was not overrun by rabbits. The sheep off the Glens of Tekoa were well regarded and fetched good prices at sales relative to neighbouring runs. At the 1901 Amuri Ewe Fair, Glens of Tekoa ewes, straight off tussock country, outsold ewes off much easier properties.52 Two-tooth halfbred wethers off the same property topped the sale for that class of sheep. The rising trend in sheep numbers and these examples of the high quality of the stock indicate that the run was neither overstocked nor overgrazed.

Bringing the Wethers over from the Jollie Brook block. A musterer with his dogs is helping to gather Merino wethers on the Jollie Brook block on the Glens of Tekoa Station. The station’s wethers spent the summer on the Jollie Brook, grazing on an extensive area of rough hills and mountains. In the autumn, musterers were employed to bring the sheep on to their winter country where they would be less likely to be caught in heavy snow. The Jollie Brook country was taken out of the Glens of Tekoa lease by the government in 1938 and became part of a forest park. This is a fine looking mob of Merinos and judging by their condition they were ready to face the winter. In the high country, where stock are not hand fed, the aim has always been to get the sheep as fat as possible in the summer and autumn, knowing that they would lose condition through the winter months. The musterer is leaning on his hill-stick, known as a nibbie in the old days. A nibbie is usually a manuka stick and musterers use them as an aid in getting around on the steep terrain in relative safety. Macmillan Brown Library, 1997/9 Neg 152-5


Musterers at the Jollie Brook Camp, c. 1895. Musterers and their dogs in the Jollie Brook camp. Accommodation for workers in the pastoral era was often rough, but when they were out on the hills conditions were spartan. This looks like a good camp site with beech trees providing shelter and ample firewood, but with all those men in two tents, sleeping conditions would have been tight, and on wet, snowy or foggy days, when they could not work, it must have been miserable. The dogs would have been chained to the trees and bushes around the camp site and had to put up with whatever the weather brought. The musterers are decked out in their working gear: hard-wearing moleskin or tweed trousers, woollen waistcoats and jackets, and broad-brimmed felt hats. A musterer’s three most important possessions were his dogs, his boots and his hill-stick. Macmillan Brown Library, 1997/9 Neg 152-6

In the thirty years between 1879 and 1909, the only time that the sheep flock dropped below 40,000 on Orari Gorge Station was in 1880 after the station had struggled through a bad winter. Through the 1880s and early 1890s the flock numbers were particularly high, but after suffering big losses in the 1895 snow the owners chose to stock the property more conservatively. In 1891 the flock peaked at 49,905 sheep; the pasturage that sustained them consisted of 25,660 hectares (63,400 acres) of native pasture, 980 hectares (2424 acres) of sown pasture, and 370 hectares (920 acres) in oats, turnips and rape.53 The improved area accounted for about 5 per cent of the total area of pasturage. The station had first been stocked in 1857, so clearly the native pasturage still


carried a large proportion of the flock fifty-two years later. Rabbits had little impact on Orari Gorge and there is no evidence of the run being overstocked. Consequently, the stock loading trend did not follow the decline seen in Lake and Vincent counties.

Sheep numbers on Gladbrook in the Strath Taieri District, east of Vincent County, varied considerably over the years of this study, although they were at the same level in 1908 as they had been in 1879. The station consisted of 12,140 hectares (30,000 acres) of leasehold and 3237 hectares (8000 acres) of freehold land. Including 1885, when the sheep flock was listed in the sheep returns at 14,722, which is almost certainly an error, the station carried on average 22,857 sheep annually. Sheep numbers peaked in 1893, thirty-four years after the station had been initially stocked. Numbers gradually declined from that peak, but not as precipitously as the ‘numbers’ model has proposed. Cultivation to grow winter feed for the stock became increasingly important with the first turnip crop being sown in 1875, well before the outbreak of rabbits on the station.54 In 1884 a correspondent of the Otago Witness visited Gladbrook and reported that 1417 hectares (3500 acres) of the freehold land had been cultivated with the balance improved by draining and surface seeding.55 He also noted that the natural grasses on the leasehold were in good condition, ‘as they [had] at no time recently been overstocked’.56 By the mid-1890s the cultivated country had been increased to take in about 2000 hectares (5000 acres).57 The average rainfall for the district is about 500 mm (22 inches) a year, and although the hills are subject to occasional heavy snow falls, it is rare for snow to lie for long on the flats.58 Rabbits remained a threat through the 1880s, but sheep numbers recovered after the rabbit population declined. Gladbrook was owned by the partnership of John Roberts and William Murray and the station’s stock were highly regarded. It had a famous Merino stud and a polled Angus cattle stud and remained a highly productive property throughout its history.

So what can we take from the sheep data and the thumbnail sketches of these runs? First, as has been noted throughout this book, there was a marked variation in response to long-term sheep grazing between regions and between runs. There is also an obvious correlation between rabbits and a decline in sheep numbers. The three runs in Vincent County – Morven Hills, Earnscleugh and Galloway – were the most dramatic examples of this. Further, it is clear that over time sheep were being grazed increasingly on pasturage where inputs had been applied. Pareora Station is an example of a property where a major increase in sheep numbers occurred on the back of ongoing development, whereas Gladbrook held numbers by developing its better country, which suggests that

Mt Royal Station, Palmerston, c. 1911. Mt Royal, a property situated on the coastal hills between Dunedin and Palmerston, is another example of a station that was able to maintain stock numbers over a long period. John Douglas purchased the core of the estate in 1870 and added to it over the next few years, so that by 1880 the property comprised 9300 hectares (23,000 acres) of freehold agricultural and pastoral country. He began to improve Mt Royal from the time he took it over, and by 1880 1000 hectares (2500 acres) had been ploughed and sown in ‘English’ grasses. Swamps and the wetter gullies were drained, burned and oversown with cocksfoot. The hill country was burned and cocksfoot grass seed oversown on the ashes. In 1880 Douglas was running over 21,000 sheep on Mt Royal and sheep numbers did not drop below this level until after Douglas died in 1903 and the executors began selling off parts of the estate. Over the thirty-five years that Douglas owned Mt Royal, the size of the flock did fluctuate, peaking at 31,400 in 1886, but stock levels on Mt Royal did not follow the pattern of decline seen in the runs in the semi-arid districts that were overrun by rabbits. Moreover, the stock off Mt Royal were regarded highly for their quality. For example, a report in the Otago Witness (15 March 1905, p.24) on the annual sale of the station’s stock commented that the sheep were ‘exceptionally well grown, in splendid condition, and showing a lot of breeding’. By World War I the landscape of much of the lowland country had been thoroughly transformed, initially by the impact of extensive pastoralism and then by the intensification of farming methods. The photograph of Mt Royal Station illustrates this transformation. The flats are cultivated and closely subdivided with wire fences. Extensive plantings of trees shelter the station buildings, with mature pines growing near the woolshed and the homestead. Most of the easy hills are open country, kept that way by stock grazing and possibly some burning. The best of the hill country has been oversown with cocksfoot and clovers to replace native species. Scrub shows up in some of the steep faces of the gullies between the hills. Although the buildings look dated, in many ways the landscape is quite modern. The intensive use of the flats and easy hills, and the less intensive use of the higher hills, wire fences, exotic trees and shrubs have transformed the original lowland tall-tussock vegetation that dominated the landscape at the time of settlement. Hocken Collections, 88.00910


the feeding level of the unimproved pasturage was declining. In contrast, the lift in sheep numbers on the Glens of Tekoa was almost all on the native grassland.

It is also timely at this point to remember the lesson from Mt Peel: the live weight of sheep and productivity were increasing on most of these stations over time. At Morven Hills, where sheep numbers had declined precipitously, 48,000 Merino sheep cut on average 9lb 8oz of wool in 1907.59 Moa Flat was regularly able to sell fat wethers that had been wintered on the natural pasture on the butchers’ market.60 The lambing on the station in the years preceding subdivision was close to 100 per cent.61

It seems likely that pastoralists adjusted the stocking level of their runs according to the productive capacity of their land. Where sheep numbers increased or were held at an even level, it is highly probable that the overall productivity of these properties increased. Where sheep numbers fell, the increased productivity of the sheep went some way to making up for the decline in numbers. Clearly, just counting sheep does not give us the information we need to understand changes in the stocking loads on runs in the pastoral era.

Refrigeration and its Impact on Sheep Numbers

The development of the frozen meat trade from 1882 had a profound influence on sheep production and stocking rates across the South Island grasslands. Government statistics show that sheep numbers peaked in Canterbury at 4,958,560 in 1886 and did not reach that figure again before the end of 1912.62 In Otago and Southland, sheep numbers stood at 4,446,855 in 1886 and did not surpass that figure until 1910 when the sheep population was tallied at 4,586,733. At face value it could be inferred that the three regions had exceeded their maximum sustainable stocking loads by 1886 and thereafter there was a readjustment of the stocking rate at a lower level. Indeed, historians have suggested that sheep farming reached its environmental limits in the South Island about 1900.63

However, the reduction in sheep numbers can be accounted for in other ways. Low prices in the frozen meat trade in the mid-1880s and the simultaneous collapse in wool prices encouraged farmers on the plains to crop their better land. The demand for sheep fell and sheep prices dropped to low levels. A drought in Canterbury and parts of Otago in late 1886 and early 1887 compounded the problem. Consequently, in 1887 over 600,000 sheep were boiled down in Canterbury alone.64 On its own, this would have had only a temporary impact on sheep numbers; but, when the South Island’s role in the


frozen meat trade is also taken into account, the stagnation in the region’s sheep population is easily explained.

The South Island dominated the export of frozen meat through the 1890s and into the first decade of the twentieth century, and the drive of sheep farmers to profit from the trade had a marked impact on the region’s sheep flock. The increase in the production of export carcases was dramatic. Between 1895 and 1900 the number of carcases exported from South Island ports increased by 45.5 per cent. Over the next decade the increase was in the order of 43.7 per cent. In order to produce this increase many farmers sold ewe lambs for export as well as wether lambs, which meant that fewer young ewes were available to build up the breeding ewe flock. In eight years, from 1897 to 1904, South Island breeding ewe numbers remained relatively static at about 4,600,000. In 1905 breeding ewes increased to over 5,000,000 and in 1909 they passed 6,000,000.65 Thus there was little opportunity for sheep numbers to increase in the South Island since farmers were selling capital stock to the frozen meat trade.

TABLE 4.7 Exports of Frozen Sheep and Lamb Carcases from South Island Regions and New Zealand, 1895, 1900, 191066

1895 Frozen sheep Frozen lamb Total carcases

South Island 916,620 668,148 1,584,768

New Zealand 1,603,311 759,224 2,362,535

S. Island % of total 57 % 88 % 67 %


South Island 1,304,141 1,002,484 2,306,625

New Zealand 2,145,287 1,202,836 3,348,123

S. Island % of total 60 % 83 % 68 %


South Island 672,493 2,642,370 3,314,863

New Zealand 2,000,131 3,858,003 5,858,134

S. Island % of total 33.6 % 68.5 % 56.6 %

A remarkable feature of the frozen meat trade in the pastoral era was the pre-eminence of Canterbury in the business. In 1899, 48.7 per cent of all mutton and lamb carcases exported from New Zealand to Britain came from the region. In the first six months of 1900, Canterbury accounted for 51 per cent of all frozen


carcases exported from New Zealand.67 The high number of sheep exported from Canterbury taxed the ability of the region’s sheep population to maintain itself. The numbers of non-stud breeding ewes increased from 2,500,000 in 1900 to 2,850,000 in 1905, but remained at that level through to 1912 when 2,835,000 were recorded.68

From 1900 sheep were regularly imported from other districts to be fattened on Canterbury pastures and crops.69 ‘Tens of thousands’ of sheep were imported from the North Island in 1901 and many thousands entered the province from Otago and Southland.70 In 1905 the Otago Witness reported that Canterbury farmers imported from the North Island, on average, 20,000 sheep a week for a period of over two months to maintain sheep numbers and to meet the demand from the frozen meat trade.71 Clearly, depletion of the vegetation did not account for the lack of increase in Canterbury’s sheep numbers; rather, it was the drive to profit from the frozen meat trade.

The impact of the frozen meat trade and periodic droughts as well as extreme snow events in 1888, 1895, 1903 and 1908 easily account for the stagnation in sheep numbers between 1886 and 1912 in Canterbury, Otago and Southland. Between 1895 and 1910 the number of carcases exported from South Island ports increased by 109 per cent. This growth does not indicate that the vegetation of the South Island had been depleted by long-term overstocking. Moreover, it again emphasises that caution must be used when looking at sheep numbers alone as a measure for evaluating the stock loading on the land.

Rabbits and Overstocking

There is no question that the most marked declines in sheep numbers took place on runs in semi-arid districts where rabbits had been, and remained, at their worst. On Galloway, sheep numbers declined dramatically. The station’s flock reached its lowest point of 20,973 in 1904, after the bad winter of 1903.72 This was a 72 per cent drop from the 1879 figure of 75,000. Thereafter sheep numbers increased only marginally until 1912.

Waitangi Station was another run that was badly affected by the first rabbit plague, suffering a 34 per cent decrease in numbers between 1879 and 1901. Thereafter, the flock continued to decline and reached its lowest point in 1904 at 14,305, which was 47 per cent down from the 27,003 sheep that the station had carried in 1879. Unlike Galloway, sheep numbers recovered slowly on Waitangi and the station continued to carry a flock of about 20,000 sheep well into the 1930s.


Stations in the Mackenzie Country were also ravaged by rabbits in the 1890s. Severe winters and rabbits devastated the sheep flock on The Mistake. It lost a third of its flock in the 1895 snow and thereafter numbers continued to decline, reaching their lowest point of 6500 in 1903 and 1904. The flock recovered to reach over 13,000 before the 1908 snow knocked it back to 9500. In this harsh environment the vegetation had been slow to recover from the damage that rabbits had inflicted on the lower winter country.

Rabbit Shooting Party, Waitangi Station, c. 1893. This group of rabbit shooters photographed at Waitangi Station about 1893 include some of the wealthiest North Otago estate owners of the time. The owner of Waitangi, John Alfred Sutton, is kneeling in the centre of the group. The others are, from the left: J. F. Reid (Burnside), Jasper Nichols (Bortons), William Gardner (Tapui), Gordon Millington (Tokarahi), R. A. Chaffey (Karoo Hill), Sutton, Charles Nichols (Brookstead), John Cook (Dunedin), Dr Garland (Oamaru), E. Menlove (Windsor Park) and C. W. Reid (Clifton Falls). Waitangi Station, on the north bank of the Waitangi River (since the completion of the Aviemore Dam in 1968 it has been on the north bank of Lake Aviemore), is in a low rainfall zone. The station normally records between 457 and 558 mm annually, but in some years rainfall can be as low as 330 mm. Sutton purchased Waitangi in 1886, which coincided with the arrival of rabbits on the station. From that time he fought an ongoing battle against the pest. Sheep numbers declined from a high point of 30,000 in 1893 to a low of 14,305 in 1904. In the following years numbers were lifted to 20,000 and were maintained at that level. North Otago Museum, 1496


One of the most dramatic examples of the impact of rabbits was the collapse in sheep numbers that took place on Earnscleugh. In 1890 the run carried 24,000 sheep; in 1898 it carried 234. This outcome clearly resulted from a long period of overstocking with both sheep and rabbits. William Fraser estimated that in 1880 rabbiters had killed over 400,000 rabbits in a single year on Earnscleugh.73 Wodzicki has calculated that ten rabbits eat the same amount of feed as a 120-pound breeding ewe.74 Using this figure and Fraser’s estimate of rabbits killed, Earnscleugh carried 40,000 stock units in rabbits alone in 1880. Moreover, it is quite clear from the decline in wool weights that Fraser’s Merinos were not the equivalent of a full stock unit at that time. If we estimate the sheep at 36.2 kilograms (80 pounds live weight), which would be generous, it would have Earnscleugh carrying in excess of 60,000 sheep equivalents in rabbits. On top of this, the station carried 22,000 sheep in 1880. It is fair to say that with the rabbits alone Earnscleugh was badly overstocked and with the sheep on top of that, the stocking load simply overwhelmed the vegetation and reduced parts of the run almost to a desert.

In regions where rainfall was more reliable and where the growing season was longer, stations that had been overrun by rabbits recovered to varying degrees. At Five Rivers and Castle Rock, sheep numbers and productivity increased after the rabbit irruption declined. At Moa Flat, Gladbrook and Flaxbourne, the impact of rabbits had forced a readjustment in the stock loading. At Gladbrook and Moa Flat, an increase in cultivation for winter feed helped make up for a decline in the productivity of the natural pasturage on the lower sunny country, although both runs continued to rely on the native grasses for the majority of the feeding requirements of the flock.

Stations that had escaped the worst ravages of rabbits showed little sign of having overreached their stock loading. Between 1879 and 1901 there was an 8 per cent drop in sheep numbers on Mesopotamia; whereas taking a longer run of data, the station increased sheep numbers by 11.5 per cent in the period up to 1910. Moreover, this was all on natural pastureage. It appears that, during the pastoral era, runs outside the rabbit-infested zones had reached a balance between sheep numbers and sheep productivity. The long-term trend of sheep numbers from runs like Leslie Hills, Mt Parnassus, The Terrace, Springfield and Castle Rock, along with the evidence that we have from Mt Peel of increasing stock performance, suggests that at the time that these properties were subdivided they showed no indication that the productivity of the vegetation had declined.


Conclusion

It appears that deliberate overstocking of the grasslands for short-term gain was not widespread during the pastoral era. There was undoubtedly short-term overstocking during periods of drought when pastoralists and farmers were slow to make adjustments for feed shortages or where there was simply no outlet for surplus sheep. Outside the semi-arid regions, the vegetation recovered well after drought. Over the period of the pastoral era, there is strong evidence that the productivity of sheep increased as pastoralists responded to changes in the marketplace, and in particular to the opening up of the frozen meat trade. This has not been accounted for in the model that uses sheep numbers alone to evaluate the stock loading over time. Overstocking was most marked on stations that were overwhelmed by rabbits. In semi-arid regions, the rabbit plague led to gross overstocking of the pasturage and resulted in long-term deterioration of the vegetation. Elsewhere, the impact of rabbits led to a downward adjustment of sheep numbers that indicated a reduction in the productivity of the natural pasturage; however, the stock loading was able to be successfully maintained at a lower level. On runs that were unaffected by rabbits, there is no evidence of overstocking; indeed, the stock loading was maintained or increased up to the time that these runs were subdivided.

Ploughing, Godley Valley, Mackenzie Country. Despite the claim that pastoralism was simply an exploitative system with little or no augmentation of the natural pasturage, there is ample evidence that even in the harshest high country pastoralists did attempt to improve the quality of the feed supply, albeit on a relatively small scale. This ploughman is cultivating a river flat on Lilybank Station, one of the hardest and most remote stations in the South Island. The three-horse team is pulling a double-furrow plough and turning over stubble left from a previous crop. Across the Godley River rise the steep mountains of The Mistake Station, which was renamed Godley Peaks in 1921. The name The Mistake apparently came from a blunder made by John Hall of The Terrace Station when he claimed the run. When he applied for the run at the Provincial Chambers in Christchurch, he intended to select the present Glenmore run that lies between the Cass and the Forks rivers. Instead he chose the mountainous land between the Cass and the Godley rivers and the station became known as Hall’s Mistake and later shortened to The Mistake (William Vance, High Endeavour: The Story of the Mackenzie Country, 1965; revised edn., Wellington: Reed, 1980, p.171). Canterbury Museum, 6278

133

CHAPTER FIVE

Constructing the Landscape:Fencing, Cultivation, Oversowing and Drainage

By 1914 large areas of the tussock grasslands of the south Island had been transformed, in places beyond recognition, from the landscape that the pioneers first encountered. Much of the lowlands were in the process of being converted from an open rangeland to a

mosaic of cultivated paddocks subdivided with wire fences, hedges and shelter belts. Many of the extensive swamps of Canterbury, Otago and parts of inland Southland had been drained and turned into pasture. Tussock grasses still dominated the scene in the hill and high country, but even here cultivation, oversowing, fencing and tree planting were reshaping the land, especially on the flats, terraces and easy hills.

However, the introduction of exotic plants and animals had unforeseen consequences that were also having an impact of the landscape. Some plants that had been deliberately introduced became weeds and began to spread and take over large tracts of country, while other plants that arrived as contaminants in seed or on the coats of livestock also became invasive weeds. In the semi-arid and mountain lands, the combination of rabbits and the harsh climate had reduced the mass and complexity of the vegetation and provided a disincentive for pastoralists to embark on development in the ways that large landowners on easier country had done. Moreover, it is apparent with hindsight that by the


end of the pastoral era these harder regions had reached their productive limits within the context of contemporary knowledge and technology.

The transformation of the South Island landscape resulted from a process of increasing application of capital, technology and expertise. It began with a simple system of running sheep on open country and over time became increasingly sophisticated. This transition from ‘exploitative’ pastoralism, where no inputs are applied, to pastoral farming, where capital and energy are employed to augment and manage the pasturage, took place at different times and in different places across the South Island.1 Indeed, pastoral farming was an early development in some parts, whereas in more difficult environments extensive pastoralism has continued almost to the present. As one commentator has written, the impact of pastoralism in the tussock grasslands resulted ‘in great diversity of landscape outcomes’, and those divergent outcomes depended on ‘differences in natural resources’ and on ‘different qualities of invading plants, animals and humans’.2

Despite the early pastoralists often being portrayed as environmental wreckers, many were improvers by nature, a factor that is entirely understandable when we consider the society from which they came. The industrial and agricultural revolutions were transforming Britain at the time that settlement began in New Zealand and an ideology of improvement permeated Victorian society. Historians have bickered over the timing, extent and definition of the agricultural revolution, but nevertheless, in the nineteenth century a marked increase in agricultural productivity occurred through the application of scientific knowledge and technology to the business. Indeed there was a fundamental belief in the potential of science to promote agricultural progress.3 Pastoralists in New Zealand came out of that cultural milieu, and even after they had migrated they remained part of an international exchange of ideas. Newspapers and journals kept them up to date with the latest techniques and technology from Britain, Europe, North and South America, South Africa and the Australian colonies. Information from the marketplace shaped the products that they produced and the way they prepared them for the market, and new ideas and technology, both from abroad and some that were developed within New Zealand, shaped their farming practices.

The Sequence of Intensification in the Tussock Grasslands

There were five recognisable phases in the process of intensification of land use in the pastoral era. These can be identified in the following sequence: a period

CONSTRUCTING THE LANDSCAPE 135

of rapid pastoral expansion where land was claimed, burned and stocked; a time of consolidation with improvements such as homesteads, woolsheds, stock handling facilities, and the establishment of a few cultivated paddocks to grow feed for horses and a few milking cows; a development phase involving fencing, drainage, broadcast sowing of ‘English’ grasses and cultivation; the turnip ‘revolution’ and the quest for permanent pastures that were associated with the development of refrigeration; and finally the subdivision phase. However, it

Waimakariri River, 1908. This photograph is taken from the site where the Waimakariri River flows onto the plains at the bottom of the gorge. William Fox had painted this area from lower down the river in 1851 (see p.11). The earlier painting and this photograph illustrate the transformation of the landscape that had taken place in the intervening fifty-six years. Burning and grazing had reduced the mass of the vegetation from a tall-tussock shrubland to short-tussock grassland. In many places, ploughing had turned over the native pasturage to replace it with introduced grasses and legumes, usually after a series of grain crops had been taken off the land and one or two greenfeed crops had been grown and grazed off to fatten stock. By 1908 fencing was widespread, subdividing the land into paddocks to allow for more intensive farming. One of the most important improvements was the shelter belts that had been planted across the windswept plains to protect plants and livestock from the wind blasts. They also helped to prevent the soil being blown away, particularly during norwest storms. Native plants remained in the river beds and on rough faces where stocking was light, but here too introduced plants like gorse and broom were taking hold and competing with the native species. This is a modern and largely man-made landscape. Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington, G. L. Adkin Collection, G-23381-1/4


must be acknowledged that not all runs went through all of these phases. Some runholders, particularly those in the harsh mountain regions, barely progressed past stage two, but for others in easier environments the drive to improve their runs was evident from the beginning.

On Acland and Tripp’s second exploring trip to Mt Peel, Acland took along a bag of clover seed. The two friends burned the vegetation as they explored the country up the south side of the Rangitata River. Later, Acland spread

Mendip Hills, 1917. This is a view of the Mendip Hills woolshed and sheep yards and some of the workers’ quarters. It illustrates the transformation of the open grasslands that took place in the pastoral era. Subdivision with wire fencing, neatly trimmed hedges and substantial plantings of exotic trees to provide shelter have broken up the formerly open landscape of the station. Plantations of trees also provided a timber resource for the future. Mendip Hills was a highly regarded property and noted for its Merino stud. In 1861 George Rutherford of Leslie Hills Station purchased Mendip Hills for his sons, Andrew and William, in partnership with the politician Alfred Domett, and Andrew managed the place. Domett sold his share in the run to the Rutherford brothers in the mid-1860s. In 1871 Andrew bought out his brother and held Mendip Hills until he died in the 1918 influenza epidemic. At its peak Mendip Hills consisted of over 16,200 hectares (40,000 acres), and included the neigh-bouring property Brookdale and part of Mt Parnassus Station. By 1917, when this photograph was taken, Andrew had divided his land holdings between his sons: Andrew junior was at Brookdale, George at Connemara, Frank held One Tree Hill, Eric was on Inverness and on Andrew senior’s death Norman took over Mendip Hills, which had been reduced to 6000 hectares (15,000 acres). Mendip Hills remains one of the most productive North Canterbury stations. Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington, A. P. Godber Collection, G-463-1/2-APG


the clover seed over the burned country as they made their way back down the valley.4 Clearly, Acland’s intention at the very outset was not to settle for exploitative pastoralism, but to develop a system of pastoral farming through the augmentation of the feed supply. Of course, it was inevitable that the transition would take time, but this was at least a start in the process.

Another pastoralist who embarked on a course of improvement during the earliest phase of pastoral expansion was John Hall. He recorded that he had been ‘distributing’ grass seed on his run, The Terrace, on 30 June 1853.5 At that time Hall and his two brothers had just taken over the run from Mark Pringle Stoddart. The station consisted of 12,140 hectares (30,000 acres) and Hall had taken over 1870 sheep.6 Obviously it was not the lack of feed that encouraged Hall to improve the natural pasturage; rather, it was that Hall was by nature an improver. Another example of this took place in June and August 1853 when Hall had his men planting kowhai, koromiko, willows and other trees.7

It would be a mistake to imagine that the transition from the simple utilisation of the unimproved natural pasturage to pastoral farming followed a seamless progression of increasing intensification. As we have already noted, the shift to pastoral farming took place at different times and in different places. There were several reasons for this. One explanation lies in the limitations or opportunities provided by differences in the natural resources of the runs. Off-station financial backing or the ability to borrow capital provided the opportunity for some runholders to undertake the move to pastoral farming. Another important characteristic in the drive towards pastoral improvement was simply the attitude of the individual runholder. Some went for it ‘neck and crop’ regardless of the cost, while others were laggards who lacked the resources, vision or drive to undertake the risk of large-scale development. In the end, both exploitative pastoralism and pastoral farming have left their imprints on the landscape of the South Island grasslands, particularly as a result of the various practices of fencing, the nature and range of cultivation and oversowing, and the draining of the swamps.

Fencing

Early SystemsPost-and-rail fencing was one of the earliest methods adopted for enclosing paddocks. The first fencing on Orari Gorge was 5 miles of posts and four rails erected by Robert Smith.8 He had helped establish Mt Peel with Acland and Tripp and leased Orari Gorge in 1859. Hall was another who used


post-and-rail fencing, with the timber cut out of nearby bush.9 The fences were erected to protect the station’s garden and to divide off small paddocks that were being cultivated for oats, barley and wheat for home use.

Like Hall, Acland and Tripp had chosen their stations well, as both Orari Gorge and Mt Peel held pockets of native bush and there were large stands of native forest close by. Stations on the plains and in the semi-arid country were not so fortunate and in some places even firewood for fuel was scarce. In the early years there was a considerable trade in timber from Banks Peninsula and the forests dotted along the Canterbury foothills. Numerous notices appeared in newspapers advertising post and rails for fencing.10 However, post-and-rail fencing proved too expensive to be used to fence large sections and generally it was used for fencing gardens, cultivated paddocks and stock yards.

Ditch-and-bank, sod and live fences were cheaper alternatives and so were more widely used in the early years, especially in areas where timber was scarce. An advertisement in the Lyttelton Times in 1851 described a ditch-and-bank fence as being a ditch 3 feet deep and 5 feet wide at the top, narrowing to a foot wide at the bottom, with a 3-foot-high bank formed by the spoil.11 Hence the fence was 6 feet high when newly constructed. In time, of course, the bank tended to settle and collapse so hedges often had to be planted to help hold it together and to add height. Gorse was a particular favourite for this purpose as it proved to be fast growing, but sweet briar and various thorns were also used. In 1851 a ditch-and-bank fence cost 13/9 per chain to construct and, according to Tripp, such a fence cost 14 shillings a chain in 1862,12 although he did caution that where the ground was at all stony it might double or treble that sum.

In 1862 Acland hired three men to put up half a mile of ditch-and-bank fence on a hill near the station buildings to enclose a paddock of about 1000 acres to hold sheep at shearing time.13 In June 1867 Acland and his overseer, Adam Irvine, laid out an 80-chain (1610 metre) ditch-and-bank fence to create a paddock on the ‘home run’ and employed a man to construct it.14 It is certain that gorse was planted on both of these fences and by 1880 gorse had started to become a problem on the station.

There were variations on ditch-and-bank fences. Sometimes a ditch was dug on each side of the bank and an alternative to planting a hedge was to add a post-and-two-rail fence on top of the bank.15 Another modification to this method of fencing was the construction of sod walls. In July 1864 a notice in the Lyttelton Times advertised for ‘some good men’ to do 1–3 miles of sod wall and, as late as 1872, well after the introduction of light-wire fencing, Henry Ford employed three Irishmen to construct sod fences on Holme Station.16 Similarly, on Mt


Peel, sod fencing was still being constructed eight years after the first wire fence had been erected on the station. In 1876 a fencer named Hayward contracted to build a sod wall to enclose a new paddock for 11/6 per chain plus 1/3 a chain for planting gorse.

Perhaps the most popular fences of all in the days before the introduction of wire fencing were live fences. They had several advantages for both pastoralists and farmers: they were relatively cheap to establish as the material cost was much lower than it was for post-and-rail fencing, and they did not require the intensive labour input necessary for the construction of ditch-and-bank fences and sod walls; and on the treeless grasslands they provided much needed shelter from the prevailing winds. The disadvantages of live fencing included the time it took to establish the plants in order to provide an adequate fence, and the fact that they required ongoing maintenance. Hedges needed to be trimmed regularly to maintain a close, tight form, otherwise the plants opened up as they grew and gaps developed where sheep could push through the fence. With hindsight we now know that the most serious problem with live fences was that some of the most popular plants used for fencing, in particular gorse and broom, soon became problem weeds throughout the country.

Gorse, various types of thorn, broom and sweet briar were imported from both Britain and the Australian colonies from the beginning of settlement. There was also a brief interest in the Osage Orange from America as a plant for live fencing.17 John Hall planted gorse, broom and quicks (hawthorn) as well as trees in 1853 and 1854.18 At Mt Peel planting gorse had been a regular activity, but by the mid-1870s the station diaries illustrate the increasing ambivalence with which people were coming to view these plants.

Gorse planting was ongoing on Mt Peel in the late 1870s with the last recorded planting in June and July 1882.19 By that time gorse, broom and sweet briar had already become problem plants. In June 1875 Michael Mitton, the station manager, employed a man to clear gorse, and in April and July the following year clearing gorse was an ongoing job.20 In May, June and July 1878, stubbing gorse and broom had become a regular chore when nothing more pressing was happening on the station and, from then, the amount of time put into the job steadily increased. By 1883 trimming gorse and thorn fences as well as ‘grubbing’, ‘stubbing’, ‘chipping’ and cutting gorse, broom, sweet briar and other weeds had become increasingly time-consuming, taking place every month from March to December in that year.21 This work was carried out every month in 1888 and at times it appeared that these were full-time jobs for several men. By then it was clear that gorse had got out of control in many parts of the

Christchurch, c. 1860. This view of Christchurch from the Provincial Chambers looking south-west illustrates several of the favourite forms of fencing used before the introduction of light wire around the mid-1860s. In the foreground is a sod wall, constructed of layers of turf dug from the immediate area of the fence. It had the advantage of using cheap and easily available material, but was labour-intensive to erect. This example also shows another disadvantage of the method as the sods tended to crumble as they dried out and the fence has collapsed in places. In some soil types, the sods did not hold together well, and ditch-and-bank fences were constructed where the spoil from the ditch was heaped up to form a bank. Several post-and-rail fences can be seen in this photograph. On the treeless Canterbury Plains the timber for these fences was transported from Banks Peninsula or from one of the areas of bush found along the foothills, such as Kowai Bush. The expense of transporting the timber added to the cost of these fences, but they were much easier to construct than sod walls or ditch-and-bank fences. The other type of wooden fence seen in this photograph used wooden battens closely tied or nailed. These were used only for relatively small areas because of the amount of timber they required. The other main type of fence used before the introduction of wire was live fencing or hedging. Here, a dense hedge subdividing a rural section can be seen running behind the windmill, from one side of the photograph to the other. Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington, A. C. Barker Collection, F-28149-1/2


station. In 1890 and 1892, Acland sent men to grub the plant on the Orari River side of the range and in November 1892 John McLeod, a son of Sandie McLeod the head shepherd, was taken on full time at £1 a week to grub gorse.22 On Forest Spur gorse had become so dense that in July 1893 two men were sent to cut a track through it.23

In 1885 Mitton decided to start removing some of the gorse fences and had men working at this throughout September, October and November.24 Early in 1887 he employed men to take out another substantial gorse fence that was then replaced by wire fencing.25 Considering the amount of work that went into maintaining live hedges and the problem of the hedging plants spreading, it is not surprising that they had fallen out of favour by this time.

Despite these efforts to manage the plant, by 1925 gorse was well in control of some parts of Mt Peel. At that time botanist H. H. Allan noted that the weed infested a large area of the Rangitata River bed and also formed ‘a striking feature of certain hill-slopes’ on the Rangitata face of the station and the thickets were still spreading.26 The source of this infestation was the ditch-and-bank fence constructed on Round Hill in 1862. Allan found that the plant failed to thrive at altitudes above 500 metres but spread so aggressively below that elevation that it overwhelmed almost all competition.

As early as 1868, a correspondent to the Christchurch Press had warned readers about the threat of gorse, claiming that ‘it has already become a perfect pest’.27 He had observed young plants growing in the middle of large fields and spreading along the roadsides. By this early stage, gorse and broom had already spread onto the open river beds in Canterbury. W. Quin, who wrote occasional articles on farming in Otago and Southland for the New Zealand Country Journal, noted the gorse infestation in Canterbury in 1892. He thought that gorse and other noxious weeds were bad enough in southern districts, but found them ‘not a patch on South Canterbury’.28 Hedges had not been planted as extensively in Otago and Southland as they had been in Canterbury, but when they had been planted it had been done almost exclusively with gorse.29 After the arrival of the rabbit plague in Otago and Southland, hedges were seen as a liability as they provided cover for the pest, so in both regions farmers ripped them out and replaced them with wire fences.30

The Tapanui Courier was less sanguine about the gorse problem in the local district than Quin. In 1887 the paper noted that gorse had become a curse rather than a blessing, and blamed careless landowners for letting it spread. In times of flood, gorse seed had spread along creek banks where it had formed ‘impenetrable plantations’ and landowners found it ‘almost as hard to clear as


rabbits’.31 Despite the cost and effort required to clear the weed, the paper was adamant that ‘the gorse must go’.32

By the mid-1880s live fences had fallen out of favour with pastoralists and farmers. William Morgan claimed that ‘it would have been better had no live fences ever been planted’ as their roots exhausted the soil, and they took up room and shelter; in addition, trees provided better protection from weather than hedges.33 He might well have added that live hedges were time-consuming to maintain and that hedging plants spread to take over large tracts of land. The introduction of gorse, broom, sweet briar and thorns for hedging plants and their consequent spread have left an enduring impact on the landscape of the South Island tussock grasslands.

Wire FencingThe development of light wire fencing introduced technology that ultimately changed the shape of sheep-farming management in the grasslands. Posts and rails were expensive; ditch-and-bank fences, sod walls and stone fences were very labour-intensive to construct; and live fences were labour-intensive to maintain. Wire fencing, on the other hand, enabled pastoralists and farmers to enclose the open grasslands by securing their boundaries and dividing their country into blocks for easier management of their sheep.

As early as 1851 an advertisement appeared in the Lyttelton Times for wire fencing and standards to enclose a 50-acre section.34 In the same paper in 1854, two firms advertised sheep netting for sale, and in 1856 galvanised iron fencing wire was advertised.35 This early wire was difficult to handle as it was of a heavy gauge and only came in short runs, with the result that it was hard to erect and to keep strained.36 In 1855 Henry Bessemer patented the process that led to the mass production of steel that resulted in improved fencing wire in the 1860s. From about 1864, advertisements for large quantities of wire, usually four, five or six gauge, and iron standards became commonplace in newspapers.

One of the earliest examples of wire fencing being erected on a pastoral property occurred in 1863 when St Leonards Station in the Amuri advertised for ‘men accustomed to the work’ to put up several miles of wire fencing.37 The following year the Rhodes brothers advertised for tenders to erect 5 miles of boundary fence on The Levels Station.38 They specified that the fence was to consist of five wires with iron standards 9 feet apart and ten strainer posts to each mile. The wire would have been almost certainly a heavy gauge iron type. This model of fence was commonly erected on run country before the cross-breeding of sheep became fashionable, and later became known as a Merino


fence. Surprisingly, for all their reputation as being half-wild, Merinos did not put the same pressure on fences as British breeds and were less likely to push through or go over them.

By 1865 wire fencing was becoming more widely adopted. In that year Blue Cliffs Station and Holme Station put up 5–6 miles of fence on their boundary, and Henry Ford, the manager at the Grampian Hills, had 6.5 miles of wire fencing erected.39 John Grigg, who took up Longbeach in 1864, was not one to do things half-heartedly, and in 1866 he called for tenders for the construction of 20 miles of wire fencing on his run.40

While by the mid-1860s wire fencing technology was being readily adopted in the South Island, the shift away from the old methods was not completely clear-cut. In 1863 St Leonards called for contractors to erect wire fencing on the run and four months later let a tender for the construction of ditch-and-bank fencing.41 Similarly, in 1867 Henry Ford had two groups of contractors working at Holme Station, one lot erecting wire fencing and the other sod fences.42 In Otago the old and new methods were blended. ‘Agricola’, writing in the Otago

Mackenzie Country Scene with Station Homestead, c. 1867. Edmund Norman was a boundary keeper on Sawdon Station in the Mackenzie Country from 1866 until his death in 1875. This sketch shows the first Sawdon homestead and looks across to the Ben Ohau mountains on the western side of the plain. Around the homestead is a patchwork of paddocks, subdivided with a ditch-and-bank fence, hedges, post-and-rail fences and possibly a wire fence. Trees have been planted around the homestead to provide shelter and firewood, and there is a large garden above the house. The great sweeping tussock grasslands of the Mackenzie Country dwarf this small enclave of habitation. Edmund Norman, Canterbury Museum, 1952 107/9


Witness, claimed that in the open tussock country in the 1870s the farmer’s fence was ‘a three-sod wall and ditch with three No.9 wires on top supported with iron standards’ with gorse planted along the bank.43

Increasingly, however, on the pastoral runs wire fencing replaced the old methods and there are some compelling examples of the uptake of the technology. By 1871 Tripp had over 48 kilometres (30 miles) of wire fencing on Orari Gorge, and by 1874 this had doubled to 96 kilometres.44 In 1874 Clent Hills Station in the Ashburton Gorge was advertised for sale with 40 kilometres (25 miles) of fencing, while Alford Station in the Canterbury foothills was put

Fencing on The Terrace Station, 1898. This property plan of Sir John Hall’s Terrace Station illustrates the extent of the subdivision that had been established on some runs by the turn of the twentieth century. Indeed, wire fencing had been used to transform some stations on the plains and downlands from runs to paddock farms on a large scale. The plan also shows the extensive planting of shelter belts on The Terrace. The station, situated at the bottom of the Rakaia Gorge, was a particularly windy place, and Hall experimented with a variety of different trees to find types that grew best and provided the best shelter in this difficult environment. One species he thought particularly useful was Pinus insignis or Radiata pine. NZCJ, Vol.22, No.5, September 1889, p.454.


up for sale with 82 kilometres (51 miles).45 Blue Cliffs had 150 kilometres (93 miles) of fencing erected when Robert Heaton Rhodes purchased the station in 1878.46 This consisted of 44 kilometres (27½ miles) of wire fencing on the station boundaries, 50 kilometres (31 miles) subdividing blocks and paddocks, over 9.5 kilometres (6 miles) fencing off plantations of trees, and 1.6 kilometres (1 mile) of wire fencing on sod walls at the homestead, making 105 kilometres (65½ miles) of wire fencing. In addition there were 45 kilometres (28 miles) of sod fences on Blue Cliffs.47 However, it is unlikely that any other run in the South Island grasslands could match Moa Flat Station that had over 400 kilometres (250 miles) of fencing in place by the middle of 1879 and the work was still progressing.48

A property plan of Sir John Hall’s Terrace Station illustrates the extent of the subdivision that had been established on some runs by the turn of the twentieth century.49 This plan was created to demonstrate the shelter planting on The Terrace, but it also illustrates the degree to which fencing had transformed some stations from runs to large paddock farms. This very point had been predicted by the Timaru Herald as early as 1873 when it noted the development taking place in parts of South Canterbury. The paper described how runholders had turned ‘paddock farmer[s] on a large scale’, working their land ‘by judicious subdivision – by the useful wire fences – to carry far more stock than it does when left open for stock to range over at will’.50

On Mt PeelWhen Alexander Hewson mustered on Mt Peel in 1864, the station was unfenced apart from the paddocks at the homestead.51 At that time the property carried 18,000 sheep, and six men and two dogs covered a large part of the station to gather them up. The first fences on Mt Peel were post-and-rail, and ditch-and-bank. The first wire fence was erected near the new homestead, Holnicote, in 1868.52 By 1912 the station had been subdivided into twenty blocks and forty-six paddocks.

At first, many of the hill blocks were simply the names of places on the run, and the management of the station relied on natural boundaries or boundary keepers to hold the sheep on particular areas. From the early 1870s, the process of securing the station’s boundaries and subdividing hill blocks with wire fencing began. Acland wrote to E. R. Chudleigh, a former cadet at Mt Peel, saying that he was ‘taking to fencing in earnest’, and described the places where fences had recently been erected and where they were still going up.53 Most of the fencing was on the country between the homestead and the Pass, but one fence went


from the Rangitata, across a saddle on the main range and down to the Orari. Acland hoped that it would allow for cleaner musters. The earliest subdivisions on the Lower Run (below the Pass) were the Razor Back, which was fenced in 1872, and in 1874 the Horse Spur and Ram Spur were fenced off. An assessment of Mt Peel in 1878 listed 40 miles of subdivision fencing, with the hill country subdivided into eight blocks.

By 1890 a considerable amount of fencing that had been done on the country over the back of the Mt Peel Range. There was a boundary fence between Mt Peel and Clayton Station that ran up the Walker Spur and along the Phantom River below the Big Fork block. Further downstream at the confluence of the Hewson, Phantom and Orari rivers there was a set of sheep yards. This area was originally called Watersmeet by Acland, but over time that name fell out of use. The Camp Gully Hut and yards were 3 miles up the Hewson River from Watersmeet. In 1891 a fence was erected just upstream from the Camp Gully hut to Coal Hill, joining the 1872 fence that went down the Rangitata face and subdivided Coal from Upper Stew Point.54 In all, there were five main blocks on the Orari side of the station: Big Fork, Little Fork, Tin Hut, Thatchers and an area of rough country east of Mt Peel Creek. The Big and Little forks were subdivided by a fence that ran from the boundary fence at the Phantom to the Hewson River at the Quartz Hut. The fence then continued up over a saddle on the main range before dropping down to the Stew Point yards and paddocks near the Rangitata River.

On the Rangitata side of the station, considerably more subdivision fencing was erected. A boundary fence ran between Mt Peel and Mesopotamia Station at Forest Creek, but apart from that the Forest Creek and Ben McLeod country was completely unfenced down to the Stew Point yards. A long fence ran along the ridge of the Front Range from above the Stew Point yards over Coal Hill and took in the head waters of Boundary Creek and Rawles Gully to the head of Lynn Creek. Below this another long fence ran from the swamp at the bottom of Coal Creek, subdividing Upper Stew Point from the Isolated Hills, and after subdividing off the Razor Back and the top of Parson it joined the fence that ran along the ridge of the Front Range.

Along the front country from the eastern boundary with Peel Forest, the blocks were Forest, the Horse Spur, Parson, the Razor Back and Little Razor Back, Lower and Upper Stew Point, the Near and Far Isolated Hills, and Coal Hill. The paddocks and cultivated country were on the flats and terraces below these hill blocks. The Mothering Paddock had been subdivided off the bottom of the Horse Spur east of Lynn Creek. On the west side of the Lynn is the station


complex. Round Hill lies between the Lynn and the homestead, and below Parson. The Burke’s Flat paddocks and the Terrace are on a terrace above the homestead and Thew’s and the Roadside paddocks run along Chapman’s Gully. Between Chapman’s and Rawles gullies are Rawles and Chapman’s paddocks and Rawles yards.

Intensification in the Management of Sheep on Mt PeelThe increase in fencing on Mt Peel was a reflection of the increase in sheep numbers and an increase in the different classes of sheep that needed to be

The Main Hill Fences and Blocks on Mt Peel, early 1890s. The success of the frozen meat trade led to an intensification in land use on Mt Peel. Between 1871 and 1881, eleven named paddocks were established, whereas between 1886 and 1900, thirty new paddocks were formed. Cross-breeding became established practice on many pastoral properties as prices for fine wool continued to decline from the mid-1870s, whereas prices improved for young sheep suitable for fattening for the freezer trade, and the market for old ewes to be sold for lamb breeding down country expanded. This move to cross-breeding increased the number of classes of sheep that needed to be separated out at certain times of the year. Also, in order to fatten sheep the station had to undertake more cultivation to grow turnips and improved grass paddocks, and this too required more subdivision.

Stone Boundary Hut, Forest Creek, Mt Peel Station, 1995. This hut was one of three boundary huts up Forest Creek, the natural boundary between Mt Peel and Mesopotamia stations. The bottom hut at The Willows was kept by Sandie McLeod and his wife. The Stone Boundary Hut was 7 miles above The Willows and was originally known as Peter’s because Peter Keefe lived there for over twenty years. Roger’s hut was 7 miles above. Like many farm workers, Keefe aspired to own his own farm and was so frugal that he ‘went about in rags’ in order to save for his own place (G. W. Harte, Mount Peel is a Hundred: The Story of the First High-country Sheep Station in Canterbury, p.50). He put all his savings in a trust account held by a Christchurch lawyer, but lost the lot in a slump. Boundary keepers led extremely isolated lives and often saw no other people for months at a time. Robert Palmer was employed as a boundary keeper in the Clarence Valley for three years, beginning in April 1859. He went to the block with five men who helped him drive the sheep and cart his stores. When they got to the site, the men stayed for five days and helped him build a hut ‘with long grass’ and then left. He never saw another soul until after the winter (see J. M. Sherrard, Kaikoura: A History of the District, pp.157–8). Probably due to their isolation, boundary keepers often developed some quirky behavioural traits. Harry Evans, who kept a boundary up the Conway River, was noted for his eccentricities. John Sherrard wrote that a ‘relief boundary keeper once found Harry polishing up his etiquette for one of his rare trips to town. Standing at the table with a button in his hand, Harry was repeatedly sliding it across the rough planks with the words, “Another of the same please miss”’ (Sherrard, Kaikoura, p.125). Mark Pickering, Macmillan Brown Library, 1996/7 Neg 48-18+19


managed separately, particularly after the station progressed into cross-breeding. Until 1869 the Mt Peel flock was carried on the Rangitata country from the forest reserve at the eastern boundary to Forest Creek on the western boundary, where Sandie McLeod served as the boundary keeper. The first muster of the Orari country was recorded in December 1869 and at that time the station ran about 30,000 sheep.55

For the next fifteen years, the sheep management on the station remained quite simple. The ewes were run on the Rangitata country for most of the year; the wether flock had the run of the Orari and the high mountainous country; and the young sheep wintered on turnips and the hill blocks near the homestead, and summered on the Forest Creek Forks, a block between Rata Creek and Forest Creek.56 Most of the fencing through this period was done to create paddocks and was linked with cultivation to grow turnips and ‘English’ grasses.

Through the decade of the 1870s, the Mt Peel flock increased to over 44,000 sheep, and in 1883 the station began to increase the number of ewes it kept. However, with these higher sheep numbers and the increase in cultivation, footrot became a serious animal health problem in the early 1880s. A combination of these three factors – the increase in overall sheep numbers, the increased number of breeding ewes and footrot – led to a change in the way the station was managed. In February 1884 the ewes and lambs were pushed out from the front blocks of the Razor Back, Horse Spur and Ram Spur on to the open country of the Mt Peel Range. The following month the lambs were weaned at the Orari yards for the first time. In April 1884 the main mob of ewes were mated on the Orari country while selected ewes were mated on the paddocks and hill blocks on the front country. As crossbred sheep came to make up an increasing proportion of the flock, the grass paddocks and improved hill blocks were set aside for them. The Merino ewe flock spent much of the year in the Orari and late summer on the Mt Peel Range; the decreasing number of Merino wethers summered in the Butler’s Forks and high on the Ben McLeod Range and wintered on the Mt Peel Range; the young Merino sheep wintered on the Isolated Hills and summered on the Forest Creek Forks.

The shift to cross-breeding put a good deal of pressure on the existing fencing on Mt Peel in several ways. When Oliver Scott Thomson took over the manager’s position in January 1894, he found that the early fencing, which had been erected to control Merino sheep, was often ineffective at keeping the larger and stronger crossbred sheep where they were meant to be.57 The old Merino fences were too low, and some of the fences on the front spurs did not encircle a block, but simply ran into the bush and stopped.58 Crossbred sheep


went over and around these fences, whereas Merinos generally stayed inside them. However, money was tight on Mt Peel in the 1890s and Scott Thomson’s appeal for more fencing on the hill country could not be met.

In 1898 he again requested money for more fencing. He wrote to Dalgety and Company, who administered the station at that time, complaining that the property could not be managed to its best advantage because it lacked enough subdivided blocks. He had put in about 5 miles of fencing in the time he had been at Mt Peel but most of that had been to create more paddocks. He complained that with separate Merino and crossbred flocks he needed 25 miles of new fencing to manage all the different classes of sheep. Scott Thomson then set out the advantages that would accrue from this subdivision: it would make the run more easily worked, it would make mustering more straight forward, it would enable him to keep different classes of sheep separate with the result that they would do better, it would assist in keeping snow losses to a minimum and it would save labour currently spent on boundary keeping.59

He gave the example of how 3 miles of fencing would give him three separate blocks of country, whereas at present he had to employ one and sometimes two boundary keepers for three or four months to prevent the sheep from moving from one block to another. One of these blocks was ‘some of the best country on the run’, he wrote, and could fatten 1500 to 2000 sheep. The cost of the fence, he claimed, would soon be recovered by saving on the labour bill.

It is easy to sympathise with Scott Thomson when you see a breakdown of the flock structure from the time.60 In March 1899 he had 49,979 sheep on the station in over a dozen different classes: there were 5747 crossbred sheep consisting of lambs, two-tooth ewes and two-tooth wethers; 18,833 halfbred sheep including lambs, two-tooth ewes and mixed-age ewes, as well as a halfbred wether flock; the Merino flock numbered 25,088 sheep and was made up of lambs, two-tooth ewes, mixed-age ewes and cull ewes, with a mixed age wether flock and a mob of cull wethers. There was also a mob of 311 rams. At that time there were 57 miles of wire and standard fencing on the leasehold runs.61 Unfortunately, Scott Thomson did not provide the details of the amount of fencing on the freehold land, where most of the development had taken place.

After Barton Acland died in 1904, the executors of the estate made money available for Livingston, the new manager (Scott Thomson had retired at the end of 1904) to begin fencing on the hill country. Within a month of taking up his new position, Livingston marked out a new fence line. It started at the existing fence that subdivided the Tin Hut block from the Big Fork block, and


ran up the hill on to the top of the range, then continued down the front face west of Rata Creek to a swamp where the creek ran into the Rangitata River. Livingston thought it a good line as it followed a leading ridge without rocks and creeks.62 He ordered 4200 iron standards, sixty-five T-iron intermediate posts and six tons of wire to complete the fence that he had chained out as being 7 miles and 10 chains (11.464 kilometres) long.63

This new fence created a discrete block fenced on three sides, with the fourth boundary being the Rangitata River. After the subdivision of Mt Peel, this block became known as Rata Peaks Station. It was one of the five small grazing runs and one pastoral run that were subdivided off Mt Peel Station and auctioned in 1912. In preparation for this subdivision, in July 1911 Livingston ordered 20,000 standards and 360 T-irons as well as other fencing material, which was enough to erect over 86 kilometres (53 miles) of fence.64 It is likely that this fencing material was purchased as part of the plan to make each new run a discrete property.

The changes in fencing technology and the intensification in fencing on Mt Peel are representative of the process of development on tussock grassland country in the pastoral era. The progression began with post-and-rail fencing to create gardens and stock yards, and sod fences planted with hedging to create the first paddocks. The introduction of wire fencing enabled runholders not only to enclose more paddocks, but also to subdivide the open range. In 1898 Scott Thomson had set out an excellent summary of the advantages of subdivision fencing: it made the management of the station easier, it reduced the amount of labour required and it enabled the management to keep the stock on safe country in winter.

He might also have noted that fencing enabled runholders to save feed and to utilise different parts of their stations at different times of the year. Adult sheep were put out onto the high country in summer, which allowed the lower sunny country to be spelled for wintering. Shepherds shifted young sheep around the paddocks and the fenced-off lower hill blocks, getting the best of the grazing, which gave them the chance to grow. Fencing also allowed better utilisation of feed. On the open range, sheep naturally congregated on the sweeter parts, leaving dark, more sour, country to grow rank and unpalatable. That compelled runholders to burn in order to open up the overgrown areas and to encourage sheep on to them. Fencing off sunny and shady country and forcing sheep on to smaller blocks of country meant that they grazed blocks more evenly. In all, fencing had a profound affect on the management of pastoral runs and on the landscape of the tussock grasslands in the pastoral era.


Cultivation

Enhancing the Feed SupplyFencing enabled pastoralists to better control the grazing pattern of their sheep; cultivation and oversowing helped to increase the quality and quantity of that grazing. As with fencing, cultivation technology and methods progressed during the pastoral era.

Cultivation was an integral part of the early pastoral expansion, although it was practised on only a small scale. There were obvious reasons for this. Runholders were out to make their money from exporting fine wool which was in demand, rather than from grain production for which there was only a limited market. Moreover, early cultivation methods were very slow. Ground to be broken up at first had to be burned then ploughed using bullock teams. Commonly these teams were made up of six bullocks, a single furrow plough, a ploughman and a bullock driver.65 The process often required large stones, cabbage trees, flax and the unburned crowns of tussock to be removed by hand, so that only small areas could be developed at any one time.

Nonetheless many pastoralists broke up ground to grow cereal crops for their own use. The Hall brothers sowed small acreages of wheat, oats and barley on the Rakaia Terrace Station in the spring of 1853.66 Interestingly, the Halls had started out using horses as draft animals, but changed to bullocks for cultivation and haulage work after the horses had struggled to drag timber out of the bush. At the neighbouring station, Rockwood, the Phillips family sowed barley and oats in the spring of 1855.67 Acland’s diary records oats being sown on ploughed land in October 1859. He had returned to England during 1857 and 1858 and it is likely that cultivation began at Mt Peel at this time, but was not recorded.68

The beginnings of what became a standard rotation were worked out in these early years of the pastoral expansion. Turnips were sown on the newly turned sod to provide winter feed for young sheep, followed by a cereal crop or successive cereal crops, and then ‘English’ grasses. The Hall brothers sowed down a paddock with a mix of grass and turnips in the spring of 1853 and the following year sowed grass on a paddock after oats had been taken off it.69 At Rockwood Henry Phillips undersowed clover on the oat paddock, and grass with barley, in November 1855, so that when the crop was harvested the clover and grass would be already established.70

From these early beginnings, the area of cultivated country steadily increased. In 1865 an article in the Australasian commented that runholders in the South Island were ‘making extensive changes, by substituting ‘English’ grasses for the


native kinds’.71 Data from the 1865 census provide some qualified support for this claim: the area of land fenced increased from 9278 hectares (22,926 acres) in 1858 to 138,569 hectares (342,400 acres) in 1865, and over 50 per cent of the 28,300 hectares (70,000 acres) that had been cultivated were sown in grasses.72

When wool prices declined, pastoralists and farmers looked for new ways to make their properties profitable. In 1867 an experimental shipment of wheat and flour was made from Temuka, in South Canterbury, to England. In time, this led to a boom in the production of wheat for export that transformed the landscape of the plains and downlands of Canterbury and North Otago. Technological and economic forces combined to stimulate this shift in focus from fine-woolled sheep to corn. The development of more rugged, locally designed and manufactured ploughs, more suited to local conditions than imported English and Scottish ploughs, made the work easier. The spread of the rail network in

Harvesting with Scythe and Cradle. Until the invention of the mechanical reaper, this was as technically advanced as harvesting equipment got. The operator is using a scythe and cradle to harvest a crop of wheat. As the blade of the scythe cuts a swath, the mown crop falls onto the cradle as seen in this photograph. The operator then tips the newly mown crop off the cradle before going on to cut the next swath. The advantage of using the cradle was that the crop was left in clumps in a line making it easier for the next process, which was to tie the crop into sheaves before stacking it in stooks. A scythe had to be set to suit the individual using it and the type of crop to be mown by using the two adjustable wooden handles (called grips) on the curved wooden shaft (known as a snathe or sned). The power for the swinging movement that drove the scythe came from the operator’s arms and trunk, and at harvest time when the weather was good the men had to work all day, day after day, at the task. Canterbury Museum, 14015


Canterbury meant that grain growers could get their crops to the ports more efficiently, and improvements in shipping enabled the crop to be shipped to England where, for a time, there was a ready market.73

While the big stations of lowland Canterbury and North Otago embarked on wheat growing as a profitable enterprise, it was also part of an ecological transformation of the lowland grasslands. Large-scale cultivation associated with the wheat bonanza enabled runholders to replace the low-producing native pasturage economically with ‘English’ grasses.74 In 1873 the Timaru Herald noted that south of the Rangitata thousands of acres of coarse tussock were ‘giving way to the cultivated grasses’ which increased the carrying capacity of the land ‘from three to nine fold’.75 An example of this shift was seen at the Windsor Park Estate in North Otago that harvested grain crops off 2000 acres in 1874, producing 50,000 bushels of wheat, 12,000 bushels of oats and 8000 bushels of barley, most of it destined to be shipped to England.76 The land was then to be sown down in grass. In 1880 the same property had 2800 acres in crop including 600 acres sown in turnips and rape for feeding sheep.77

Oat Harvest, Heddon Bush, Southland, early 1900s. Oats were the preferred grain crop in the colder, damper climate of Southland and Otago, whereas in North Otago and Canterbury wheat was the main grain crop. This paddock is on Mayfield, a farm situated on the fertile Oreti Plain between the Oreti and Aparima rivers. Mayfield was one of several farms that were opened up by the subdivision of the Heddon Bush run. This is a great crop of oats that has been stooked to dry before being gathered and stacked. Hocken Collections, 82.2685


By the early 1880s the scale of cultivation on the grasslands had increased enormously. In 1880 Te Waimate had 2025 hectares (5000 acres) sown in wheat and laid down 5000 acres of new grass on the previous year’s stubble, bringing the total area of the run in grass to 6070 hectares (15,000 acres).78 The Waimea estate in Southland had 10,110 hectares (25,000 acres) of cultivated country sown in grass, turnips and cereal crops in 1880.79 In Otago, over half of the Greenfield Estate’s 9710 hectares (24,000 acres) had been cultivated by the end of 1880.80 The owner’s policy was never to take more than one crop of cereals before sowing the block in turnips or rape and then in grass. In 1880, 1010 hectares (2500 acres) of turnips had carried 20,000 sheep for three months to fatten them for the Dunedin market.

A Crop of Sutton’s Imperial Green Globe Turnips, 1916–17. This large paddock of turnips was grown on Inverness, a farm in the Ealing District of Canterbury just north of the Rangitata River. A large mob of sheep can be seen grazing the crop. These days turnips are normally used for winter feeding, but in the colonial period turnips were used to fatten many thousands of sheep. Turnips are usually break fed, which has the benefit of minimising waste, and this was the case in the colonial period as well. When given the opportunity, sheep will eat all the green tops before starting on the roots. As can be seen in this photograph, all the turnips are chipped, so unless they are eaten quickly they will begin to deteriorate. When break feeding, the sheep are given access to only part of the crop, which they eat out completely before being given the next fresh break. Canterbury Museum, 13440


These statistics show that turnip farming was well established by the late 1870s. The New Zealand Country Journal reported in 1877 that ‘[m]ost of the fat sheep brought forward have been turnip-fed, a branch of farming that is now universal in Canterbury’.81 In addition to their qualities as fattening feed for sheep, farmers used turnips as a restorative crop in the progression from native grassland to improved grassland. Turnips were often sown on the newly turned sod. After they were fed off, the land was cross ploughed and sown in a cereal crop. Turnips were sown again after a cereal crop had been taken to restore the land before it was sown into pasture. The heavy concentration of sheep feeding on the turnip crop returned nitrogen to the soil, which benefited the subsequent crop. This system of land use gave runholders in the South Island an advantage when the British market for frozen meat was opened in the early 1880s.

The adoption of improved methods was so widespread in the South Island grasslands that P. B. Boulton, Chief Inspector of Sheep, reported in 1878 that, in the Provincial Districts of Canterbury, the runs ‘which remain pure and simple “squattages”, are 48 in number, situated in the Wanaka, McKenzie [sic], Upper Ashburton, Upper Rakaia, Upper Waimakarari [sic], and Upper Hurunui Districts’.82 These districts are dominated by mountain lands less suited ecologically to the changes taking place on the plains, downlands and easier hill country in the region. Yet even on a mountainous run like Mt Peel, the easier country was increasingly given over to cultivation from the mid-1870s.

On Mt Peel As has already been noted, Mt Peel grew oats on cultivated ground in 1859 and possibly earlier. This became an ongoing practice on the station. Ground that had been cultivated for growing oats was sown down in pasture that was made into hay. In his diaries, Acland made the first reference to hay-making on Mt Peel in 1870. In 1871 he ordered a mowing machine, which suggests he planned to increase the amount of hay made.83 The first reference to growing turnips appeared in December 1875 when Mitton purchased a ‘sowing machine’; turnip sowing commenced three days later and continued until the end of the month.84 The turnips were used for wintering the young sheep. In 1877 Mitton noted that 5400 lambs were put on to a turnip break late in May. Each paddock of turnips was divided into sections, called breaks, using sheep netting. This prevented the sheep trampling and wasting the crop. As each break was eaten off, a new section was opened up.

When the size of the area to be cultivated increased, the work was let to contract ploughmen. In 1876 a contract was let for breaking in new ground


at 12 shillings per acre. Before the job commenced station hands spent days digging out cabbage trees and clearing tussocks and stones from the area to be ploughed.85 This new paddock on an area called the Terrace was fenced off as it was ploughed.

By 1880 Mt Peel had established an annual cycle of agricultural work that began in early spring with the arrival of contractors to plough new ground for the season’s crops. The timing of sowing varied with the season, but the usual pattern was for oats to be the first crop sown, sometimes as early as August; grass seed was normally in the ground by the middle of November; and then followed the first turnip sowing. The sowing times for turnips was staggered so that the entire crop did not reach maturity at the same time and there was often a month or more between putting in the first paddock of turnips and the last. In January and February contractors were employed to mow oat and hay crops, and station staff brought them in. In some years they made part of the oat crop into oaten hay.86 Following the harvest, the oat paddock was lightly cultivated and sown down in grass in March or April.

Mt Peel followed the common practice of sowing rape with grass seed when paddocks were laid down. The rape was break-fed in the same manner as turnips, but used for quality summer feed to fatten sheep. In early March 1879 a mob of wethers was put on to a paddock of rape. Later the mob was drafted and the fattest sheep delivered to Washdyke, on the outskirts of Timaru, where a boiling down works had been established in 1869 and a factory for tinning meat for export was opened in 1870.87

Oversowing the Tussock Grasslands

Cultivation was used to replace native plants with more desirable species. Land was ploughed to bury plants and seeds that might compete with the new crop and then worked to create a fine firm seedbed to provide suitable conditions for the sown seeds to germinate and grow. The drawbacks were that cultivation was expensive, and on hill country and in stony areas it was not practicable to work the ground. In these situations oversowing – spreading seed by hand on the surface of the ground – was the only method available to pastoralists and farmers to enhance the feed supply.

We have already seen that Acland oversowed clover seed after burning when exploring Mt Peel in 1855, and Hall had spread grass seed at The Terrace in 1853, so it is clear that oversowing constituted part of the effort by pastoralists to improve their country from the outset. On Mt Peel the practice of spreading


grass seed on the range country had been established as part of the annual cycle of work by the middle of the 1870s. It is possible that it was part of the annual round before this time, but the station diary reported little detail on day-to-day work until Michael Mitton replaced Adam Irvine as manager at the start of April 1873. From that time, until Scott Thomson retired at the end of 1904, the diaries hold reasonably thorough accounts of the day-to-day activities on the station.

In April 1874 we find that Mitton sowed grass seed at the Long Fence and the following month had a man sowing grass in the Receiving Paddock.88 In the early spring of 1876, a man burned Round Hill and the next day sowed grass seed on the block.89 This became standard practice on Mt Peel in subsequent years. In January 1879 Mitton recorded that the station staff cut cocksfoot for seed. Thereafter this was recorded annually until January 1893, but as oversowing cocksfoot continued to be carried out it is likely that they continued to harvest cocksfoot after that date. It is difficult to know how much oversowing was done, but in some years it was clearly extensive. In 1878 grass was sown on fourteen days between 14 and 31 October, from 1 to 9 November, and on 30 and 31 December – twenty-four days in all.90

Cocksfoot appeared to be the favoured grass for oversowing on Mt Peel and elsewhere, but it was not the only species used for the practice. In 1890 John Acland, who had taken over the manager’s position when Mitton had died suddenly in July 1888, sowed an acre of prairie grass.91 With such a small area sown it is likely that it would have been for seed production. It was not recorded whether it was successful or whether the seed was used for oversowing or drilling in cultivated paddocks. In the spring of 1897, two men sowed a paddock of crimson clover.92 As in the case of the prairie grass, it is likely that the clover, sown on its own, was intended as a seed crop and it is possible that it was to be used for oversowing on the hills.

Burning and oversowing on the grasslands on Mt Peel provided a reasonably successful means of enhancing the feed supply on the run where cultivation was not a feasible option. A useful example of the value of the practice came from the 6205-hectare (15,333-acre) Kinloch Estate, Little River, which had been oversown with cocksfoot and clover and carried two sheep to the acre.93 Table 5.1 shows that oversowing was widespread throughout Marlborough, Canterbury and Otago/Southland between 1880 and 1911. It is notable that for every acre of cultivated grassland there were just over 4 acres of oversown grassland in Marlborough in 1911, whereas in Otago/Southland this figure was reversed as there were nearly four-and-a-half acres of cultivated grasses to every


acre of oversown land. In Canterbury there were nearly three acres of cultivated grasses for every acre of oversown country.

This variation can be accounted for by environmental differences between these regions. Marlborough is predominantly hilly country with less extensive easily cultivated country than Canterbury and Otago/Southland. Moreover, the vegetation on the region’s hills was more open than those of the higher rainfall parts of the southern regions and therefore more suited to oversowing. The lower rate of oversowing in Otago/Southland can also be attributed to environmental factors. In the semi-arid parts of Central Otago, oversowing proved unsuccessful because in dry seasons either the seed could not strike or the seedlings were unable to survive. The high rabbit population in those regions would have also taken a heavy toll on any seedlings that did manage to strike. In wetter parts, particularly in Southland, the heavy vegetation cover on the flats and easy hills meant that there was too much competition for oversowing to be successful, and cultivation proved necessary to remove the heavy tussock cover. Canterbury had large areas of plains and downlands suited to cultivation, but there were also extensive areas of open hill country along the foothills where there was adequate rainfall for oversowing to be successful.

TABLE 5.1 Area (Acres) of Cultivated Pasture and Oversown Pasture in Marlborough, Canterbury and Otago/Southland94

Year Marlborough Canterbury Otago/Southland

Cultivated Oversown Cultivated Oversown Cultivated Oversown

1880 15,991 36,935 542,972 172,166 357,880 111,278

1885 35,175 82,195 1,012,964 202,271 830,804 157,767

1890 50,323 111,639 1,093,920 218,933 1,053,421 158,310

1895 63,521 162,350 1,384,950 329,082 1,303,670 221,926

1900 91,292 200,570 1,419,466 350,405 1,436,698 293,177

1905 98,964 283,134 1,511,335 431,329 1,521,614 299,425

1911 100,255 421,898 1,455,519 507,446 1,566,875 352,749

Draining the Swamps

According to Geoff Park, drainage has reduced New Zealand’s freshwater wetlands from 670,000 hectares to about 100,000 since the beginning of European settlement.95 This decline, in the order of 85 per cent, is one of the most dramatic known anywhere in the world. Swamps were a significant feature


of the South Island landscape, and almost continuous along the coastal fringe of the Canterbury Plains. In the general Christchurch region, an unbroken stretch of wetlands extended from Rangiora to Lake Ellesmere and the lower reaches of the Rakaia River. Another large area of swamp was found in the Ashburton District extending from the Ashburton River to the mouth of the Rangitata. In South Canterbury there were extensive coastal swamps near Temuka and Waimate. Further south a large wetland area was found in the lower Taieri south of Dunedin, and Southland had considerable swamplands between the mouth of the Mataura River and Invercargill as well as numerous smaller wetlands near some of the rivers.

The drainage of wetlands had been an integral part of the agricultural revolution in Britain from the second half of the eighteenth century, and settlers in New Zealand were aware of the potential productivity of developed swamps. Drainage began very soon after the first settlements were established in Canterbury. John Macfarlane, a Border Scot, arrived in the district in November 1850 and took up the Loburn run the following year. It was not a good choice and he struggled to make the place profitable. In 1862 he sold it and purchased a block of the Rangiora swamp that he set about draining.96 Macfarlane had seen large-scale drainage and land development near his home in Scotland and knew the potential of the country. The reclaimed land was well suited for cropping, and raising and fattening cattle, and Coldstream became a successful and valuable property.

The most famous story of drainage in New Zealand in the nineteenth century belonged to John Grigg. Between 1864 and 1871, he established Longbeach on 12,545 hectares (31,000 acres) of what was predominantly swamp land lying adjacent to the coast between the Ashburton and Hinds rivers.97 Before Grigg began his draining, the Hinds River had no outlet to the sea, thereby creating this huge swamp. In 1867 Grigg started the process of drainage on the station by cutting an open ditch over 9.5 kilometres (6 miles) long that gave the river an outlet. He then had other open ditches cut at regular intervals. Once the drying out process was underway, he burned the country and oversowed it with clover and grass. As he refined the system, Grigg began using tile cross drains between the ditches and he built a factory to supply tiles for the work.98 In time he drained about 10,115 hectares (25,000 acres) of Longbeach in this way. After consolidating the land, he cultivated it for cropping, growing green feed and sowing down permanent pasture. In the 1878–80 season, 1214 hectares (3000 acres) were in grain; 566 hectares (1400 acres) were planted with mangels, turnips, rape and potatoes; and 121 hectares


(300 acres) were mown for hay. The estate carried up to 3600 cattle and 12,000 sheep, as well as 3000 pigs.99

Drainage proved important in land development in Southland, where runholders and farmers responded to the decrease in rabbit numbers and the development of refrigeration by increasing the area of country that they drained using tiles and the mole plough.100 John Fowler had developed the mole plough in England in 1850 to drain water through the soil profile in heavy clays, and the innovation proved to be very effective in some Southland areas.101

The drainage of wetlands on Mt Peel bore no comparison with that of Longbeach or Southland, but there were several swamps on the run, particularly at the bottom of the terraces. As the station developed, work was done to drain them. Initially, when conditions suited, the wetlands were burned. During a very dry season in 1862, Acland took the opportunity to burn a swamp and cleared the vegetation completely. In 1864 he fired a wetland he called Turkey Swamp.102 Burning would have cleared off the rank vegetation, but would have not made the swamps more productive as they would have recovered quickly in wet seasons. By the mid-1870s the station had resorted to ditching to drain wet areas, as by then the diaries recorded that clearing ditches had become a regular chore for workers on the property. In 1874 the manager Michael Mitton recorded ditching and clearing ditches in January, February, July, August and December, and grass seed was sown in a swamp in August of that year.103 The following March he hired contract drainers to drain a swamp in the Lower Paddock.104 Thereafter the diaries regularly recorded references to drains being dug or cleaned out, occasionally being burned and often being oversown with grass seed. It is likely that so much time was spent on the job of draining because the wetlands were a nuisance for the management of the station, creating obstacles for the easy movement of stock and a health hazard for footrot-prone Merinos. Acland also knew that swamps made for very productive grass-growing country once drained and seeded.

The Multi-levelled Impact of Refrigeration

Refrigeration has often been identified as a trigger for the development of new techniques and methods in farming practice.105 This chapter has shown that these changes were evolutionary rather than revolutionary, and that the fundamental techniques that enabled South Island pastoralists and farmers to take advantage of the frozen meat trade were already well established before 1882.


The agricultural round as practised on Mt Peel was similar to that found throughout the South Island grasslands, with local variations in timing and types of cereals grown due to differences in climate. In Canterbury wheat became the most commonly planted cereal crop, but in the cooler climates of Otago and Southland oats were more popular. The use of turnips and rape for wintering and fattening was widespread. This system was well established before the development of refrigeration. In fact, although the total combined area of cultivated land and permanent pasture increased six-fold in thirty-seven years, from just less than 404,700 hectares (one million acres) in 1875 to nearly 2,428,200 (six million acres) in 1911, the greatest percentage increase took place in the five years from 1875 to 1880. From 1875 to 1885 the easier country of the grasslands was dramatically transformed from native tussock to introduced cereals, green feed and ‘English’ grasses. Thereafter the area of land improved through cultivation and oversowing increased progressively but at a less dramatic rate of increase.

This shows that the establishment of the refrigerated trade in 1882 did not introduce a radical change in the system of land use in the grasslands; rather, it led to the wider adoption of methods that were already well established. This evolution was probably due to the time it took for the meat trade to become really profitable for pastoralists and farmers. The initial excitement after the success of the first shipment of frozen meat in 1882 soon turned to despondency as prices for the product declined in the English market and remained low for the rest of the decade. In 1883 prime New Zealand mutton sold in Britain at 7 pence a pound, and thereafter fell every year to reach 3¾ pence in early 1889.106 However, over this same period, shipping and other charges had been reduced from 4 pence a pound to 2½ pence in early 1889, and with the British market taking all the meat that New Zealand could export some confidence began returning for sheep farmers.107

Mt Peel management responded to this new opportunity by embarking on a programme of cultivation and subdivision from about 1886. Mitton established new paddocks, grew more turnips and sowed down more grass. The station also increased its cross-breeding programme that had begun before this time.

Similarly, Waitangi Station had grown oats and hay for horses and house cows before 1890, but the extent of the cultivation increased significantly from that time. There is no doubt that the increased cultivation represented a response to opportunities provided by the frozen meat industry, as Sutton purchased his first longwoolled rams – fifty Leicesters – at about the same time.108 The first large-scale sowing of turnips took place in November 1891, and the following


year 8000 lambs were wintered on the crop from late April to mid-September, whereas in former years they had wintered on the hill country.109 In 1893, four teams of contractors ploughed from late in July, and sowed oats in mid-August, followed by grass and rape, and finally turnips in November and December.110 This pattern of oats, turnips, and grass and rape became the standard rotation adopted on Waitangi over the next decade or more.

By the early 1890s, pastoralists and farmers in South Otago and Southland responded to the expanding frozen meat industry by breaking up more tussock country. Once the flats were cultivated and drained, they turned to the broad ridges on the surrounding hills, and one observer commented that ‘sheep feed is grown on what at one time was considered mountain tops.’111 As in Canterbury, southern farmers relied heavily on turnips for winter feeding, but with more hay and chaff saved to supplement the crop. Otago and Southland farmers also grew ryecorn to fill the ‘gap’ between ‘the end of the turnips and beginning of the grass’.112

Perhaps the most marked change in farming practice following the introduction of the frozen meat industry was the increased use of fertiliser, made possible by its greater availability and the reduction in its price.113 Various fertilisers had been available on the New Zealand market well before 1882 but they were not widely used in the South Island. The Lyttelton Times advertised Peruvian guano in 1864 and the Timaru Herald advertised bone dust in 1869.114 However, farmers and pastoralists relied on the natural fertility of the soil and the use of turnips or other green feeds as restorative crops rather than on fertilisers to maintain productivity. By the early 1880s, there had been increasing concern reported in the agricultural section of the press about the impact of repeated cropping on the fertility of soils. The frozen meat industry was seen as a solution to this problem by shifting emphasis from cereal cropping to livestock production.

Livestock farming relied on grass and clover pastures that were seen as less likely to cause deterioration of the soil.115 By the mid-1880s, a rotation of a wheat crop, then turnips followed by several years of pasture before the land was broken up again to begin a new cycle had become common in Canterbury.116 However, even this rotation could not sustain the fertility of the land. It became obvious that turnip crops and grass and clover pastures required fertiliser to be productive. ‘Ovis’ commented on this point in the New Zealand Country Journal in 1888, writing ‘[o]n the great bulk of the land in this country it is hopeless to expect the formation of permanent pasture of any value without the aid of topdressings’.117 The same writer also noted the necessity of fertilising the turnip


crop that he claimed acted as the foundation of the agricultural system of the country.118 He went on the say that ‘in former years a large proportion of the turnip crop was grown on land newly broken up from the tussock’ and therefore did not need artificial fertilisers, but this was no longer the case.119

A by-product of the refrigerated meat industry solved the problem of the availability of relatively cheap artificial fertilisers. A phosphate works had been established in Christchurch in 1882; however, its production was limited by the lack of bones for processing.120 As killing increased at the freezing works, bones became more readily available and the production of superphosphate and its use increased. In particular, the use of fertiliser when drilling turnips became common practice, with the Country Journal recommending mixing two-hundred-weight of bone dust with four- or five-hundred-weight of superphosphate as an ideal sowing rate.121

Mt Peel station began using fertiliser on turnips in 1890 with one-and-a-quarter hundred-weight sown with the crop.122 The following year Acland had two men mixing bone dust and superphosphate to be sown with turnips, and later in the year he had manure spread on a paddock of rape.123 In the spring of 1891, 252 acres had been sown in oats, turnips and grass, and rape and grass, with manure sown with or spread on the latter two mixes. Thereafter they spread fertiliser with every crop of turnips sown on the station.

Conclusion

This chapter has described the transformation of the grasslands through the input of resources, energy and technology in the form of fencing, cultivation, oversowing and drainage. The seeds of pastoral farming were sown very early in the history of the pastoral expansion in the South Island. From the outset it was apparent that some pastoralists took a long-term view of the development of their properties. They not only set out to increase the productivity of their land, but also to do it in ways that could be maintained over the long term. The process of development shifted through a series of phases from simple to the increasingly complex as new technologies, new ideas and new opportunities arose.

The adoption of the ideology of improvement by pastoralists varied across the grasslands according to a range of factors. Differences in environments of the stations, differences in the financial resources of the runholders and differences in their management abilities all played a part. By 1914 pastoral farming had become the dominant system of land use on the plains, downlands and easy hill


country from Marlborough to Southland. The Otago Witness observed in 1904 that ‘the pastoralist had been pushed back to the hilltops in many parts of the South Island’.124 As early as 1878, Boulton, the Chief Inspector of Sheep for Canterbury, thought that the properties that remained reliant on the natural pasturage without any other inputs were found only in the harsh semi-arid country and the remote high country.125 The reasons for this were economic, ecological and technological.

In Central Otago, particularly in Vincent County, the low rainfall and the rabbit infestation precluded the practice of oversowing that was so widespread in other parts of the country. With rabbit-proof fences protecting the flats, productive lucerne paddocks were developed, but these could not make up for the declining productivity of the surrounding hill country. In the hard hills and mountains of Marlborough, Canterbury and Otago, the short growing season, snow risk and cost of transport made development marginal. Not until aerial oversowing and topdressing were introduced in the 1950s could pastoralists in this class of country embark on the sort of development that pastoralists on easier country had done seventy and more years earlier. Moreover, pastoralists in many parts of the tussock grasslands could not grow productive grasses successfully because they could not establish legumes to fix nitrogen. In the 1950s and 1960s, Walker and Ludecke demonstrated that sulphur, phosphorus and molybdenum deficiencies restricted legume growth in many parts of the high country.126

Deficiencies in trace elements also limited pasture longevity in lowland regions. The quest to maintain permanent pastures became an obsession in the agricultural press from the mid-1880s, with the focus shifting from plant species to management practices and then to fertiliser usage. The debate over sowing rates of seed and suitable mixes of grasses and legumes continued for many decades. The native grass grub also took a heavy toll on pastures, particularly in Canterbury.127 The difficulty of maintaining permanent pastures meant that the plough remained an essential implement on lowland farms as run-out pastures had to be cultivated and put through a rotation of a cereal crop, turnips, then back to pasture.

An unintended consequence of the managed development of the tussock grasslands was the introduction of a variety of weed species, many of which remain problem plants in the modern landscape. Plants introduced for live fences such as gorse, broom and sweet briar invaded extensive areas of hill country. Elsewhere ragwort, several varieties of thistle, as well as unproductive barley grass and brome grasses have become established in the South Island countryside. In large areas of the Mackenzie Country, tussocks have been


replaced by several species of hawkweed, and these invasive weeds continue to spread through other parts of the high country, turning the distinctive landscape of tussock grasslands into a forlorn green-grey desert.

Looking back, many critics have found it easy to focus on the negative consequences of the impact of the development of the South Island tussock grasslands. They ignore the fact that the success of pastoral farming by the first decade to the twentieth century proved crucial in the turnaround of the country’s economic fortune after the long depression of the 1880s and early 1890s. Pastoralists and farmers fashioned changes to the landscape in an effort to increase the productivity of the land and they succeeded. In 1912, animal and agricultural products accounted for 82 per cent of New Zealand’s exports. Wool was the single biggest earner at over £7 million, with frozen meat exports earning nearly £4 million; together these two items made up 50 per cent of New Zealand’s export earnings.128 The country did, indeed, ride on a sheep’s back. The next chapter explores changes in the breeding of those sheep, what factors influenced that breeding, and the interplay between sheep breeding and the grassland environment.

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CHAPTER SIX

Sheep Breeding: Shaping Sheep to Suit the Land

Sheep dominated the farming industry in the south island through the pastoral era and beyond. There were obvious reasons for this. Once the tussock grasslands had been opened up by burning, they provided an ideal environment for grazing sheep. At the time of

settlement, limitations in transport meant that wool was one of the few products that could be stored without deteriorating and shipped easily to markets on the other side of the world. Soon after wool prices went into decline, refrigeration opened up a new trade in frozen meat. The distance from the British market prevented New Zealand beef producers from competing with North and South American producers, but New Zealand sheep farmers were able to monopolise the sheep meat trade. This was in part due to a lack of competition from other sheep farming countries. The Australian colonies held a much larger sheep population than New Zealand, but prolonged drought at the time that the business was being established limited Australian producers’ ability to fatten their sheep in large numbers. New Zealand sheep farmers were also concerned about the challenge from South American producers, but for political and social reasons Argentine and Uruguayan sheep growers were not able to establish the infrastructure that was needed to set up the business on a level that could compete with New Zealand suppliers. There were other reasons why New Zealand came to dominate the export of sheep meat and that story is told in this chapter.


Aside from a brief period during the grain bonanza of the 1880s, the primary focus for land use in the tussock grasslands of the South Island in the pastoral era was raising sheep. The processes that have been explored so far in this book have been about establishing sheep on the land and improving their feeding. Land appraisal by pastoralists, surveyors and other explorers determined whether the land would be suitable for sheep. Burning opened up the land for sheep grazing. Shepherding, boundary keeping and, later, fencing improved the management of sheep. Cultivation to grow fodder crops and introduced grasses, as well as oversowing, improved the quantity and quality of feed for sheep. By these practices pastoralists deliberately modified the landscape to facilitate sheep production. Conversely, the pastoralists also modified their sheep in order that they better suited the local environment, or more precisely the different local environments, found across the grasslands.

It has been argued that changes in sheep breeding were made in response to economic factors, in particular the introduction of the frozen meat trade. While it is correct that the demand from the marketplace had a profound influence on shaping sheep breeding, so did the local environment, and pastoralists were aware from the outset that different types of sheep did better in different environmental zones. Sheep that were run in regions to which they were unsuited suffered from animal health problems and were less productive than when run in areas for which they had been bred. The classic example of this was the susceptibility of Merino sheep to footrot when they were confined on heavy country. As a result of sheep breeding during the pastoral era, by 1914 different breeds had become established in different areas.

Merino Breeding

Merinos from the Australian colonies of New South Wales and Port Phillip were the sheep breed originally imported into the grasslands. Historians and historical geographers have been overly generous in their assessment of these sheep. The following statements are typical of these claims. Erik Olssen wrote that ‘New Zealand runholders had easy access to the finest Australian merinos and a lot of sound advice on how to maintain the purity of their flocks.’1 Ian Horsfield contended that ‘there was no shortage of well-bred, low price sheep available for shipment across the Tasman’, while Canadian geographer A. H. Clark saw the Merino as ‘this great gift of the earliest years’.2 The reality was that the Merinos imported from Australia in the 1840s, 1850s and 1860s were often not the high-quality sheep for which Australia became famous later in the nineteenth century.

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Sheep breeders in New South Wales had concentrated on breeding for the fineness of the wool with little regard for other factors, such as wool weight and the size and soundness of the animal. H. B. Austin, an Australian historian of the breed, commented that ‘[f]or many years, fineness was an absolute fetish. So long as the wool produced was 80s or 90s nobody bothered about what [weight of wool] the sheep cut’.3 Thomas Shaw, who had been brought to Australia by Robert Campbell, a leading merchant and wool grower, to improve the quality of the country’s sheep and wool, published his findings in 1849 in a pamphlet titled The Australian Merino. He had two major criticisms of sheep breeding in Australia. Breeders who had concentrated on fineness in the end found that ‘they had neither quantity, quality, nor constitution’, while those who had indiscriminately used British breeds in an attempt to remedy these faults produced what Shaw called ‘a mongrel breed’.4 Frederick Weld, one of the earliest pastoralists in New Zealand, wrote scathingly about the quality of sheep imported from Australia in the 1840s, saying that they ‘were nothing but drafts from inferior flocks, in which form, constitution, and, as a consequence, the weight of fleece, have been sacrificed, either by careless breeding, or by a blind indifference to everything but obtaining a small quantity of very fine wool’.5

Historians writing about the Australian influence in New Zealand sheep breeding have also ignored the impact that the environment had on the sheep for, despite their breeding, these Australian imports grew longer, stronger and heavier fleeces in the South Island grasslands than they did in New South Wales. As early as 1851, Weld noted that Merinos in New Zealand cut more wool than Australian Merinos, on average 4 pounds per head as opposed to about 2lb 8oz.6 Consequently, breeders in New Zealand never concentrated on fineness alone as a criterion for selecting their sheep, with the result that their sheep maintained size and vigour.

Of course there were sheep breeders in the Australian colonies who had maintained and even improved the quality of their sheep. It was these men, along with Shaw and his son Jonathan, who were instrumental in developing new types of highly productive Merinos that were adapted to the different environmental zones of Australia. An article published in the Otago Witness in 1883 noted the recent improvement in the Australian Merino: ‘[d]uring the last twenty years merino sheep have been so greatly improved . . . that they can scarcely be recognised as belonging to the same class of animals formerly known under the name but a few years ago. Twenty years ago merino sheep weighing from 50lb to 60lb were considered unusually fine; but at the present time 100lb is not considered heavy.’7 The writer went on to say that, as well as getting bigger, the


sheep grew longer stapled, more even, denser and, as a result, heavier fleeces than in former years. He also made the observation that ‘the improvement in the Australian merino has been brought about by a few of the more energetic and wealthy of our sheep-breeders’.8

The article could well have been describing the trajectory of sheep breeding in New Zealand. While it is likely that during the rapid expansion of pastoralism in the 1850s and early 1860s many runholders were more concerned with building sheep numbers than with the quality of their flocks, it was also evident that many intended to improve their sheep. New Zealand Merino breeders were part of an international Merino industry, and not just the Australian branch of it. The advertising pages of the Lyttelton Times in the late 1850s and early 1860s had numerous notices for Merino sheep imported from Saxony, Prussia, Silesia, France, Russia, England and America, as well as the Australian colonies.

The most famous Merino breeder in New Zealand was George Rich who founded a stud flock at Mount Eden, Auckland, and later shifted part of it to Canterbury. His son F. D. Rich later held the Moeraki run in North Otago and continued his father’s stud after George died on his return to England. George had toured the leading Merino flocks of Europe in 1858 to source sheep that would add to the quality of his flock and his trip had been closely followed by the Sydney Morning Herald.9 Rich’s Merinos were so highly regarded that they were sought after by the master of the French Emperor’s flock at Rambouillet. In 1863 F. D. Rich sold a Merino ram in Melbourne for £300, a record price for a single sheep in Australia at the time.10

In May 1860 Barton Acland met George Rich in Christchurch and persuaded him to visit Mt Peel to assess the quality of the flock. After crossing the flooded Rakaia River on the punt, they found the Ashburton River impassable, so Acland took Rich inland to Mt Somers Station, which he held in partnership with Tripp. According to Acland, Rich ‘gave a pretty good account’ of the Mt Somers sheep and, since they were the same breeding as the Mt Peel flock, Acland was well pleased.11

The result of the effort put into breeding and selection had the Otago Witness writing in 1883 that ‘New Zealand merinos may be said to have acquired a distinct type’.12 Between 1855 and 1878, the average wool weight per head over the entire New Zealand sheep flock nearly doubled, increasing from 2lb 5oz to 4lb 8oz.13 Between 1858 and 1878 the average wool weight of the Mt Peel flock increased from 2lb 4oz to nearly 5lb 8oz per sheep, and in 1891 43,600 sheep on the station cut on average 7lb 5oz. In the same year, some of the big flocks in the South Island tussock grasslands cut similar wool weights: 30,000 Merinos

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on The Terrace Station shore 7lb 13oz per head, the Horsley Down flock of 54,000 sheep averaged 7lb 4oz, and in 1906–07 48,000 Merinos on Morven Hills produced 9lb 8oz wool per head.14 While it is true that wool cut could vary according to the season, the overall trend through the pastoral era was for wool weights to increase.

However, by the 1890s pure Merino sheep represented a declining proportion of the South Island sheep flock. In 1895 there were nearly four million Merinos, making up 35.45 per cent of all sheep in the South Island; by 1905 that had declined to just over two million Merinos or 21.88 per cent; and by 1912 there were only one and a half million Merinos in the island, accounting for just under 14 per cent of the total sheep flock.15

Reasons for Change in Sheep Breeds

Historians have seen the establishment and expansion of the frozen meat industry as the catalyst for the change in sheep type in New Zealand.16 The conventional explanation, put simply, is that before refrigeration farmers ran Merino sheep for their wool; after 1882 they ran crossbred sheep for their wool and their meat. In fact, experiments in crossing British breeds over the base Merino ewe flock began almost from the outset of organised settlement as a response to animal health, and environmental and economic factors. Footrot; the failure of Merinos to produce well in heavy country and on improved pastures; the increasing demand for combing wool by English processors; and the requirement for a larger framed, meatier and faster maturing type of sheep than the Merino for the local butchers’ market and for boiling down, all encouraged sheep breeders to experiment with cross-breeding to improve their sheep. Indeed, it was the very success of these experiments in cross-breeding that enabled South Island farmers to take advantage of the new market made available by the opening of the frozen meat trade with Britain after 1882.

FootrotFootrot was a primary reason for the early experiments in cross-breeding. Footrot was the most serious sheep disease in the South Island tussock grasslands from the late 1860s and it continues to be a major animal health concern for present-day farmers who run fine-woolled sheep. A 2001 survey of New Zealand Merino farmers cited footrot as the second most significant disease after gastrointestinal parasitism.17 Footrot has significant economic costs for farmers. Sheep become lame and are less inclined to graze, with the result that they lose


weight, grow less wool, have a lower lambing performance and are more prone to fly strike, which, if not treated, will lead to their slow and painful deaths. Over and above the costs from the loss of production, the management of the disease is expensive in terms of the direct costs and the cost of labour.

All sheep breeds are susceptible to footrot, but Merinos are more prone than other breeds. Because Merino sheep originated in the semi-arid regions of the Mediterranean and were not exposed to the challenge of footrot, they did not develop resistance to the disease. Virulent strains are more pathogenic in Merinos than in British breeds and, after field trials, Egerton and others have reported that ‘the incidence, severity, duration, and extent of infection was higher among Merinos than in Border Leicester-Merino crossbreds’.18

Footrot is caused by the anaerobic bacteria Dichelobacter nodosus, which is able to survive for long periods within the hoof with no external signs that the hoof is infected, but it does not survive outside the host for more than seven days.19 The transmission of infection is determined by environmental conditions: moist conditions above 10 degrees centigrade are a precondition for the development and spread of the disease. Increased stocking rates will increase the rate of disease spread. A long spell of dry conditions will result in a spontaneous cure, but some sheep will become hosts and carry the bacteria for years and on into the next challenge season.20

The disease arrived in New Zealand with Merinos imported from the Australian colonies. Despite Australia’s reputation for aridity, footrot was a serious disease in its colonial era and remains so today. William Youatt wrote in 1837 that ‘footrot seems to assume a character of its own in New South Wales . . . [and] if neglected, it speedily becomes inveterate, and preys upon and destroys the animal. The losses occasioned by it in the early existence of the colony were frightful.’21 Alfred Joyce, a squatter in the Port Phillip District, complained that footrot and scab cost him £3,000 in 1853 alone – this being made up of stock losses and the costs of treatment.22

In New Zealand footrot was a problem from the outset in wetter regions in the North Island, although in Canterbury the disease does not appear to have been a problem on the large sheep stations. This difference probably resulted from the low sheep numbers in the early years and the management system where the sheep were not confined but allowed to run on open blocks, which meant that the disease could not spread readily. However, colonists on their small farms around the new settlements found Merinos poorly adapted to their heavier land. The Deans brothers, who ran sheep on the Canterbury Plains before organised settlement began, noted how quickly the hooves of their

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Merinos grew on the heavy country at their Riccarton farm. They decided that sheep farming might be more successful on the hill country to the west where the sheeps’ hooves would be kept shorter on the stonier ground.23 By 1860 farmers were experimenting with cross-breeding using sires of English breeds over Merino ewes. Newspaper advertisements and articles noted Cotswold, Hampshire and Southdown rams being used as sires in the region. In 1866 more Leicester, Cheviot and Romney Marsh sheep were shown at the Canterbury Agricultural and Pastoral Association Exhibition than Merinos.24

Pastoralists on the stations of the open plains and mountain lands continued to graze Merino sheep, but changing conditions that encouraged the spread of footrot began to have an impact on their farming operations. Sheep numbers built up remarkably quickly, so that by the end of the 1860s pastoralists judged the country in its native state to be fully stocked. From about the same time the use of wire fencing and large-scale cultivation intensified on the Canterbury Plains, which led to sheep being run on increasingly confined blocks.

The use of turnips and replacing the native vegetation with introduced grasses and legumes combined to increase the stocking rates from perhaps a sheep to 3 acres to a sheep to the acre or better. This provided ideal conditions for the spread of footrot. A correspondent to the New Zealand Country Journal in 1879 emphasised this when he wrote: ‘It is impossible to keep the Merino on the bulk of our cultivated lands, for the simple and best of reasons – their feet are not adapted to moist lands, and that footrot is the result.’25 William Soltau Davidson, manager of The Levels station and one of the breeders instrumental in developing the Corriedale, wrote in his memoir:

The introduction of English grass pasturage necessitated a change in the stocking of the properties, because merino sheep when grazed on cultivated land soon became afflicted with foot-rot. It was therefore necessary to adopt a long-wooled [sic] breed and their crosses, which throve well on the English grasses.26

Even on the hill and high country runs, footrot became a problem as the more progressive pastoralists engaged in large-scale improvement programmes. Te Waimate provides an example of a station that embarked on a large development scheme of drainage, cultivation and fencing that led to increased sheep numbers, but also to devastating outbreaks of footrot. Owner E. C. Studholme described the tedious job of treating 16,000 infected sheep in one winter. The station staff spent months trying to cure the sheep by paring their feet and then running them through a trough containing a mixture of arsenic, bluestone, soda and


water. Studholme gives us some insight into the labour-intensive nature of treating footrot, writing: ‘footrot was a horribly monotonous job after one had been at it for weeks, and it was a great relief when the trouble disappeared for the time being’. 27

At Mt Peel Station, fencing and cultivation constituted part of the established farming practice on the property from the time it was taken up. The flats and terraces in the vicinity of the homestead were ploughed and sown in turnips for wintering hoggets and later for fattening sheep, or sown into pasture for hay or grazing. Inevitably, this intensification resulted in severe outbreaks of footrot in the Merino flock in wet seasons.

The farm diaries from Mt Peel are not detailed enough to provide any idea of actual man-hours involved in treating footrot, but they do offer some idea of the extent of the problem. In 1873 the diary noted that the rams were being treated for footrot and from that time the disease was ever present in the ram flock.28 It soon spread to other classes of sheep on the station. Footrot was an ongoing problem through the 1880s, although the disease went into remission with the onset of a series of dry years in 1889, 1890 and 1891. However, a wet year in 1892 launched another outbreak.

The treatment of footrot on Mt Peel is consistent with other contemporary accounts dealing with the problem. Mitton and his staff inspected the feet of suspect sheep and isolated the lame animals. They pared the hooves to remove the infected tissue and then ran the sheep through a trough containing a solution of arsenic and bluestone to cure the infection.29 Infected sheep were brought in regularly to have their feet ‘dressed’, but, despite these measures, it is clear that the cure rate for footrot was low. The problem only eased temporarily in dry seasons when the disease naturally went into remission.

Footrot posed a very real problem for pastoralists and farmers in the South Island grasslands. The flock was based on footrot-prone Merino sheep, and the intensification of farming methods and increasing stock numbers forced sheep into ever-closer contact and spread the infection. Despite their best efforts to cure their infected animals, sheep farmers found the problem insurmountable in all but the driest years. Naturally they looked for a long-term solution and that was to change their sheep breed. Yet this became a highly contentious issue in the region from at least the early 1860s. Before going on to scrutinise that debate, we need to examine three other factors that encouraged sheep breeders to experiment in cross-breeding.

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Environment: The Right Sheep in the Right PlaceIt has been noted that the ‘matching of sheep breed to environmental conditions was to become a national preoccupation’ in New Zealand.30 This quest began within the first decade of the establishment of pastoralism in Canterbury and Otago, probably in response to the growing awareness of the marked differences in environments across the grasslands. As early as 1859 a letter published in the Lyttelton Times suggested that crossing Cheviot rams over Merino ewes would produce a hardier sheep that would be ‘better adapted for the cold, wet country south of Dunedin, than the pure merino’.31

This concern over finding the right sheep to suit a particular environment had its origins in Britain where local breeds had been developed that were adapted to local conditions: for example, the Romney Marsh suited low-lying land, the Lincoln was bred for heavy country and the English Leicester for lighter lands, while the Border Leicester was favoured on easier hills of the English/Scottish Border country and the Cheviot on the harder, colder parts. The Spectator underlined this concept in an article on the most profitable description of wool for New Zealand to produce, writing that the ‘nature of the pasture . . . ought to determine the breed of sheep to be kept on it’.32 The Mark Lane Express made the same point in an article about farms and sheep in New Zealand. The article noted that with cultivation, fencing and drainage, stocking rates would be lifted and, as a result, ‘[t]he class of sheep may hence be very much varied’, but it went on to emphasise that ‘[s]heep should always be adapted to the peculiarities of the country’.33

While it was apparently universally acknowledged by the experts that the sheep must suit the country, the unanimity stopped there, as opinions varied about what breed was best for what types of country. John McBeath, writing in the Country Journal, argued that the Merino was the best sheep for hilly country, the first cross English Leicester/Merino halfbred was ideal for ‘English’ grasses, while for heavy low-lying pasture the halfbred should be mated to a Lincoln to produce a three-quarter bred.34 Some thought the Southdown made for a better first cross than the Leicester, while others favoured the Romney Marsh. In Canterbury in the early 1870s, the Leicester, Lincoln and Romney Marsh were the most popular English breeds at local ram sales; by the early 1880s, Otago breeders favoured the Lincoln and Leicester; whereas in Southland the Romney was preferred.35

Experimentation in cross-breeding to develop sheep for different environ-mental zones was part of the wider process of environmental learning that had been taking place in the grasslands since the beginning of settlement, and it


was established well before the frozen meat industry was developed in 1882. Moreover the idea of creating a ‘district breed’ of sheep, that is, a fixed breed selected expressly to suit local conditions, became part of the wider debate on the future of sheep breeding in New Zealand. A writer in 1877 thought that, although the outcome was not at all certain, if the breeding was undertaken ‘with judgement and care each year the results will be evener and more satisfactory, until at last climate and selection will have completed the task’.36 As we will see later in this chapter, by 1877 several breeders had already embarked on the task of establishing a fixed in-bred halfbred.

Changing Demand for WoolHigh prices for fine Merino wool resulting from the demand for the product from English, European and American woollen mills drove the expansion of the pastoral industry in New Zealand. However, from the mid-1860s wool prices began a decline that, aside from a brief period in the 1870s, continued for the remainder of the century, and very fine Merino wool, which had been in high demand, for a time fell out of favour. Technical improvements in the wool processing industry in England and changes in fashion led to the expansion of the worsted industry, centred in the West Riding of Yorkshire. Worsted processors wanted ‘combing’ wool. This has a long staple and good tensile strength and can withstand mechanical combing without breaking. English woolgrowers could not meet the increasing demand for this type of wool, so the processors turned to the colonies for their fibre. Reports from the London wool sales in the Lyttelton Times from early 1860 began to stress that the worsted districts demanded ‘sound, shafty’ combing wool.37 An article in the Mark Lane Express, reprinted in the Lyttelton Times in 1864, argued that:

. . . all the new sources of supply – Australia, Tasmania, South Africa, New Zealand – furnish fine, soft, useful, short-stapled wool [while] the demand for long-grown wool increases year by year, and any country which possess facilities for the production of a wool endowed with qualities which are peculiar to wool of English growth seems far more likely to ensure a profitable market for its commodity than it can by adhering to wool of a shorter and finer type.38

Businessmen from Bradford and Halifax formed the Wool Supply Association to encourage woolgrowers to change to longwoolled breeds. The Association made submissions to governments and sent letters and pamphlets to newspapers and periodicals as part of its promotional campaign. In December 1863 the

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Lyttelton Times published a letter from the Secretary of the Bradford Chamber of Commerce, who saw New Zealand’s future as a supplier of ‘long-stapled fleeces, of a medium quality and length, between the fine Merinos of Australia and the long-grown Leicester of [England]’.39 The letter continued that if New Zealand farmers used English breeds instead of pure Merinos, they would ‘produce a fleece better adapted to meet the growing wants of the manufactures of this country’.

Naturally, prices on the auction floors in London backed up this pressure on growers to change the wool type that they produced. A compelling example of the price advantage of combing wool over fine Merino can be found in prices received by The Levels Station. In 1868 Leicester rams were used over a line of Merino ewes; hogget wool from the resulting cross sold for 16 pence per pound, whereas Merino wool from the station fetched 9 pence.40 In addition to the price advantage, halfbred wool had a weight advantage over wool cut from pure Merinos. Holme Station in South Canterbury had a highly regarded Merino flock, yet in 1872 hoggets bred from the cross of a Leicester ram over Merino ewes cut nearly 7 pounds of wool per head, whereas the Merino ewes clipped 5lb 8oz.41

In 1871 the Timaru Herald published a letter from an unnamed London wool broker that clearly laid out the advantages of halfbred sheep over Merinos:

The demand for half-breed wools at enhanced prices has attracted considerable notice, and is almost certain to continue . . . and when the weight of fleece and carcase is considered it does not require much more to prove that this description of sheep will be much more paying than the Merino.42

Moreover, the writer argued that because of its climate New Zealand was seen as the ‘chief and most successful producer of half-breds’. Clearly, from the 1860s an economic advantage could be won by producing wool from halfbred sheep. However, a spirited debate ensued in the region over the practicalities of this change. Before exploring that debate I want to look at the fourth advantage to be gained in cross-breeding.

Sheep FatteningMerino sheep were unsuited for meat production. For centuries they had been bred only for the quality of their wool. They were small framed, lean and slow to mature compared with British breeds like the improved Leicester and Lincoln. In Britain, Merinos had been fashionable around the turn of the nineteenth


century, but because of these very problems, and their susceptibility to footrot, they quickly fell out of favour with English farmers.

Farmers on the heavier country near Canterbury’s settlements had begun experimenting with cross-breeding by at least the beginning of the 1860s, in part, to overcome the problem of footrot. Another reason was that they relied not only on wool for their income, but also on producing food for the local market and Merino sheep were simply not productive enough. In 1861 the Lyttelton Times ran advertisements for Cotswold–Merino ram lambs, with the vendor claiming that in Australia this cross had been found to ‘improve the constitution, to increase and ripen the carcase, add greatly to the weight of wool and length and strength of staple’.43 At the Pastoral and Agricultural Show held in 1862, there were two classes for fat sheep: Robert Chapman won the class where sheep were required to be fattened on native pasture with a line of four-year-old Merino wethers, with the heaviest carcase weighing 80 pounds; Mrs Deans won the section where sheep were finished on enclosed ground with 80-pound Merino–Southdown halfbred wethers that were only ten months old.44 This proved to local farmers that the advantage of cross-breeding for meat production was beyond dispute.

By the end of the 1860s, the local demand for surplus sheep off the runs disappeared. Up to this time there had been a ready market for sheep as pastoralism expanded. By 1865 all of the country suited to extensive sheep farming had been taken up, and by the end of the decade the runs, in their native state, were fully stocked. As gold petered out in the goldfields of Otago and Westland, the miners drifted away and with them a large market for meat. Apart from the butchers’ market in the region’s towns, the only outlets for surplus sheep were meat preservation and the boiling-down works where sheep were rendered into tallow for export. As with meat production, the lean and slow maturing Merinos did not have the size or condition to make rendering down profitable. As early as 1870, the Timaru Herald reported that halfbred sheep were being expressly bred for boiling down and meat preservation.45 In 1872 a commission agent, who bought and sold stock on behalf of farmers, reported that it was evident from the number of longwoolled rams being sold that stockowners were going in largely for crossbreds.46 Later in the same year a newspaper report noted that the ‘rapidly increasing area of land under English grass has convinced our farmers of the necessity of turning their attention to breeds other than the merino’.47

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The Great Merino Debate

Before the development of the frozen meat trade, there were already compelling advantages in cross-breeding over persevering with the pure Merino. Merinos were prone to footrot, their wool was becoming less competitive in the marketplace, they were not thought to be productive enough on improved pasturage, they were not suited to wetter climates and heavier soils, and they were too slow to fatten for meat production or for boiling down. Yet the idea of cross-breeding produced intense debate, with enthusiasts for the Merino breed predicting disaster for the future of the sheep industry if the practice became widespread. After Mrs Deans’ success at the Pastoral and Agricultural Show with her Merino–Southdown halfbreds, a writer in the Lyttelton Times warned:

The high price of butcher’s meat at present is an inducement to speculate in [crossing], and the home demand for a longer stapled wool is also a stimulant to experiments. The sheep farmer should pause before embarking in such an experiment, as the practice is not sustained in theory. The first cross of the Merino with the South Down may yield a sheep well adapted for the purpose, but breeding from such would entail degeneracy and a mongrel race.48

A year earlier the Lyttelton Times had reprinted an article from the Spectator that questioned the wisdom of New Zealand sheep breeders shifting the focus of their production from short fine wool to long, stronger wool. It asserted that it was impossible to establish a breed of sheep by crossing two breeds and obtaining the merits of both. The article quoted a paper by William Charles Spooner (Member of the Royal Veterinary College) that had been published in The Economist, where he emphasised: ‘Cross-breeding is merely a plan of producing meat, for cross bred animals are only profitable when bred for the butcher. They cannot be perpetuated.’49 Spooner went on to say that no one should cross to establish a new breed, ‘unless he has clear and well defined views of the object he seeks to accomplish, and has duly studied the principles on which it can be carried out, and is determined to bestow for the space of half a lifetime his constant and unremitting attention to the discovery and removal of defects’. The article outlined another objection to cross-breeding: the resulting lack of uniformity in the character of the wool. It stressed the maxim ‘like produces like’ and claimed that crossing produces ‘innumerable varieties, and not infrequently on the same sheep’.

The Lyttelton Times reprinted another article with a similar message in 1863. It was written by Professor Ran and had been published in the Hohenheim


weekly paper. Professor Ran was referred to as ‘one of the first authorities in Europe on the subject of the weight of fleece and carcase of sheep’.50 His objection to cross-breeding was that it was difficult to obtain a large carcase and an abundance of wool together. Wool growth, he claimed, occurred at the expense of carcase growth, and that farmers who were concerned with wool production should breed Merino sheep with a small-to-average frame, while those who wished to grow sheep with a large carcase must expect to grow less wool.

Thus we have the dilemma of sheep owners in the grasslands: the market and the problem of footrot encouraged them to change their type of sheep, while the theorists of the time told them it could not be done without risking the quality of their flocks. Yet, despite the orthodox view that cross-breeding with Merinos was doomed to failure, practical farmers in the region got on with the job of trying to solve the problems associated with the practice. It would seem that many tried to establish a two-flock system where Merino rams were used over part of the Merino ewe flock to maintain the base breed, and rams of British breeds were crossed over the rest of the ewes. The progeny of this cross produced ideal wool for the worsted trade and the wethers fattened quickly and to heavy weights, but what to do with the ewes from the cross? Nor did this system really deal with the footrot problem as the base breeding flock remained Merino.

Experiments in Cross-breeding

Cross-breeding became a well-established practice on farms around the settlements of the South Island in the 1860s. Farmers purchased surplus Merino ewes off the runs and mated them to rams of English breeds. Some might keep the best ewe lambs from the first cross to be mated either back to a Merino ram or to a ram from a different English breed. Generally, this was as far as the crossing went, as subsequent crosses expressed too much variation in the quality of the wool. Thus, the cross-breeding system relied on the ready availability of Merino ewes off the big stations.

However, by the late 1860s some of the larger sheep owners began experiments in cross-breeding that were to lead to the complete reshaping of the sheep flocks of the grasslands. In 1867 The Levels Station imported Lincoln and Leicester rams from England and mated a cut of their Merino ewes to Leicester rams in 1868 as an experiment. The results were so successful that in 1872 30,000 Merino ewes were put to Lincoln rams; by 1879, of the 79,497 sheep on the run only 6300, less than 8 per cent, remained pure Merinos.51 The Studholme

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brothers purchased ninety Leicester rams in 1872, enough to mate 9000 ewes.52 In 1875 Clent Hills Station, a run in the Ashburton Gorge, was advertised for sale with 19,500 sheep, of which 15,628 were crossbred.53 The breeding of these sheep at Clent Hills illustrates the problem of crossing. Merino ewes were mated to Lincoln rams to breed a halfbred sheep, which were subsequently mated to Lincolns again. This system of crossing resulted in increased variability in the wool of the progeny, and by going further away from the Merino it meant a loss in quality of the wool, while the progeny became bigger animals that required a higher level of feeding to grow them out and maintain them.

William Soltau Davidson, who managed The Levels, described the cross-breeding problem:

While a supply of Merino ewes was available, excellent half-bred sheep were easily enough bred by crossing them with Lincoln or Leicester rams, but it was the after-breeding that was the difficulty. If the half-bred ewes were mated with Longwool rams the progeny – three-quarter-breds as we called them – were heavier sheep than we desired; while if merino rams were used the progeny were too small and were uneven in the wool. It was the half-bred sheep we wanted and nothing more or less.54

In an attempt to overcome these problems, in 1874 Davidson set out to breed an inbred halfbred that would breed true to type.55 He joined selected stud Lincoln rams to 1000 ewes from the Merino stud flock at The Levels. The first mating produced about 450 ewe lambs from which Davidson selected 150 for the breeding programme. He went on to breed from the original parents until they became unproductive, while continuing the policy of heavily culling the progeny. In time, the young halfbred ewes were mated with rams chosen from their own lot and this strategy of inbreeding continued, so that forty-four years later Davidson could write that the Corriedale stud flock at The Levels contained ‘no other blood than that originally adopted to create the type, which is now absolutely fixed’.56

The person usually credited with establishing the Corriedale breed is James Little, a Scot who managed Corriedale Station in Otago. He started cross-breeding experiments using Romney rams over 600 Merino ewes in 1868.57 The halfbred progeny were mated together and Little continued this programme with success until he moved to his own property, Allandale, in North Canterbury in 1878. There he started again with 2000 selected Merino ewes, which he mated to Lincoln rams. From the progeny he selected twenty ram lambs that


met the type he desired. These were later mated with selected ewes from the same cross.58

As a result of the work of Little, Davidson and others, the inbred halfbred became highly regarded throughout the low-rainfall districts of New Zealand. The success of these experiments was also noted elsewhere. An article from the Live Stock Journal was reprinted in the New Zealand Country Journal in 1883, and recognised both the intellectual and practical breakthrough that these breeders had made. It criticised sheep breeders in New South Wales because they had been so swayed by the belief that cross-breeding was doomed to fail that they had lacked ‘the courage to attempt any experiments outside . . . the merino branch of the sheep-breeding industry’. The article went on to note:

Allandale Homestead, Residence of James Little. James Little worked for Dr Webster at Corriedale Station in Otago, where he began his early experiment in trying to breed a fixed, inbred halfbred that would breed true to type. He used Romney rams that he had brought out from England for Dr Webster over Merino ewes. On moving to Allandale, Little had to start again and this time he used Lincoln rams over Merino ewes. Later, Little purchased a neighbouring block that he called Dalmeny where he built a house and ran his sheep. By this time Little’s inbred halfbreds had gained a good reputation for both their wool and lamb production. Little was a great entrepreneur and promoted his sheep by showing them at Agricultural and Pastoral Shows across Canterbury. Around 1914 Little purchased another nearby farm called Hui Hui for his son H. T. Little and shifted his Corriedale stud flock there. Hui Hui Corriedales became famous among sheep breeders throughout the world. The dry downs and easy hill country of the Hawarden–Waikari area are ideally suited to the Corriedale breed and some of the country’s leading Corriedale stud flocks are still found in the district. Canterbury Museum, 19XX.2.4053

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There are, however, a few who, not misled by mere theories, are persevering with sheep such as are now attracting much attention in New Zealand. The breeders of New South Wales have nought to offer English consumers but lean, small-carcased merinos, while New Zealanders are able to compete with even the Southdowns by sending to the London Market well-fattened cross-breds.59

Thus, by the time the frozen meat trade began, many sheep breeders in the South Island had made considerable progress away from the Merino to a halfbred type. Moreover, some had begun the task of developing a fixed breed that met local environmental conditions and the requirements of the wool and fat sheep trade. The progress that had been made in sheep breeding, in turnip culture, and in the regrassing of the plains and downlands with ‘English’ grasses gave pastoralists and farmers of the grasslands a considerable advantage in supplying fat sheep for the British market when the trade began in 1882.

Refrigeration and its Impact

The significance for New Zealand of the voyage of the Dunedin in 1882 with its cargo of frozen meat and dairy produce has been likened to the importance of 1066 and the Battle of Hastings for English history as key events that transformed each country.60 There is no question that the event set New Zealand’s economy on a new trajectory; where once the country’s surplus sheep were almost a liability, after the frozen meat trade was established they became, in time, the country’s most important export. The success of the frozen meat trade led to profound changes for the great pastoral runs of the South Island tussock grasslands. With sheep producing returns from wool and meat, it made small farming viable and was a major factor in the move to ‘burst up’ the big estates under the Liberal government after 1890.61

It has been emphasised throughout this book that, in the context of farming methods, the impact of the establishment of the frozen meat trade was evolutionary not revolutionary. Cross-breeding became more widely practised and Merino sheep became increasingly marginalised onto the hardest country. Turnips and other greenfeeds became more widely grown, but were used for fattening sheep for the frozen meat trade rather than for wintering stock. The application of fertiliser became more widely practised because blood and bones, the by-products of the freezing works, were cheaper than imported guano. Permanent pasture increasingly replaced grain crops as the most important component of the rotation. Thus the period between 1882 and 1914 saw the

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intensification of established methods and their fine-tuning, rather than any radical new developments. However, that should not be taken to infer that the period of experimentation and learning was over. In truth, that was anything but the case. A study of sheep breeding shows that debates over the direction of cross-breeding and the differences between commentators, theorists and practical breeders concerning establishment of a fixed cross remained unresolved.

The Marginalisation of the Merino

In 1882 the Merino remained the most numerous sheep breed in the tussock grasslands, and the valuable first cross halfbred depended on availability of Merino ewes. Indeed, an article in the Press suggested that in Canterbury a system akin to that of the Border districts of England and Scotland would soon develop, where sheep owners in the hills would breed store sheep for farmers on the easy hills and flats to fatten on turnips.62 In the New Zealand case, these would be Merino sheep run in the hills for their wool then sold as caste for age ewes63 to farmers to breed halfbreds for the frozen meat trade. And in the early years of the frozen meat trade that is what happened. The New Zealand Country Journal in 1883 noted the demand for drafts of Merino ewes off the big stations, reporting ‘it is no exaggeration to say that for the last ten years the enquiry for this class of sheep has not been so extensive as it has been during the season just over’.64 Acland confirmed this in a letter to his brother in 1885. After

Opposite: The Dunedin at Port Chalmers, 1882. This is a photograph of the ship Dunedin with a report on some of the sales of its cargo of frozen meat. While the success of the venture was one of the most important turning points in New Zealand’s history, the voyage itself did not go without its trials. The ship left New Zealand on 15 February 1882 and arrived in London on 14 May. On the way sparks from the boiler funnel set fire to the sails on several occasions, and when the ship was in the tropics the main air duct became blocked, causing concern that the cargo would spoil. The captain crawled into the duct and opened it up but was overwhelmed by the cold. He was only saved when the mate crawled in behind him and tied a rope around his legs, so that he could be pulled out of the duct. The frozen cargo included 4311 mutton and 598 lamb carcases. The meat sold for about twice the return the sheep would have been sold for in New Zealand. Murray, Roberts and Company, which held Gladbrook near Middlemarch, had 349 carcases on the Dunedin and received a net return of 22s 2d per head. In February 1882 when the Dunedin was being loaded good sheep were selling for up to 13s per head (Otago Witness, 24 June 1882, p.14). It is interesting to note that, although the carcases were sold in London, the agents were an Edinburgh company, John Swan & Sons. Presumably this was because the shipment had been organised by William Soltau Davidson and Thomas Brydone who worked for the New Zealand and Australian Land Company, which was an Edinburgh-based firm. Otago Settlers Museum, 1435MNZ


commenting that there was no interest in Merinos for freezing, he wrote that the difference the trade made for him was that the Mt Peel cull sheep now sold for 6/8 rather than 3–4 shillings in previous years.65

However, by 1890 many large flock owners had begun to breed and fatten halfbreds. This caused a considerable degree of concern: ‘Ovis’, writing in the Country Journal, thought it a questionable policy because ‘an immense proportion of strictly Merino country [was] not suitable for halfbred lambs’.66

Merino Ram. By the turn of the twentieth century, Merino sheep had been bred into three main classes according to the quality of the wool that they grew: fine, medium and strong. This photograph is of a fine Merino. In general, fine Merinos are smaller sheep, their wool is shorter and they cut less wool than medium and strong Merinos; however, their finer fleece usually has returned a premium in the marketplace. Despite this ram being smaller than the medium and strong types, it is bigger and carries more wool than the early Merinos that were first imported from the Australian colonies in the 1840s and 1850s. This ram carries wool from his nose to his toes. Modern breeders prefer less face cover so that their sheep do not become ‘wool blind’ when the wool gets long. The good covering of wool on the body and legs remains a feature of the Merino breed. The dewlap, the loose fold of skin seen on the throat and chest of this ram, is a distinguishing characteristic of the Merino. William Perry, Sheep Farming in New Zealand, frontispiece

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For the future success of the frozen meat trade, he thought it imperative that a good supply of Merino ewes be maintained in the high country so that they could be used later for cross-breeding down country. Despite these concerns, the low prices for Merino wool and the strengthening of the frozen meat trade encouraged pastoralists in the high country to move away from Merinos even where their local environments were not favourable to the business of fattening stock. After the high stock losses in the 1895 snow, the hill runs were restocked ‘almost exclusively’ with crossbreds rather than with Merinos.67 In the Amuri, which was renowned for the quality of its Merino flocks, pastoralists went in for growing rape to fatten crossbred lambs rather than selling them as stores.68 With the continued breaking up of the tussock in Southland, W. Quin noted in the Country Journal that the Merino was growing ‘scarcer every year and promises to become extinct with advancing cultivation’.69

Establishing a ‘Local’ Breed

As we have seen, cross-breeding had become well established before 1882 for environmental, animal health and economic reasons. Moreover, as more sheep owners turned to cross-breeding, the Merino ewes on which the whole system was founded became a declining portion of the national flock. Without them, the first cross halfbred that had been so well suited to all but the wettest parts of the grasslands, and that had produced ideal wool for the worsted trade and a meaty carcase for the meat trade, could not be bred. In Canterbury some breeders had worked on the task of establishing a fixed inbred halfbred, while in Southland breeders experimented with the Romney and Cheviot breeds to find a sheep that was productive in the harsher climate of the southern districts.

Despite the progress that had already been made by James Little and the Australian and New Zealand Land Company in fixing an inbred halfbred, leading commentators and agricultural experts remained unconvinced about the prospects of such experiments. W. E. Ivey, the Director of the School of Agriculture at Lincoln, did not expect that such a sheep could be established.70 ‘Ovis’ viewed these experiments sceptically: in 1887 he commented that claims about the success of fixing a Merino/Longwool halfbred were ‘probably somewhat premature’; six years later he was no more enthusiastic, claiming that such breeding was as yet ‘in its infancy’; in 1897 he concluded that a fixed breed of sheep similar to the halfbred ‘has not become general and probably never will’.71 In the Australian Pastoralists Review, J. S. Holmes had nothing good to say about the fixed halfbred sheep type, and ‘Rusticus’ claimed it was ‘impossible


Lincoln Ram (left) and English Leicester Ewe. The Lincoln was the largest of the British longwool breeds and grew the strong est fleece. The breed was particularly popular in the North Island in the nineteenth century where it thrived in the wetter lands and was able to cope in the country being developed out of the bush. In the South Island the Lincoln was generally used in crossing. Both James Little and The Levels used the Lincoln over the Merino to breed the Corriedale. The Lincoln was often used over a Merino–English Leicester cross in the more lush parts of the South Island to produce young sheep for the meat trade. By the turn of the twentieth century, the Romney had replaced the Lincoln in most regions. In the South Island, the English Leicester was the most popular breed behind the Merino in the second half of the nineteenth century. This was the sheep developed from the slow-growing native Leicester sheep by the famous breeder Robert Bakewell. The English Leicester was popular for crossing over Merinos in Canterbury and parts of Otago and Southland. The progeny from this cross made excellent halfbred sheep that grew a high-quality fleece and fattened well for the meat trade. Several breeders used the English Leicester over the Merino as their starting point to breed up to a Corriedale. Perry, Sheep Farming in New Zealand, facing p.86 and facing p.54.

to have fixity of type in a mixture of highly prepotent breeds with decidedly different characteristics, such as the Australian merino and English coarse-woolled breeds have’.72 Essentially he claimed that the progeny could never ‘breed true to type for a length of time’.

Despite these criticisms, breeders other than just Little and the Australian and New Zealand Land Company continued experimenting with fixing an inbred halfbred, including Charles Ensor of Mt Grey in Canterbury who established his flock in 1889, G. D. Greenwood of Teviotdale Station in North Canterbury, and James Stringfellow from Chertsey who began his inbreeding programme in the mid-1880s.73 By the mid-nineties, Stringfellow and Little were showing their sheep at Agricultural and Pastoral shows and gaining favourable comments for them.74

The name Corriedale had become commonly accepted to describe the inbred halfbred by 1896, although commentators and breeders from time to time debated whether or not the name was an acceptable one. There was also some debate over what constituted a Corriedale as different breeders had used

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Border Leicester Ewe (left) and New Zealand Romney Ram. The Border Leicester was bred in the harsh Border districts of England and Scotland from the improved English Leicester. Later, Border Leicesters and Cheviots were the favoured breeds when sheep farming expanded into the Scottish Highlands. The Border Leicester is hardier than the English type and consequently they were popular in colder parts of Canterbury, Otago and Southland. However, the Borders grow less wool than the English Leicesters so were less favoured for crossing with the Merino to produce a halfbred. A comparison of this sheep with the English Leicester shows it has less wool on its head and legs, which tends to indicate its lower wool production. The Border Leicester is naturally one of the most prolific of the British breeds and the progeny are fast to mature, so it remains a popular cross for meat production. The Romney is naturally more resistant to footrot than other breeds, and this feature combined with its ability to withstand cold wet conditions and to produce well on coarse feed made it the most popular breed in New Zealand by the end of the pastoral era. By this time the New Zealand Romney had become a distinctly different type from the English Romney Marsh. English breeders concentrated on developing a big animal for meat production, whereas New Zealand breeders set out to produce a dual-purpose sheep. The New Zealand Romney was smaller than the English type, but grew a much more valuable fleece. This ram is a tremendous example of the New Zealand Romney from the period. It carries a long, dense fleece. There is not too much wool on the face making it useful in rough country, and the legs are reasonably free of wool so that it could cope with wet and muddy conditions. The Romney also became popular for crossing over the Merino and produced a successful halfbred type. Perry, Sheep Farming in New Zealand, facing p.70 and facing p.22.

different breeds of sire in developing their sheep, including the Lincoln, English Leicester, Border Leicester and Romney Marsh. This created considerable differences between Corriedale flocks in terms of their wool qualities and carcase conformation. In 1905 the New Zealand Sheep Breeders’ Association resolved the matter by deciding that ‘the name Corriedale should apply to sheep of any longwool and merino [cross] of not less than five generations’.75

F. R. Marshall from the United States Department of Agriculture visited New Zealand in 1914 to assess whether or not the Corriedale should be imported into the United States ‘for breeding purposes’.76 He described the character of the country where the breed was run in New Zealand as varying ‘from level and fairly rich artificial grass pastures to rough hills with altitudes around 3000 feet, on which snow sometimes lies for several months at a time’.77 He could have


added that they were favoured on lighter soils as they remained susceptible to footrot on wetter, low-lying ground. The breed had become particularly popular in the North Canterbury and Marlborough hill country, the lighter parts of the Canterbury Plains and in drier parts of Otago.78

Although the Corriedale was the first new breed of sheep developed in New Zealand, there were other types of sheep modified to suit local New Zealand environments, but which did not come to constitute a formal breed. The cross between a Merino and a longwool sheep produced the halfbred and, as we have seen, this was how cross-breeding began in New Zealand. The Corriedale is an inbred halfbred, and in the colonial period no one drew a distinction between the halfbred and the Corriedale. However, some breeders thought that continued

Corriedale Ram. The Corriedale was the first sheep breed developed in New Zealand. This ram is a good example of the early Corriedale breed. It is a big robust type and very well woolled. The Merino influence in the breed is apparent in the dense, blocky wool cover, particularly over the ram’s shoulders, back and rump, which keeps out dust and weather, preventing the valuable fleece from becoming discoloured and dirty. As with the Merino and Halfbred from the period, the Corriedale has more wool on the face and legs than the Longwools. The bigger frame of the Corriedale, compared with the Merino, is from the Longwool sire and the result of selection for the trait. The Corriedale now rivals the Merino as the most popular sheep breed amongst sheep farmers throughout the world. Perry, Sheep Farming in New Zealand, facing p.150

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inbreeding reduced the hardiness of the type by making it too removed from the Merino. They developed a sheep type known as the ‘Colonial’ Halfbred, usually by mating first cross Merino/Longwool rams over Halfbred ewes. By continually reintroducing a Merino influence, some breeders believe that the Halfbred is able to cope with harsher conditions than the Corriedale and the breed has been run throughout the high country and foothills of the South Island.

In wetter southern regions of the South Island grasslands, particularly after the widespread adoption of cultivation and the regrassing of the tussock lands with ‘English’ grasses, Romney sheep replaced Merinos and the Merino halfbred. The Romney Marsh breed was native to the exposed, low-lying country along the coast of Kent, noted for its ‘cold and bleak’ winters and in

Halfbred Ram. The halfbred in the colonial era was the result of the first cross using an English Longwool sire over a Merino ewe. In time, breeders developed a New Zealand or ‘Colonial’ Halfbred that suited the semi-arid, hard hill and high country of the South Island. The Merino influence is maintained in the Halfbred and is evident in the smaller size of this ram compared with the longwool breeds in this collection. Although its wool is not as fine as the Merino, the Halfbred produces a high quality fleece that was popular in the Bradford wool trade. The Halfbred’s advantage over the Merino is that it has a higher lambing percentage and the lambs fatten more quickly. Perry, Sheep Farming in New Zealand, facing p.134


summer the ‘abundance of coarse wet fodder’.79 Having been bred for these conditions, the Romney Marsh was popular in parts of New Zealand for its resistance to footrot and it was seen as the only breed that could be raised profitably ‘where the land [was] wet and the pasture rank’.80 W. Quin had noted that the Romney was the ‘favourite’ sheep in southern districts in 1896, and in 1901 the Otago Witness reported that the Romney cross had become ‘the vogue’ in Otago and Southland because it had been ‘found hardy and well adapted to the damper lands and colder southern climate’.81

By 1914 a marked pattern of differentiation of sheep types had taken place according to local environmental conditions. The Merino that had been the dominant breed in the early days had been pushed back to the hardest high country and replaced by the Halfbred and the Corriedale on the easier high country, dry hill country and light plains of Marlborough, Canterbury and Otago. In Southland and the wetter parts of Otago, the Romney Marsh cross had superseded the Merino because of its hardiness and resistance to footrot. In Canterbury, the English Leicester had been the preferred sheep to put over the Merino because it produced a cross that grew a finer fleece than did the Lincoln cross. The English Leicester was also known to do well on lighter land than the Lincoln and this also accounted for its popularity on the Canterbury Plains. The Border Leicester had been bred in the Border hills of England and Scotland and was hardier than the English Leicester, which made it better suited for breeding sheep for the high plains and easy hills of Canterbury and the drier parts of Otago. The hardiness of the Border Leicester also made it popular on the lighter soils in Southland. The Lincoln breed that had been popular in the nineteenth century for crossing with the Merino had fallen out of favour as it produced the coarsest wool of the longwool breeds and consequently the Romney and the Leicester breeds replaced it. Thus, environmental and economic considerations had shaped the breeding of sheep in different parts of the tussock grasslands.

Refrigeration, Depression, Sheep Breeding and Mt Peel

The history of the two decades after 1882 at Mt Peel illustrates the processes that took place throughout the South Island tussock grasslands over that time. After the initial enthusiasm over the success of the Dunedin’s first shipment, prices for frozen meat in Britain soon fell to levels where there was no profit in the business for New Zealand farmers. At the same time wool prices continued to decline, although halfbred wool maintained a premium of about a penny per pound over Merino wool. The Mt Peel experience in this period also illustrates

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the shift from a Merino property, almost exclusively dependent on fine wool for its income, to a crossbred property where the sale of its surplus sheep made up an increasingly important part of the station’s returns, and, in fact, proved critical to the economic survival of the Acland family on the property.

Barton Acland was a great supporter of the Merino breed. Fine Merino wool had produced good returns for the station over the years and Acland had spent a lifetime trying to improve the quality of his wool. In a letter to his old friend Tripp following the 1887 shearing, Acland described how his sheep had averaged 6lb 8oz of wool per head, and commented that it was a ‘very good weight and good wool’.82 He went on to say how much the sheep had improved ‘of late years’, and that ‘Arthur Blakiston can tell you how beautifully even the fleeces come to the sorting table’. Even after Mt Peel began cross-breeding, Acland continued to support carrying a flock of pure Merinos. He recognised that they suited his high country, writing that ‘some parts of our mountain are fitted for Merinos’ and that pure Merinos were necessary to produce halfbred sheep.83 When he learned that Tripp planned to go out of Merinos, Acland wrote to dissuade him, saying ‘that far from Merino sheep becoming a thing of the past it is more than ever necessary that the breed should be kept up to the highest state of excellence that can be attained’.84

Yet by the time of his death in 1904, crossbreds outnumbered the Merino flock that had been declining in numbers for over ten years on Mt Peel. Some of the reasons for this change were common to many of the great pastoral stations, while other reasons were specific to Acland and his station. The 1880s and the first half of the nineties was a period of acute depression in New Zealand and a very difficult time for Acland. Low prices for wool, meat and store sheep were compounded by a series of difficult seasons. A protracted drought began in 1886 and extended into 1887. Farmers and graziers on the plains had no feed so the market for sheep off the stations, which was already limited, disappeared. A severe storm at the beginning of October 1887 caused high lamb losses, with Mt Peel marking only 37 per cent of lambs instead of close to 80. Heavy snow in August 1888 caused the loss of about 5000 sheep on the station, and the big snow of 1895 reduced the flock by nearly a third.

Despite Acland’s enthusiasm for the Merino breed, by the late 1880s nearly a decade of low wool prices had drastically reduced the income of the station and its profitability. Between 1860 and 1880, wool prices declined by 28.9 per cent, and over the next five-year period they dropped a further 21.8 per cent. Wool prices continued a slow decline to reach a low point of 6.27 pence a pound in 1905–06.


TABLE 6.1 Quinquennial Prices for New Zealand Wool Exports (pence per pound), 1860 to 191085

Year Wool value (pence per pound)

1860 15.99

1865 14.28

1870 11.04

1875 14.98

1880 11.37

1885 8.89

1890 9.86

1895 7.57

1900 7.06

1905 6.27

1910 9.27

Merino wool fetched on average about a penny per pound less than first-cross wool and this is reflected in the Mt Peel wool returns. In 1886 Acland expressed relief that the average price the station received for its wool had lifted from 7½ pence a pound in 1885 to 8¾ pence. He commented that if that price kept up ‘it will just do, but sheep farming is not what it was’.86 In another letter he reflected on the overall decline in wool prices, writing that ‘wool is looking up a little but we cannot expect that we shall ever again have the prices for wool and sheep which we used to enjoy in the palmy days of sheepfarming when I came out and in fact those who made hay while the sun shone and sold out when the high prices prevailed were . . . the wisest’.87 In 1890 he wrote, ‘I could probably about 14 or 16 years ago have sold out for perhaps double what I could now and those values are not likely to come again. In 1855 merino sheep were worth £1 to £2 [but are] now from 10 [shillings] down. I should be glad to get 3 [shillings] for my old sheep which must be got rid of somehow.’88

During the 1870s and early 1880s, there was no outlet for surplus sheep so Mt Peel concentrated on producing wool. The Mt Peel flock reached 44,000 sheep in the early seventies and at that time Acland reduced the ewe flock and increased the number of wethers kept, and mated only enough ewes to provide replacements. Sheep sales were sporadic; in some years none were sold, whereas in other years several thousand were put on the market. In 1878, 420 cull ewes were sold at 2/6 each.89 The following year two mobs of wethers totalling 1767 sheep were sent to the boiling down plant at Washdyke; one of these mobs

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returned 3/8 a head.90 In 1882, 5860 wethers were sold off the station; nearly half went in February and the balance in December.91

The station got a brief boost between 1883 and early 1885 when the frozen meat trade lifted sheep prices briefly and Mt Peel sold nearly 9900 Merino sheep at over 6 shillings a head.92 The fillip, however, was short lived as the returns from frozen meat exports declined. The New Zealand Country Journal reported on the weakening stock market and expected prices to remain at a low level ‘unless the prospects of the frozen meat trade brighten considerably’: until that time the ‘boiling down vat’ was the best outlook for surplus fat stock.93

The move to cross-breeding at Mt Peel began tentatively in 1884 when a few ewes were lined to a Longwool ram.94 Thereafter the number of ewes mated to English Leicester rams increased, but very slowly. In 1887 six Leicester rams were used and, if they were put out at the same ram-to-ewe ratio as the other paddock sheep, the six rams would have been lined to about 350 ewes.95 The following year 1095 ewes were mated to nineteen Leicester rams.96 By 1890 continued low wool and sheep prices were really starting to take their toll on the station’s financial position. By that time, the premium that halfbreds received over Merinos for wool and surplus sheep prices were becoming increasingly apparent even to Acland. In March 1890, he sold 4216 old Merinos for an average price of 2/5, and complained that ‘the days of getting 10/- and upwards for old culls are over’; whereas later in the year he achieved 13/6 for a line of 691 halfbreds.97 In September he noted that 179 bales of Mt Peel wool sold for an average price of 8/6 a pound, and at an earlier sale Tripp’s Orari Gorge Merino wool had sold for 8/4, whereas Tripp’s halfbred wool achieved 10/3. Acland noted, ‘this wool now seems to fetch a higher price than the Merino wool’.98 Later in the month he wrote to his son, Johnny, who had taken over the manager’s position at Mt Peel after Mitton’s sudden death, suggesting, ‘You might look forward somewhat to increasing the number of halfbreds.’99

Johnny took his father’s advice, and from that time crossbred sheep began to supplant the Merino on the developed paddocks and blocks on the lower run. The crossbred sheep out-produced the Merinos on improved country and the economic returns clearly favoured them. In 1892 10,000 ewes went to the Merino ram and 5000 to Leicester rams.100 In the same year 2811 Merinos were sold at an average of 4/5, while 2311 halfbreds brought in 10 shillings a head.101 Five years later, for the first time, more ewes were mated to Leicester rams (7438 ewes including 1728 halfbred ewes) than to Merino rams (6420 ewes).102 Included in the stock sales for that year were 1860 half and three-quarter bred sheep that averaged 8/4 a head, while 2200 cull Merino ewes fetched 11 pence.103


By the end of the 1890s, it had become clear that the time of the Merino on Mt Peel was coming to an end, and the station was experimenting on how far it should go with crossing and what type of sheep would best replace the original breed. In 1906 the Mt Peel flock totalled 41,065, of which 60 per cent were halfbred or three-quarter bred sheep.104 In 1910, crossbred sheep made up just over 77 per cent of the flock of 41,195, and the pure Merinos had been reduced to 9348.105 In 1912, with the government resuming 50,000 acres for closer settlement, Mt Peel held a sale to dispose of 25,000 sheep. In that sale the last of the station’s Merino sheep – 1450 ewes and 500 wethers – were disposed of.106

Initially cross-breeding was practised on Mt Peel to produce a first-cross halfbred, but as crossing progressed the station experimented with mating first-cross ewes to Leicester rams to produce a three-quarter bred. Most of the progeny of this cross were sold, but some ewes were kept and mated to the Leicester again. In 1894, the year Oliver Scott Thomson took over from Johnny Acland as manager, 2517 halfbred ewes were mated to halfbred rams.107 It is likely that these sheep were bred to remain on the improved paddocks where footrot had become endemic and to produce a meatier and earlier maturing lamb for the meat trade. By 1906, with fewer Merinos being bred, it had become obvious that continuing the first-cross was not going to be possible for much longer and in that year the station purchased Corriedale rams from the Australian and New Zealand Land Company’s Hakataramea property.108 In 1910 Mt Peel’s ram flock consisted of 165 English Leicesters, 19 Border Leicesters, 125 Corriedales, 1 Lincoln and 23 Merinos.109 The likely scenario for this mix of ram breeds would have the English Leicester used over the remaining Merino ewes to produce a first-cross halfbred, while the Corriedale rams would be used over halfbred ewes to continue that halfbred type without going back to the Merino. The remaining English Leicesters, the Border Leicesters and the Lincoln would have likely been used over some of the halfbred ewes to breed a three-quarter bred for the paddocks. In this way Mt Peel tried to find types of sheep that suited the different country on the station: the halfbred and Corriedale for the native and improved hill country and the three-quarter bred sheep for the paddocks.

Running different flocks on the one property complicates day-to-day management and necessitates having plenty of paddocks and blocks, particularly at mating and lambing time, to keep the different mobs separate. To resolve this problem, Mt Peel eventually settled on a Merino–Romney Halfbred after the subdivision of the property in 1912. However, even with this change of breed, footrot remained an ongoing problem in wet seasons. In 1960, for example, a quarter of the ewe flock were treated for the disease, with the chore of

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footrotting proving time-consuming, costly and ultimately futile.110 As a result, in 1966 a decision was made to change the breed type from the halfbred to a straight Romney. Since that time footrot has not been an issue.111

Conclusion

Grazing sheep was the primary land use in the tussock grasslands of the South Island for the period between 1843 and 1914. The profitability of the business depended on managing many different variables: coping with contingent events such as drought, snow and flood; managing the land in order to provide feed for livestock; managing the sheep so that they were healthy and productive; and breeding sheep that were productive and profitable. Sheep breeding was an exercise in attempting to improve the productivity of the sheep, by matching the animals to the local environments in which they were run, and by modifying the breeding of the sheep as the environments in which they were run were modified. These adjustments, in turn, were made to meet changing demands in the marketplace.

The pastoral era began with Merino sheep being run from one end of the tussock grasslands to the other, and ended with different breeds or different sheep types being run in different environmental regions. This process of matching sheep type to land type, which was embedded in sheep farming in the British Isles, was part of a wider process of environmental learning taking place in other facets of the business of pastoralism and pastoral farming in New Zealand.

Four main factors led to the decline of the Merino: footrot; the need to match sheep to the different environments found across the grasslands; the decline in fine wool prices and the premium paid for longer, stronger wool for the worsted trade; and the establishment of the frozen meat trade. Local breeders experimented in establishing a dual-purpose sheep that could grow a fleece sought by English buyers and a carcase that met the demands of the English meat trade. By 1914 they were well advanced in establishing three new sheep types that met these requirements and that were bred for different environments: the Corriedale or inbred halfbred, the ‘Colonial’ Halfbred and the New Zealand Romney.

Pastoralism is often portrayed as a rapacious business where pastoralists stripped the natural wealth of the land to create economic wealth for themselves. The history of sheep breeding in the pastoral era, while acknowledging the economic imperative, illustrates that many pastoralists learned to read the local


environment and by doing so shaped sheep types that were both productive and suited to the country on which they grazed. These experiments in sheep breeding demonstrate an awareness of the need to work within the constraints of the environment rather than the desire to impose an unworkable system upon it. Moreover, it shows that pastoralists looked to develop an industry that could remain viable over the long term.

199

CHAPTER SEVEN

‘Not Much of a Business’

On the whole, runholding has not been much of a business in Canterbury. Some runholders have done well, but I think more have lost money. Scab ruined a lot of them in the ’fifties. Before the scab was cleaned up speculators and settlers began buying the best parts of the runs. Bad times in the ’eighties ruined more runholders than scab had done, and rabbits became a pest before the bad times had begun to get better; and the severe snowstorms of 1862, 1867, 1878, 1887, 1888, 1895 (the worst of all), 1903, 1908, 1918, 1923 and 1939 each used up several years’ profits of high country runholders. – Leo Acland1

Factors that Determined Success

Leo Acland painted a gloomy picture of runholding as a business in the pastoral era. Historian W. H. Scotter agreed: ‘Fortunes were made’, he wrote. ‘Fortunes were also lost. Success depended on a heavy outlay of capital and a continuation of good conditions, but after 1864, troubles accumulated.’2 Indeed, many runholders failed over the years. A. E. Peache, who held Mt Somers Station from 1876 until his death in 1906, wrote to a friend in 1905 recalling the struggles that began when wool prices declined in the 1870s: ‘Nearly all of us had a very hard fight for many years but those of us who were able to “hang on” are now reaping the benefit although most of our old friends had to “go under” financially, I am sorry to say.’3 John Hall purchased The Terrace Station on the north bank of the Rakaia in 1853. Years later when recalling the hardships of the early days he


wrote, ‘Our hopes were high; we believed we were planting what must be a great settlement and were laying up for ourselves competency and comfort in the years to come. For some of us these hopes have been realised, but for many – I fear, the majority – they have proved delusive.’4

On the other hand, others have written accounts portraying the pastoralists as prosperous ‘wool kings’, who used their land monopoly to create a wealthy political and social elite. The blurb on the jacket of A Southern Gentry described them as ‘the South Island landed gentry – the moneyed aristocrats who built mansions and carried on the snobbish and luxurious traditions of their British counterparts’, and that ‘the fabulous profits from huge flocks of sheep were used to reinforce their privileged lifestyle’.5 William Pember Reeves, a minister in the Liberal government and no friend of the pastoralist, described them as the social and political magnates of the colony, writing that they were ‘merry monarchs, reigning supreme in the Provincial Councils as in the jockey clubs’.6

Certainly there are examples of pastoralists who did make fortunes out of large-scale sheep farming. George Duppa’s experience is frequently cited to illustrate the profitability of the business. In 1863 he sold St Leonards Station in the Amuri District for a reported fortune of £150,000 and returned to England to live in considerable style. Allan McLean was one of three brothers who at various times held Lagmhor near Ashburton, Waikakahi in South Canterbury, the huge Central Otago station Morven Hills, and Waitaki Plains and Redcastle in North Otago. In 1899 McLean reluctantly sold Waikakahi to the government for £326,616. At the subsequent clearing sale, just over 64,000 Waikakahi sheep, not including the studs, sold for over £32,000. In addition, horses, cattle and implements were sold. In all, this ‘reserved old bachelor whose personal wants were few’ received about £400,000 for the sale of his land, stock and plant.7

So how profitable was pastoralism? Clearly, for some it was a pathway to riches, but for many it was not. There are myriad reasons why some were successful while others failed. Historian Jim Gardner thought that there were four requirements for success in the business: capital, initiative, experience and luck. A fifth advantage was early arrival in the country. Jim McAloon, in his study of the wealthy in Canterbury and Otago before World War 1, concluded that most of those who made rural fortunes had arrived by 1865.8 Samuel Butler, who doubled his capital between 1860 and 1864, is often used to illustrate the easy profits that could be made from sheep farming. So how well does he fit this profile? Well, he had capital – £4,000; he certainly had initiative, and he had arrived before 1865, though he had no experience. But most of all he was lucky. Reminiscing in 1897 he wrote, ‘[m]y sheep had bred; wool had kept high and so

‘NOT MUCH OF A BUSINESS’ 201

had sheep; runs which were pretty cheap when I reached New Zealand had gone up greatly in value’. 9 In fact, Scotter has suggested that the period from May 1860 to May 1864 was a time of good prices, so one cannot but admire Butler’s timing.10

Another critical factor in the success of any pastoralist that Gardner did not account for was the resource endowments of the different runs across the South Island. The quality of the land and the local climate had major influences

Waikakahi, Waimate, early 1890s. The photograph shows the Waikakahi homestead before Allan McLean sold the property to the government to be subdivided for close settlement. At that time it was one of the finest stations in Canterbury. The homestead area was planted out with thousands of pine, gums and ornamental trees. A nursery where tree seedlings were grown before being planted out can be seen the foreground. In the 1890s Waikakahi comprised 19,425 hectares (48,000 acres) of freehold land and carried over 50,000 sheep. Under McLean’s direction the station had undergone considerable improvement. There were 645 kilometres (400 miles) of fencing on the run country and 3000 to 4000 acres were cropped every year before the land was sown down in ‘English’ grasses. The station also grew 2500 to 3000 acres of turnips each year. Leo Acland in The Early Canterbury Runs wrote that in 1888 26,000 hoggets and 9000 wethers were run on a 1215-hectare (3000-acre) block of turnips (pp.199–200). Canterbury Museum, E. Wheeler & Son photograph, 1987.152.6


on the outcome of pastoral enterprises. Certainly, there were examples of pastoralists who failed on good properties and cases where good managers did well on difficult runs. However, after the phase when the spatial expansion of the business came to an end in the mid-1860s and prices for wool and stock declined, those on the more fertile areas of the plains, downlands and easy hills were better able to cope with the downturn than runholders on the light, stony plains, or the semi-arid lands, hard hills and high country.

Building Up a Run There were some obvious advantages in getting in early. For a start, a prospective pastoralist, if he knew what he was looking for, had the opportunity to select better sheep country. Having said that, it does not seem that land hunters were particularly selective in the blocks that they initially claimed, and once the land rush began in earnest some blocks were claimed simply because the piece of land had not been taken up earlier. In general, early arrivals selected land closest to sites of settlement, forcing newcomers to move further and further out. Those who came later or those unwilling to take up land in the remote backcountry had to buy the goodwill of a run as well as stock and plant.

John Hall arrived in Canterbury in 1852 and was told that all the country fit for sheep farming to the north of the Rakaia River had already been claimed, so he explored south of the river. However, he found the river such a barrier that he purchased The Rakaia Terrace on the northern bank.11 Hall’s story tells us that there was some discrimination about land selection as pastoralists had chosen the best land north of the Rakaia River, leaving the poorer land still unclaimed. It also tells us that the physical obstacle of the Rakaia was more important a consideration for Hall than the quality of the land on the south side, since he was prepared to pay for the goodwill of an established station north of the river rather than set up his own run south of it. As it turned out, The Rakaia Terrace was a pretty good property and Hall made his fortune from it.

By early 1860 when Samuel Butler began searching for a sheep run, the only remaining unclaimed land lay in the remote backcountry, so Butler did his sums on buying an established station. At this time the goodwill cost over £100 for every thousand acres, adding a considerable financial burden for someone setting themselves up in the business.12 However, with wool prices at a high level, Butler thought that even at that outlay sheep farming would pay. He calculated that the goodwill of a 20,000-acre run would cost £2,000; 2000 ewes at 25 shillings each required an investment of £2,500 to begin stocking it; the cost of a bullock team, plant and buildings might add up to £1,000; and a further was £500 needed for


contingencies and additional costs over the first two years. In all, prospective pastoralists required a capital investment of £6,000 and it would be over two years before he received any return. However, as his sheep numbers increased, Butler anticipated an annual net profit of £2,000 a year within a few years. Sheep prices and the prices for pastoral leases rose so sharply in the early 1860s that in August 1862 Butler revised the estimate for ingoing capital to buy the goodwill of a run upward, from £6,000 to £8,000.13

Despite deciding that purchasing an established run was likely to be profitable, Butler thought that there was more money to be made by finding unclaimed land and establishing a run from scratch. Accordingly, he set about exploring the back ranges of the Rakaia and Waimakariri rivers, but found most of the land taken up. He then found some unclaimed land in the upper Rangitata above Mt Peel Station and bought up several existing leases to build up the station that he called Mesopotamia.

The Wool MarketAnother advantage in arriving before 1865 had more to do with events in the international wool trade than anything to do with the business or farming skills of the pastoralists. The establishment of pastoralism in the South Island coincided with a rise in wool prices that persisted until the mid-1860s, though in 1841 the business did not begin auspiciously. Prices for wool from the Australian colonies fell sharply in that year before collapsing in 1842. Intending sheep farmers in New Zealand benefited from this as sheep from New South Wales came onto the market at relatively low prices. Late in 1843 wool prices began to lift and continued to improve through the remaining years of the 1840s and, allowing for some small fluctuations, they remained high through the 1850s.

Several factors account for this decade of relatively stable prices. The gold rushes of California, beginning in 1848, and Australia, beginning in Victoria in 1851, led to an increase in wealth throughout the West and particularly in the British world. The growth of the middle class at the time opened up a market for finer and more fashionable woollen garments, while money invested in new machinery in the woollen mills in the north of England led to the production of woollen goods at cheaper prices. Wars often seem to boost wool prices, and the Crimean War, from 1853 to 1856, was no exception. In 1855 in England wool reached nearly 21 pence per pound and the following year fleece wool averaged 22¾ pence.14

In the early 1860s war was again a major catalyst in boosting the returns that the pastoralists received for their wool. The American Civil War, from 1861 to


1865, disrupted supplies of cotton from the Confederate States and the period became known in England as the ‘cotton famine’. Without the competition from cotton, the wool industry enjoyed a period of high demand and high profits. So for wool growers in the South Island the years from the mid-1850s to the mid-1860s were the high tide for their industry as wool averaged over 15 pence per pound. In 1865 wool fell below that and thereafter continued to decline. Some pastoralists, such as Duppa, sold up before the downturn and returned to England wealthy men. Butler left New Zealand in 1864, but left his money behind earning 10 per cent interest, a much higher rate than he would have received in England. Others held on, expecting the high times to return. However, by the end of the decade the combination of falling wool prices and the high cost of credit within the country left many heavily in debt and forced some to sell up.

Relief came in the early 1870s, again partly in response to war. Tensions between France and Germany in 1870 and the Franco–Prussian War the following year lifted wool prices. International tension in Europe over the following few years encouraged manufacturers to increase their stocks of wool, so that prices stayed up until about 1875. From that time wool prices began a long, slow decline, falling to a little over 5 pence a pound in 1895.

The decline in wool prices can be attributed to a range of factors, but two of the most important were increasing production and competition from other fibres. Wool had to compete with cotton and cotton production increased. England deliberately encouraged cotton production in India and Egypt after the débâcle of the ‘cotton famine’, and American cotton returned to the market after the end of the Civil War. Wool production also rose in many parts of the world: output from the Australian colonies, in particular, increased enormously, while New Zealand, South America, southern Africa and India all became significant exporters of raw wool. In 1887 Barton Acland compiled some statistics showing that the quantity of wool (including mohair and alpaca fibre) imported into Britain had increased from 151 million pounds in 1860, to 476 million pounds in 1880, and in 1886 it amounted to 615 million pounds.15 He noted gloomily that ‘we cannot expect to see again the prices of 1859’.16

High returns from wool were essential for the success of extensive sheep farming, but, as Leo Acland noted, there were other factors to be considered. Controlling production costs while maintaining or improving the productivity of the sheep had a significant bearing on the success of a pastoralist. Keeping the sheep healthy was vital to the profitability of the business, and when this could not be managed pastoralists were bankrupted even in times of good prices.

Shearing at Elderslie, 1890s. The Elderslie woolshed, seen here, was quite modern in its layout, with the twelve-stand shearing board split into two sets of six. The catching pens, where the shearers caught their woolly sheep, and the porthole, where the shorn sheep were released, were side by side. This layout prevented the shearers and the shedhands who picked up the fleeces from getting in each other’s way, disrupting the flow of the shed. After being shorn, each fleece is thrown on the wool table at the end of the board and ‘skirted’ (the short and discoloured wool is removed from the fleece). The wool is then classed into lines according to its fineness, length of staple and colour. Finally each line is pressed into bales that are branded with the name of the station and numbered. One of the baskets in the middle of the board is for belly wool and the other for the wool from the head of the sheep. Each type of wool has different manufacturing qualities and so is kept separate. Something that you will not see in a modern shed are all the bits of wool lying on the board. In modern sheds the board is constantly swept clean so that short and discoloured pieces of wool do not contaminate the higher quality fleece wools. John Reid, seen in the centre of this photograph wearing a top hat, made Elderslie one of the great estates of the pastoral era. He purchased the property in 1865 and in 1879 he bought the adjoining estate Balruddery. In the 1890s Elderslie comprised 13,800 hectares (34,000 acres) of downs and easy hills. A feature of the estate was the extensive use of live fences. Indeed, it was estimated that there were over 274 kilometres (170 miles) of close-grown, neatly trimmed gorse hedging that provided shelter for the stock and pasture. The estate was also noted for its crop production, with 800 hectares (2000 acres) cultivated each year. The cropping rotation included turnips, wheat and oats, as well as potatoes, mangels and barley. Elderslie ran a large sheep flock that included Lincoln, Leicester, Border Leicester and Romney stud flocks. In 1897 the 18,320 sheep shorn on the estate averaged 9.67 pounds of wool per head (Otago Witness, 13 January 1898). North Otago Museum, 3314


DiseaseScab, caused by a tiny mange mite, Psoroptes communis ovis, which lives in the skin of sheep, led to some runholders going out of business in the 1850s and 1860s. The mite arrived in the country on sheep imported from the Australian colonies and soon became a threat to the viability of sheep grazing. Among some of the pastoralists ruined by scab were George and Richard Mason who held the Birchdale and Mt Mason runs and who were bankrupted in 1859; Dugald Macfarlane of Ledard Station was ruined by scab in 1860; and Mannering and Cunningham were forced off Snowdale, Fernside and Birch Hill in 1866.17 These examples illustrate that even people who got in early could fail.

Provincial councils and central government passed a series of ordinances and regulations to control the spread of the disease and later to eradicate the problem. They appointed sheep inspectors to examine imported sheep at the site of disembarkation and flocks being driven from one region to another. If any infected sheep were found, the sheep owner was fined, and the whole flock had to be treated and passed clean before it could proceed.

George Henry Moore was notorious for having scabby sheep at both his Wakanui and Glenmark properties. In 1861 the authorities fined him £700 for having 20,000 infected sheep and in 1864 he paid over £2,000 in fines. In 1864 a neighbour, Ben Moorhouse, sued Moore and was awarded £2,000 in damages after Moore’s sheep infected his flock.18 Word had it that Moore deliberately kept his sheep scabby to ward off freeholders and to enable him to buy out his partners more cheaply.

Edgar Jones’ encounter with scab graphically illustrates the cost that the disease had on the profitability of sheep grazing. Jones held a particularly rough run on the south bank of the Waiau River opposite St James Station on the northern side. The owners of St James, the last run in the Amuri to be cleared of scab, bought wethers from a property on the Hurunui River. Some of these sheep decided to head for home and ten were seen crossing the Waiau on to Jones’ run. He immediately mustered his easier front country and dipped all the sheep. Jones and his men then mustered part of his backcountry and found one of the St James stragglers in a mob of 150 wethers – they killed them all. They then helped the neighbour G. W. McRae to muster the adjoining block on his Glens of Tekoa Station and found another scabby sheep in a mob of 500. They brought the mob down to a set of sheep yards and killed them. Jones was obligated to kill his flock of 7000 sheep and was unable to restock his run with sheep for the next two years.19


Scab involved other costs that reduced the profits of sheep owners. They were forced to employ extra shepherds and boundary keepers to try to keep stray sheep off their land and to keep their own flocks on their home pastures. Moorhouse employed shepherds to keep his sheep well away from Moore’s Wakanui run; in fact, he claimed that he was unable to stock a third of his property because of the threat of infection from Moore’s sheep. Others went to even more extreme lengths to keep their sheep free of scab. When John Hall first took over The Terrace, he yarded his sheep every night because there was a rumour that there was scab in the district. The ewes were lambing at the time, and the yarding and constant handling led to high lamb losses. The ready uptake of light wire fencing after it became available in the early 1860s was almost certainly a response to scab as runholders wanted to protect their sheep within their own boundaries. There was also the cost of dipping the sheep to kill the mange mite. Generally, sheep owners used a concoction of boiled tobacco water with the addition of salt, sulphur or saltpetre and sometimes arsenic mixed in the brew. Often the decision about which mix to use depended on the whim of the person in charge of the job. In 1868 John Robinson, the manager at Whiterock, dipped the sheep in arsenic, which killed several hundred of them and nearly killed the shepherds as well.20

Mt Peel Station never suffered from scab. The property was protected by natural boundaries: the Rangitata and Orari rivers, Forest Creek to the north and Peel Forest on its southern side. Even so, it has been suggested that one of the reasons that Acland and Tripp took up Mt Possession on the opposite side of the Rangitata was to act as a buffer between themselves and scab-infested flocks to the north.21

By the early 1880s much of the South Island was free of scab, though small areas in Marlborough remained infested for several more years. By that time, footrot was becoming the major animal health problem as stocking rates increased. In the 1880s lungworm and intestinal worms began to be seen, particularly in young stock when they were confined in paddocks and run intensively on turnip crops. The problems of footrot and worms both took a toll on the productivity of sheep. When there were severe outbreaks of these diseases, it cost sheep owners many thousands of pounds in terms of lost productivity, time and expense in trying to treat them.

Snow, Flood and Drought Weather is one of the most important factors in determining the profitability of any farming operation. Livestock farmers time their seasonal round according

Dipping at Longbeach, 1897. Men from John Grigg’s Longbeach Estate at work dipping sheep in 1897 to control the external parasites sheep lice and the sheep ked. Sheep can be seen entering the draining pens having been put through the swim dip. The men in the right foreground are ready to force more of the mob into the dip. Sheep hate being dipped and once they have been through the process once they never forget. When their turn comes, the sheep are forced up the fully boarded-up race (it is boarded up so the sheep cannot see what is going to happen to them) and then pushed into the dip. At the dip end of the boarded-up race is a small pen holding a couple of decoy sheep that are used to encourage the mob up the race. The men standing beside the concrete dip are holding crooks that they use to force the sheep completely under the dipping wash so that the animal gets soaked to the skin. Dipping was introduced in the 1850s to control sheep scab, which was finally eradicated in 1893. By that time sheep lice and keds had become such a problem that the government introduced regulations that all sheep had to be dipped annually. These biting and sucking parasites live on the wool of sheep and feed off their blood. Arsenic and sulphur were used in many of the patented cures sold to control lice and keds until the use of DDT became widespread after World War II. Canterbury Museum, 228


to the expected climatic cycle: the ‘normal’ season. For example, they mate their ewes in the autumn so that they will lamb in the spring at a time when the grass is beginning to grow vigorously. A late spring means there is little feed for the ewes so that they produce less milk to feed their lambs, which will result in slower growth rates in the lambs or, at worst, high death rates. Most farmers allow for minor shifts in the seasonal pattern, such as a late spring, and plan to have extra feed available for these times. Major adverse weather events are more difficult to manage. A heavy snow in Canterbury in 1992 resulted in the loss of thousands of sheep despite the use of modern technology. Helicopters and four-wheel drive vehicles were used to get hay to trapped stock or to get people out to try to bring the stock down from the hills. In spite of this, some of the worst affected farmers were bankrupted and forced off their properties. Similarly, weather had a profound influence on the profitability of pastoralism in the nineteenth century.

Heavy snowstorms were the most devastating weather events in the pastoral era and killed many thousands of sheep. Leo Acland lists 1862, 1867, 1878, 1887, 1888, 1895, 1903 and 1908 as years of severe snowfalls. In 1862 the Kennaway brothers and their partner F. W. Delamain were put out of Clayton Station by the big snow. In a particularly moving chapter in his memoir, Crusts, Laurence Kennaway described the pitiful condition of the sheep that managed to survive the ordeal and how Delamain had been ‘shut in’ at the station by the snow for six weeks.22 G. A. E. Ross and Charles Harper took over Clayton and were forced off the property by the snow of 1867. That winter also broke Frederick Broome at Steventon, when he lost 4000 out of 7000 sheep. Broome’s wife, Lady Barker, described the difficult conditions caused by the snow that lay 6-feet deep, and the struggle to save their sheep.23 At Moa Flat Station the 1878 snow and the floods that followed the thaw killed 60,000 sheep, about half the flock. John Fry Kitching did not recover from the losses and left Moa Flat in 1880.

Floods destroyed fewer livestock than snow, but did more damage to capital items such as fences, tracks and buildings. The rivers of the region also took a heavy toll on human life. When Sir Edward Stafford saw the parliamentary return of the names of people drowned in the country’s rivers, he declared that drowning should be classed as a natural death in New Zealand.24

Drought was not a serious problem for sheep owners in the early years because the country was understocked, which meant there was ample rough feed even in dry years. However, after sheep numbers had built up, drought years took a heavy toll on the productivity of farms and stations. When feed became

Clayton Homestead, 1895. Clayton Station had chequered beginnings. The Kennaway brothers and F. W. Delamain were the first to run stock on Clayton but in the winter of 1862 they lost most of their sheep, so they sold the station to Sherbrooke and Lancelot Walker and their partner Captain Clogstoun, who held the neighbouring Four Peaks Station. The Walkers and Clogstoun leased Clayton to G. A. E. Ross and Charles Harper, but the 1867 snow ruined the pair and the Four Peaks partners had to take the run back. In 1881 Hugh Hamilton bought Clayton and his sons, George and Dundas, managed the place. Leo Acland thought the Hamiltons were good operators and from the start they ‘did a great deal of tree planting and fencing, and grew turnips’ (The Early Canterbury Runs, p.170). They took delivery of 19,000 sheep when they purchased Clayton and through their improvements increased sheep numbers to 30,000. The section of the homestead with the pitched roof and gable windows was the stone house built by the Walkers and Clogstoun in the late 1870s. It had a thatched roof and was sited on an open tussock plain. By 1895 the early stone house had been incorporated into a larger homestead and the thatching replaced with corrugated iron. By that time the plantings had matured and provided good shelter for the homestead. In his book Crusts (p.218), Laurence Kennaway related a story about one of the Walkers when they were neighbours. Four Peaks had a hut on the boundary with Clayton that could be seen from the Clayton house. One morning the Kennaways saw that the hut was on fire so they saddled their horses and dashed to the scene. On their arrival they saw the occupant of the hut and called to him: ‘Good heavens! Walker, what on earth can be done?’ – to which his whole and sole reply was: ‘My dear fellow, allow me to offer you a chop.’ Apparently Walker had been frying chops for breakfast when they flared up and set the thatched roof alight. He rescued the contents of the hut and then calmly sat down to eat his breakfast while the hut burned to the ground. Canterbury Museum, Bell Collection, 1983.313.3


scarce, the sheep grew less wool and wool quality was downgraded because it became very dusty. The summer of 1871–72 was particularly dry in Canterbury, and even Mt Peel, which usually experienced a higher rainfall than properties on the plains, was badly affected. Acland found that at shearing time the lack of feed left his wool short and full of dust. Such poorly grown wool would not attract nearly as much at the sales as good quality wool and would have reduced Acland’s income for the year.

Once farming intensified on the plains and after the development of the frozen meat export industry, the problem of drought became more of an issue, even for the pastoralists. By this time they relied on small farmers, who were fattening sheep for the frozen meat trade, to purchase their surplus stock. In drought years this outlet disappeared and the annual draft sheep from the hill and high country became almost worthless.

FreeholdingThe success of extensive pastoralism was based on ready access to cheap land. In the South Island sheep owners held large areas of leasehold land at relatively low annual rental costs. The advantage of this system for colonisation was that large-scale sheep farming to grow wool was established rapidly and provided a good return to the growing settlements. Waste land regulations favoured runholders, especially in Canterbury. There all land could be purchased in sections of 20 acres or more, initially at the price of £3 an acre. In 1854 this was reduced to £2 per acre. Outside the Canterbury Block, Governor George Grey instituted regulations in March 1853 whereby all waste lands were to be sold by auction at an upset price of 10 shillings an acre. Despite this reduced price, little land was sold until the beginning of the 1860s. There were several notable exceptions: Kermode and Moore paid £17,000 to freehold 40,000 acres of the Glenmark run in 1853.25 Initially the rest of the property remained leasehold, though in time Moore increased the area in freehold tenure to 81,000 acres.26 In 1856 William Robinson began to purchase the freehold of Cheviot Hills, initially acquiring 33,631 acres for £10,888, and by the end of 1862 he had completed freeholding the entire 85,000-acre estate.27

The early 1860s were buoyant times in the South Island. Wool prices were high, the Otago gold rush boosted the population of the region and provided a market for small farmers, and interest rates in the colony were high, which attracted British and Australian investors. Between 1861 and the end of 1866, over 500,000 acres of land were sold in Canterbury alone.28 The purchasers were prospective farmers, buying small blocks of land on the fringes of the


region’s townships; and runholders, mostly those on the plains, trying to preserve the integrity of their runs against speculators and small farmers. During the depression of the late 1860s, wool prices fell, as did grain prices, but borrowing remained expensive. During this period, some of those who had been carried away in the excitement of the earlier land boom came to grief. Pastoral properties had changed hands at extreme prices and some pastoralists had established stations in the backcountry with no financial resources to tide them over during hard times.

A new land boom began in 1872, when wool and grain prices lifted, and lasted to 1879. During this time speculators, small farmers and runholders fought intense tactical battles over land, and the notorious practices of spotting and gridironing reached their peak. Spotting involved buying key sections on a run, such as land at the entrances to valleys and gorges or access to waterways. In this way, for little outlay, runholders could control large areas of leasehold land. When gridironing, a runholder bought 20-acre (8-hectare) sections along boundaries, roadsides or waterways, leaving 19-acre (7.5-hectare) strips between them. Sections less than 20 acres in size had to be sold by auction, and because only someone with limited funds would want such a small block, the runholder could outbid most challengers.

Despite their advantages, many pastoralists had to borrow heavily to freehold parts of their runs, so that when the crash came in 1879 they found themselves deeply in debt. As wool prices declined through the 1880s and early 1890s, bankruptcies became commonplace.

The Influence of the Land on ProfitabilityA central theme of this book is that differences in resource endowments were fundamental in shaping the course and outcome of pastoralism. Similarly, differences in resource endowments had a profound influence on the profitability of pastoral enterprises. Land type, altitude, rainfall, soil fertility, proneness to drought and the availability of water for stock were just some of the characteristics that made some properties naturally better than others. When sheep prices fell, station owners on the plains and downlands with suitable soils were able to turn to cropping. Those who held runs that were subject to heavy snow could be bankrupted by one extreme snow storm. Runholders in semi-arid Central Otago were forced to fight an expensive, ongoing and unwinnable war against rabbits.

Two of the most successful pastoralists in the South Island, George Henry Moore and Duncan Cameron, made their fortunes on quite different properties,


but both properties had considerable advantages. Moore, whose estate was valued at £389,041 in 1892, was the wealthiest runholder in Canterbury and possibly the South Island. He arrived in New Zealand in 1856 and, in partnership with his father-in-law William Kermode, purchased Glenmark. Soon after, the partnership took up a 60,000-acre run near Ashburton called Wakanui, and in 1858 they took up a 38,000-acre property on the Hinds River, though Glenmark remained the main focus of their business. At its peak Glenmark comprised 150,000 acres and carried 90,000 sheep. In 1873 the partnership was dissolved and the assets put up for auction. Moore purchased 82,000 acres of Glenmark and the Wakanui run for the sum of £173,000. In 1891 Moore’s mansion at Glenmark, which was valued at £30,000, burned down. Soon after that he offered Glenmark to the government for settlement at £4 an acre and retired to Christchurch. The government decided not to purchase the estate at that price, so Moore and later his only child, Mrs Annie Townend, sold the property off in sections for considerably more. When Moore died in 1905, his estate was

Glenmark, c. 1890. George Henry Moore began planning the construction of a mansion house at Glenmark in the early 1880s. The house was set in a large landscaped garden with ponds and a water feature, and the Glenmark station buildings were surrounded by extensive plantations. It was the most valuable property in Canterbury; in 1892 it was valued at £389,041. Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington, F-22658-1/2


sworn at £253,000, but by that time a considerable portion of the assets had been transferred to his daughter. When she died in 1914, her estate was sworn at nearly £1,000,000.

So how can we account for Moore’s success while others struggled or failed altogether? He got in early, he had a large amount of capital and he had previous experience at sheep farming in Tasmania. Kermode already had a top-quality Merino flock in that colony and Moore was able to import good sheep to establish his flock. Sheep numbers built up rapidly and by 1865 the station’s flock was reported to have reached over 90,000. As a result, the partnership would have made a fortune from the high wool prices that persisted from the late 1850s through to the mid-1860s. The flock still numbered 90,000 in 1880, so again Moore would have made a huge profit from the high wool prices of the early 1870s. Even when wool prices dipped, the sheer size of the flock ensured that his wool cheques were substantial.

Moore was a conservative manager compared with some of the more enterprising improvers like John Grigg and Michael Studholme. He was careful with his money, some said mean, and did not waste it on the latest machinery and plant unless he was convinced that it would show a good return. However, over time he had many miles of fencing erected and cultivated some of the better areas of the property to sow down ‘English’ grasses. He also experimented in sowing native tussock species, but apparently without much success. Moore set up a Merino stud in the 1850s and later used English breeds to produce crossbred sheep for the frozen meat trade.

One of the most important factors to account for Moore’s success was that in Glenmark he chose an outstanding property. C. F. Overton who farmed nearby thought it comprised some of the best sheep country in Canterbury.29 The station consisted of flats, downs, easy hills and some steep hill country. This variety of land types as well as the sunny and shady aspects meant that the run was well-balanced, with feed growing the year round. Most importantly, it is good healthy country where stock do well. It is all low altitude country with the lower flats, where the homestead and station buildings were situated, lying at under 500 feet above sea level and with the hills rising to 2500 feet. Devastating snows were not a problem. The station was also well watered with numerous creeks. However, the district is often dry in high summer and can be subject to extended drought. Moore countered this by stocking conservatively, so that the station was understocked in good seasons, but could cope in drier years. Not all potential problems could be foreseen, and in the severe drought of 1886 10,000 sheep were burned to death in an accidental grassfire on the station.


Duncan Cameron farmed on an entirely different land type. He was a Scottish shepherd who rose to the position of manager at Winchmore on the Canterbury Plains inland from Ashburton. In 1869 George Gould, one of Canterbury’s leading financiers, took over the neighbouring station, Springfield, when the leaseholder, Joseph Bray, failed. He advertised for a manager and employed Cameron. According to Leo Acland, Gould intended to sell the run as soon as he could; however, Cameron persuaded him to keep it and the pair went into partnership, with Cameron investing his life savings of £1,700.30 Cameron proved to be an exceptionally capable manager and as he improved the property the partners purchased the freehold of about 18,000 of the station’s 20,000 acres. When Gould died in 1889, Cameron paid the executors £65,000 to purchase Gould’s share of the property. Cameron began selling sections off Springfield in 1902 when he sold 4600 acres at an average price of £10 an acre. In 1907 he sold a further 4500 at £22 an acre. The balance of the station was sold after he died in 1908, realising £284,000 in total – a large fortune for a shepherd who began with little.31

Two characteristics that featured in Cameron’s success were his abilities and the natural resources of the Springfield run. John Brown wrote in his history of the Ashburton District that ‘Cameron was a wonderfully fine farmer and he had wonderfully fine land’.32 Early indications of Cameron’s vision and initiative became apparent in the early 1870s when, according to the Cyclopedia of New Zealand, ‘he was the first to establish a systematic water supply on the dry but otherwise fertile lands of Central Canterbury’.33 By 1880 he had constructed 40 miles of races that took water to all parts of the station.34

As a property on the open plains, Springfield lacked the balance that came with the diversity of different types of country found on runs like Glenmark, but it did have another advantage. Springfield straddled a swathe of excellent soils well suited to cropping that run along the north bank of the Ashburton River, across Springfield and the upper plains to Methven, then down the south bank of the Rakaia River. When an export market was opened up for grain in the 1870s, Cameron soon utilised this natural resource and undertook cropping on an extensive scale. John Grigg of Longbeach, one of the country’s leading agricultural improvers, described Cameron as one of the ‘most skilful of the “high farmers”’.35 Indeed, Cameron’s cropping enterprise was on such a scale that it rivalled Grigg’s; in 1892 he had 5000 acres in crop and in 1894 5500 acres. Even as late as 1901, when the great cropping bonanza had run its course in Canterbury, Cameron had 2000 acres in wheat. In his history of the Ashburton District, Scotter wrote that this was exceptional at that time.36


Claims have been made that overcropping during the wheat bonanza era reduced the fertility of the region’s soils, but there is no evidence of that happening on Springfield. Indeed, Cameron profited not only from the income from his crops but also from the pasture improvement that became part of his agricultural round. By following grain crops with turnips and ‘English’ grasses, Cameron was able to lift sheep numbers. In 1881 with sheep and wool prices down, Cameron reduced the Springfield flock to 15,000 and concentrated on his cropping enterprise. However, when sheep prices improved with the establishment of the frozen meat trade on a firmer footing in the early 1890s, Cameron lifted his sheep numbers. In 1894, the year he had 5500 acres in crop, the sheep flock numbered 29,500.

The Struggle in the High CountryRuns in the high country and hard hills struggled in comparison with these two favoured estates. For example, in terms of its natural endowment Mt Peel was a good station, but this needs to be qualified – it was a good high country station. It lay in a reliable rainfall zone, and had extensive areas of relatively low-lying sunny flats, terraces and low hills, which combined to make it a better property than many. However, compared with Springfield and Glenmark, the altitude at Mt Peel limited the length of the growing season so that, once the station was stocked up, feed needed to be saved so that young stock in particular could be brought through the winter in good condition. The high rainfall grew abundant feed in summer but sheep did not necessarily thrive in the wetter seasons. And as with most high country stations, Mt Peel suffered from regular heavy snow storms that killed many thousands of sheep. On two occasions, Acland lost fully one-third of his flock – in 1867 and 1895. Neither Springfield nor Glenmark lost sheep in these sorts of numbers through extreme weather events.

Like most high country station owners, Acland relied on wool as his main source of income. When wool prices fell, there were few alternative streams of revenue that he could turn to. Merino sheep traditionally had a low lambing percentage in the high country – often between 50 and 70 per cent – and many stations barely bred enough lambs to maintain their flocks. Snow or heavy rain at lambing time could reduce this still further. So in bad years Mt Peel had few surplus sheep to sell. Of course, from the late 1860s to the late 1880s, surplus sheep were often worth very little anyway.

When the sheep and wool market collapsed, few high country properties could turn to large-scale cultivation as a source of revenue as Cameron did. Mt Peel did not have extensive areas of suitable flat land and the climate was too wet


for large-scale cropping to be successful. Transport links were also a problem. Many high country stations were isolated by poor roads and some were cut off by rivers. Stock could be walked in and out and swum across the rivers, but all other goods had to be transported on drays. Until a road was cut through the forest, Mt Peel’s wool had to be transported across the Rangitata. Stations in the backblocks of the Amuri and Mackenzie were even more isolated, so, even if they had land suitable for cropping, the difficulties of getting large quantities of grain to the nearest railhead made the whole idea farcical.

When prices for sheep lifted, farmers on the plains and downlands were able to turn to fattening sheep for the frozen meat trade. Mt Peel was in a position to take advantage of this trade too, but because of its altitude and the short growing season it could not fatten sheep in large numbers. Instead it produced store stock that were sold to farmers on the plains, where they were finished. Crossbred sheep thrived in the heavier and wetter country of Mt Peel so the profitability of the station improved markedly from the mid-1890s. However, such heavy sheep did not do so well on harder high country stations. There, Merinos still held sway because they could cope with the harsher conditions. However, lambing percentages remained low on these runs, so that they continued to rely on fine wool as their only source of income.

The difficulties of the high country were demonstrated by the trials of the Rutherford brothers at The Mistake Station in the Mackenzie Country. John, Robert and Edmund were sons of George Rutherford of Leslie Hills Station in the Amuri, one of the most successful of all runholders in the pastoral era. In 1885 they purchased The Mistake but, despite their experience with Merino sheep and run country, they could never make a go of it. In the 1895 snow, they lost 8900 out of their flock of 17,700, yet compared with some of their neighbours they were lucky: Balmoral was left with 3039 sheep from a flock of 30,118; and Arthur Hope, a son-in-law of Charles Tripp, saved only 300 sheep from his flock of 20,000 at Richmond Station. After the 1895 winter, runholders throughout the high country approached the government for a remission of rents until they recovered financially. John Rutherford submitted that he and his brothers had enjoyed only one good year since they had taken up The Mistake.37 Rutherford was relieved when in 1912 he finally managed to sell the place.

The Mt Peel ExperienceOn the face of it, Barton Acland could well fit the stereotype of the wealthy and politically influential, landed aristocrat. He was one of a minority of early pastoralists who came from the English gentry. As well as establishing several


stations, in partnership with his friend Tripp, he was a life member of the Legislative Council, serving from 1865 until 1899; he served on the General Synod of Christchurch for many years; he was the Chairman of the Mount Peel Road Board from its inception in 1870 to 1900; and he was a founding member of the Christchurch Club. Acland built Holnicote, the two-storeyed, brick homestead at Mt Peel, in 1865–66. A visitor to Mt Peel in 1868 noted that ‘The house and grounds are looking grand . . . just what a rich gentlemans [sic] house should look like.’38 Lord Lyttelton agreed, writing that the Mt Peel house was:

. . . in many respects the most remarkable place we saw [in Canterbury]. Once arrived and the toils of the journey surmounted, nothing could exceed the comfort and enjoyableness of the place, which was by far the best specimen of [a] country-house that we saw. Mr Acland, who has command of more capital than most of them, and who means to make his home and plant his family there, has been able to build and decorate to an unusual degree of completeness.39

Yet when we examine Acland’s financial dealings over the forty-eight years that he held Mt Peel Station, we find that he experienced many of the fluctuations in fortune that other pastoralists encountered, and when he died in 1904 Acland was not a fabulously wealthy man. In relation to Gardner’s and McAloon’s five criteria for success – capital, experience, initiative, early arrival and luck – we find that Acland brought capital – £2,000; he gained some experience in the business by working as a cadet at Malvern Hills; he showed considerable initiative in taking up one of the first high country runs; and he arrived early – well before 1865. So how lucky was he? In the remainder of this chapter we explore the vicissitudes of large-scale sheep farming in the nineteenth century through the Acland family’s experience, which provides an insight into the profitability of the business.

The Vicissitudes of Sheep Farming in the Nineteenth Century

The Establishment YearsIn 1856, the year that Acland and Tripp established Mt Peel Station, wool was a penny a pound up on the previous year’s price of 12½ pence and sheep owners were confident that they would hold up or even improve. And they were right. The value of wool rose to 16 pence per pound in 1859 and remained at that level to 1864. However, that was simply an official estimate and it is likely that actual returns were higher. Indeed, the Lyttelton Times reported in May 1861


that the official value of wool was ‘plainly below the mark’.40 It is also important to remember that these prices are an average for all the wool shipped from New Zealand, and well-grown and well-prepared fine Merino clips would have received much higher prices than those from longwool and crossbred flocks at this time.

In 1857 Acland and Tripp sold their first wool clip, with nineteen bales bringing £400. Of course, in the first few years, establishment costs were high, especially the outlay for stock purchases. In 1856 running expenses amounted to £2,676, of which £1,895 was spent on livestock. Similarly, in 1857, out of a total expenditure of £2,088, £1,033 went to buy stock. In 1856 there was no income from wool and in 1857 only £400, so initially the partnership ran a deficit. However, in the 1859 financial year, they made a small surplus of £324.

During these early years the partners were trying to build sheep numbers as quickly as possible. Like many station owners at this time, they also ran sheep on terms. This was a common way for investors to profit from sheep farming. It also suited runholders as most of them had properties that were understocked, so there was plenty of feed to run other people’s sheep. An investor would purchase a small flock, say 1000 ewes, and hand them over to a runholder who ran them as part of his flock. Various agreements were negotiated but often the runholder got a third of the wool and anything from a third to half the lambs for managing and feeding the flock. The term of these agreements was from three to seven years, so at the end of the arrangement the investor’s flock could have more than doubled in size, giving him a good return when he sold them (assuming that prices had stayed up). Leo Acland recalled that the last sheep held on terms was in 1870 at Horsley Down Station.41

In 1862 Barton Acland and Tripp dissolved their partnership and Acland took over Mt Peel Station and 8532 sheep on his own account. The average wool price for that year reached just over 16¼ pence per pound. It was not until 1924–25 that woolgrowers were to see that sort of price again, and, of course, by that time their costs had risen enormously. However, while 1862 was a great year for wool prices, it was one of the worst winters for snow ever recorded. Fortunately for Acland the plains and foothills were affected worse than the inland ranges, so he suffered few sheep losses.

It was during these prosperous years of the early to mid-1860s that Acland began the construction of the homestead at Mt Peel. In late December 1864, work began in preparing the foundations and in January 1865 the first stone was laid. The house was completed in January 1866 and the family shifted into the place by the end of the month. The timber for the house was sawn from nearby


bush and thousands of bricks were made on site by the builder Benjamin Ede. Acland called the house Holnicote after the Acland family estate in Somerset, but after his death the name fell out of use. It would appear that ten years after arriving in Canterbury, fortune had favoured Barton Acland: he leased a station of over 100,000 acres running a flock of over 10,000 sheep that was increasing by the year; he had married and built one of the grandest homesteads yet seen in the country; and he had been summoned to sit on the Legislative Council. Would fortune be so kind over the next decade?

Are the Good Times All Over?In 1863 wool fell below 16 pence a pound for the first time in five years, although at over 15 pence this drop was of no serious consequence. However, it was the

Holnicote, late 1865. Barton Acland called the big house at Mt Peel Holnicote. At the time it was built it was considered one of the grand houses of Canterbury. Macmillan Brown Library, 1995/2, Neg. 3-23A


start of a slide that continued through the decade, so that by 1870 the average wool price had fallen to 11 pence and the following year it made only 10 pence a pound. Indeed, the second half of the 1860s proved to be a trying time for pastoralists, and Barton Acland and Mt Peel did not escape.

Acland, like all sheep owners at that time, relied on wool as his main source of income. Although most were still building up their flocks in the early-to-mid 1860s, many sold sheep to augment their wool income, which was a particularly lucrative sideline when sheep fetched 30 shillings and more. However, by the middle of the decade the spatial expansion in sheep farming had ceased. The most remote of the backcountry runs had been claimed by that time, and by the late 1860s some stations were stocked to the current limit of their carrying capacity; most of the others had the core of their breeding stock from which they were able to build their flocks. Consequently, stock prices plummeted, closing off this source of revenue for runholders.

In the late 1860s snow again caused heavy stock losses throughout the South Island. Heavy rains at the end of July 1867 caused flooding in lowland Canterbury, but in the foothills and high country the precipitation fell as snow. One traveller reported that between Alexandra and Dunedin the snow lay 10-feet deep in places.42 At Burke’s Pass it was not quite so bad, averaging a depth of about 2 feet but in places 4.43 For some runholders, such as Lady Barker and her husband Frederick Broome, this snow put them out of business; others, like Barton Acland, survived the event, but the loss of nearly a third of his flock, 10,000 sheep out of 31,000, took a heavy toll on his financial position. Acland was still in the process of building up his flock at this stage, and the loss of breeding stock as well as the lost income from the wool off 10,000 sheep proved very costly.

The July–August snow of 1867 was followed in February 1868 by widespread flooding throughout the South Island. At Mt Peel, Acland measured 8 inches of rain over twenty-four hours on Monday 3 February. He described the resulting damage as a ‘scene of desolation’.44 The creek behind the homestead flooded, spreading shingle over the garden and causing heavy damage. He had all his men at work over the next two days trying to return the creek to its bed and repairing the damage. Mt Peel was bounded on three sides by rivers, and several rivers and large creeks on the station turned into torrents during heavy storms. Consequently, the property suffered from considerable damage from flooding at times. A very heavy flood in the Rangitata in 1865 had nearly swept away the woolshed, and later floods took away parts of fences and tracks, and access ways to bridges.


Acland’s troubles continued into 1869. In early January the musterers were bringing down the wethers to the woolshed for shearing when a large number were smothered. Merino sheep that are handled only twice a year are very flighty and difficult to control. When they move in big mobs the sheep behind blindly follow the leaders and if they go over an obstacle the others continue to follow, crushing and smothering the trapped sheep. It is very difficult to turn the mob once a smother has begun. It has been recorded that 5000 sheep were killed in a single smother at Mt Peel.45 Acland’s diary does not record how many died in the 1869 smother, but he sent twenty-five men to skin the dead sheep, so there must have been large number. Another smother in March 1875 killed over 1000 sheep when the mob was crossing a deep gully.46

For runholders the fall in wool prices, the collapse of a market for surplus sheep and heavy stock losses were exacerbated by the high cost of borrowing. Part of their problem was that there was a considerable delay between shearing and the sale of their wool. Until the 1890s it was usual for large wool clips to be shipped to England to be sold at auction to British, European and American manufacturers. The time it took to transport and prepare the wool for auction meant that there could be a six-month delay or more between shearing and before a runholder received any proceeds of the wool clip. Moreover, the pattern of shearing meant that the income from wool came in only twice in a year. For example, at Mt Peel the wethers and hoggets were shorn in November–December and the ewes in February–March, with the wether and hogget wool being sold in June and the ewe wool in July.

With two wool cheques coming in only a month or so apart as the only sources of income, it meant that for much of the year the day-to-day running expenses of the station had to be financed with money borrowed from a stock and station agency as an advance on the return that would come from the sale of the next wool clip. Acland and Tripp used advances on the following season’s wool clip from the outset. For example, in 1859 they received £984 net for their wool clip sold in England and they took an advance of £1,162 on the following year’s clip from the firm of Gould and Miles, which they used to pay the running costs of their properties. When wool prices declined faster than expected, runholders found that the advances they had drawn through the year were not covered by the wool cheque and their indebtedness increased.

The other main source of finance was through banks, and in 1860 we find Acland and Tripp repaying two bills to the Union Bank of Australia, one for £1,600 and the other for £1,000. It is likely that these had been taken out for the purchase of stock. The problem of debt was compounded by the high interest


rates found in New Zealand. Butler had left his money invested at 10 per cent and this seems to have been the going rate through the latter half of the 1860s, which attracted British and Australian investors.

As a result of these trials and set backs, by 1871 Acland found himself in debt for £22,000. Fortunately he had family connections to which he was able to turn. Acland’s lawyer and brother-in-law, Leonard Harper, acted as an agent to secure a loan of £21,000 from Arthur Mills who was married to Acland’s sister Agnes. Despite being a family affair, the terms of the agreement were strict: the interest rate was set at 7 per cent; sheep numbers on Mt Peel were not to fall below 40,000; any sale of stock required the agreement of Mills’ New Zealand lawyers, Hanmer and Harper; Dalgety and Company were to have the lien over Mt Peel’s wool clip; and Mills would not accept repayment in sums of less than £10,000. Reluctantly, Acland signed the mortgage deeds in September 1871.

Acland was by no means the only pastoralist who had fallen into debt by this time. Tripp had asked Acland to forward a letter to his English relatives applying for a loan from them. Acland refused, writing to Tripp that the ‘sum advanced to me [was] a special act of kindness. My family as you must know are not capitalist.’47

The Early 1870s: A Return of the Palmy Days?Within months of Acland taking out the mortgage with Arthur Mills, the wool market began to pick up. In February 1872 Acland wrote to his brother-in-law Percy Cox that ‘thanks to the rise in wool matters have now turned out very much better than could be expected and if the rise will hold for only two or three years the difference to us all will be immense’.48 In 1871 his clip had earned around £8,500; by the middle of 1872 he expected a return of £10,000 for that year’s wool. At the same time his sheep numbers were lifting: in the 1873–74 season Mt Peel shore over 40,000 sheep for the first time and two years later 44,000.

At the beginning of 1873, with good news coming from London woolbrokers, the outlook for sheep owners was more positive than it had been for nearly a decade. In January, Tripp, after having pleaded to borrow money from Acland’s family only two years earlier, paid off all his debts, with Acland noting ruefully, ‘he does not owe a shilling’.49 A little later in the month, Acland wrote to his sister Agnes informing her of the recent death of his neighbour Ben Moorhouse, who had taken up Shepherd’s Bush station in 1854. ‘Moorhouse’, he wrote ‘was one of those who hardly weathered the storm of low prices and high interest but . . . was in a very different state this year and with care his family will do well.’50


Acland was now regretting his agreement with Mills, particularly the fact that Mills would not take back less than £10,000 at a time. He complained that he would lose hundreds of pounds paying interest when he would in fact be in a position to pay off part of the loan. Moreover, through the terms of the mortgage, Acland was bound to Dalgety and Company which charged 2 per cent commission while other companies charged only 1 or 1.5 per cent. He determined that if wool stayed up, he would pay off £10,000 of the loan the following year. In 1873 Acland earned over £10,900 for his wool.

In May 1874 Acland did pay £10,000 off his mortgage with Mills, but it was not all his own money. It appears that he was able to raise around £6,000 himself, with the remaining money coming from Dalgety and Company. Acland, who was by nature a cautious man, was taking a gamble. The extra money to pay off

Shepherd’s Bush Homestead. The Moorhouse family pose in front of their homestead at Shepherd’s Bush Station. Dr Ben Moorhouse and brother, Thomas, applied for a license for the station in November 1854. However, when Moorhouse established Shepherd’s Bush in 1855 it was on his own account. Mrs Moorhouse arrived at the property carrying her baby and driving a milking cow. At first they lived in a tent with a chimney at one end. When visitors stayed, a blanket was put up as a partition to give Mrs Moorhouse some privacy. Moorhouse died suddenly in 1872 and Mrs Moorhouse carried on at Shepherd’s Bush until 1885, when the National Mortgage and Agency Company took over the run. The homestead seen in the photograph was washed away when the Rangitata River flooded in 1888. Ashburton Museum, File 230, Acc. No. 4.2006.642


part of his debt to Mills and the advances on the next season’s wool clip meant that by the end of July Acland’s indebtedness to Dalgety had risen to £8,700. He desperately needed wool to stay up.

However, after two buoyant years in 1872 and 1873, 1874 took a turn for the worse. Over the first three months of the year, the Union Bank of Australia lifted its interest rate from 6 to 9 per cent, adding to the cost of borrowing for Acland. Of course, for investors New Zealand became a desirable place to have their money. Acland learned that Mills, attracted by these high returns, was investing heavily in New Zealand through Dalgety and Company. The winter of 1873 had been hard in the mountains. Mt Peel lost 2500 sheep and, as a consequence of the bad season, the 1874 wool clip was down in weight and quality. Wool prices were also down. The Mt Peel wool clip for 1874 year earned £9,500, a £1,400 reduction on 1873. Over the following years wool prices continued to fall: in 1875 Acland received £9,000 for his wool; in 1876 it dropped to £7,500 and then lifted a little to £8,400 in 1878. The palmy days of 1872 and 1873 had been short-lived.

Land ManiaUntil the early 1870s most of the large pastoralists were reasonably secure on their properties. They held large areas of leasehold land at low rentals and with little threat to their tenure. However, as the population increased and shepherds and farm workers saved enough to buy small sections of freehold land out of the grazing leases, runholders became increasingly concerned. Speculators, who bought freehold sections relatively cheaply out of runs and sold them on to small farmers at higher prices, also became an increasing threat. In 1873 Acland wrote to Samuel Butler informing him of the ‘land mania’ in Canterbury over the previous twelve months. Acland had bought a hundred acres himself, but he was not too worried about the ‘Cockatoos’, the term that runholders had for the small farmers who scratched away at the ground, growing crops, and running a few sheep and cattle. He thought that the isolation and altitude of Mt Peel would make it less attractive than land on the plains or more accessible parts of the foothills.

Despite this, in 1874 Acland made a start in a long, drawn-out process of land purchasing on Mt Peel. By early August 1874 he had bought nearly 1000 acres, most of it in the vicinity of the homestead and station buildings and land down towards the eastern boundary at the Forest. And all of it was bought with money from Dalgety and Company drawn as advances on his next wool cheque. In 1876 his land purchases increased. In June he wrote to Dalgety informing


them that he had drawn £4,000 and used £1,400 of that to purchase a further 700 acres and that he would have to purchase more. By the end of the year, he had freeholded most of the flats and terraces of the lower run. His land purchases continued in 1877 as the land boom gained momentum in Canterbury. In that year he bought land on the flats and terraces above the gorge for the first time. In August rumours had it that a freeholder was intending to buy the Isolated Hills, a block of about 9600 acres. Acland wrote to Tripp, who had purchased 6000 acres of Orari Gorge station by this time, saying he could not justify spending £17,000 or more to freehold it when the block only returned him £1,500 ‘clear of all expenses’.51 Luckily for Acland, nothing came of the rumour.

In March 1877 Acland was indebted to Dalgety for £4,300, and later that month drew another £1,000. He continued to draw heavily throughout the year, with a good deal of the money going to buy land and the rest to improve it. In May he drew £3,000, in June and July a further £5,000, another £2,000 in September and £2,000 in December. His wool cheque for the year was £8,400. The pattern continued in 1878. Early in January there were more rumours; this time a purchaser was going to buy 3000 acres of the best land on the Orari side of the station. Acland set about buying around 640 acres of land to block him. He wrote to Dalgety in February to inform the company that he had drawn £4,000 that month, spending £2,500 of it to buy land. In all, he bought 5245 acres at a little over £11,000. He also spent borrowed money to plough over 400 acres and had undertaken other improvements. He was heavily in debt and wool prices showed no sign of improving.

Despite this desperate buying of freehold sections and the indebtedness that it incurred, Acland’s initial reaction to freeholding, that the isolation and altitude of Mt Peel would save the run for him, proved to have been sound. When the land boom collapsed late in 1878–79, his station was intact. Other runholders had not been so lucky. Acland’s brother-in-law, Percy Cox, gave up trying to compete with freeholders and sold Mt Somers Station to A. E. Peache in 1876. In the 1870s one freeholder, Morrow, bought between seven and eight thousand acres in the middle of Moorhouse’s Shepherd’s Bush Station and others bought smaller sections on the edge of the run. In 1889 when the runs went to auction, Morrow outbid the Moorhouse family for the leasehold, leaving them with only 5000 acres of freehold land along the Rangitata River.52

ImprovementDespite the economic downturn Acland, like many pastoralists, continued to invest in improvements, often using borrowed money or advances on wool. In his


letters, Acland gave four distinct reasons why he continued to spend on fencing and cultivation at Mt Peel, even when it meant increasing his indebtedness. First, he recognised that it was a logical consequence of increasing the stock loading on the station. Increased fencing enabled stock to be managed more easily and made for cleaner musters where fewer stragglers were left behind.53 By the mid-1870s the station was regularly shearing around 44,000 sheep and, at this level of stocking, Acland acknowledged that it became important to provide some additional feed in winter.54

The cost of purchasing freehold sections was another impetus to improvement. When the rental cost of leasehold land was 2½ pence per acre, there was less pressure to maximise its potential. However, if a farmer paid £2 an acre to freehold the land, the cost of running sheep for their wool could not be recouped, especially at the low prices that prevailed. Acland wrote to Mitton in June 1876 telling him to plough an additional 150 or 200 acres on freehold land ‘for the sake of additional feed’, as that was the only way to make it pay.55

Turnips or rape and ‘English’ grasses enabled the station to fatten sheep for sale, either for boiling down or as store stock for small farmers on the plains. The market for sheep had collapsed in the late 1860s and did not recover much for another twenty years. In the early 1860s, sheep had sold for 30 shillings and more, whereas when Acland sold 2100 sheep in 1872, some fetched 3 shillings and others only 1/6. Another 2000 were sent to Washdyke to the boiling-down plant for very little profit. At this stage Tripp decided to try cultivating turnips; Acland remained doubtful about the potential return from the exercise. However, in July 1875 he wrote to Mitton, his manager, saying:

I must confess myself a convert to turnips and for the following reasons. Tripp has 200 acres of turnips this year on which he has put 1060 halfbreds [,] about 1100 Merinos and a few lambs. The halfbreds he valued at shearing time at 8/- and the Merinos at 5/- which he was not able to get. He has just sold 1000 of the halfbreds for 15/- and the Merinos for 13/8 . . . . This may be fairly reckoned as an increase in value of 7/6 a head on 2000 sheep that is . . . £750 which gives a return of £3.15.0 per acre – it is probably due to the turnips that the Merinos especially are saleable as fat sheep at all.56

Acland was convinced by these sums and ordered Mitton to organise the ploughing of between 100 and 200 acres as soon as he could. From that time paddocks of turnips, a mix of rape and ‘English’ grasses, and ‘English’ grass pasture became increasingly important in the feeding and fattening of sheep


on the station. However, Acland did not factor the cost of borrowing into his calculations, and cultivation was a high cost system. In dry years, when there was no feed down country, there was no market for surplus sheep and cultivation did not pay. The boiling-down vat continued to provide an outlet for surplus sheep, but at 3 shillings or so a head there was not much profit in it for sheep fattened on turnips.57 Acland slowly realised that fattening Merinos on cultivated ground did not pay and he reluctantly began cross-breeding to produce halfbreds that fattened better and were more popular with farmers on the plains. It was not until the mid-1890s when stable prices and reduced shipping costs put the frozen meat trade on a sound footing that this system of farming finally turned out to be consistently profitable.

Despite improvement being a costly business and, in the short term, an unprofitable one, it was part of the ethos of the settlers. Tripp’s family recalled his favourite saying, which typified this ideal: ‘If ever I am a millionaire I will spend every penny on wages and making 10 blades of grass grow where one grew before.’58 In his lifetime, without being a millionaire, his development on Orari Gorge was impressive. By 1885 he had put up 95 miles of wire fencing, 24 miles of road for pack-horses, 3000 acres had been ploughed and sown down in ‘English’ grasses, and the station shore 48,000 sheep.59 Yet, despite all this progress and after being debt-free in 1873, when Tripp died in 1897 Orari Gorge was heavily in debt. The cost of land purchases and land improvement, using money borrowed at high interest rates, combined with low prices for wool, meat and sheep sucked all the profit from his business. Acland, although more cautious than Tripp, was also an improver. He also lived a little longer, long enough to see farming climb out of the great depression that began at the end of the 1870s.

DepressionThe 1870s land boom was funded by borrowed money, with high interest rates attracting investors from Britain and the Australian colonies. The fall of the City of Glasgow Bank in 1878 triggered uncertainty in the New Zealand economy and the boom collapsed almost over night, precipitating what has been known as the long depression. For runholders already struggling with low prices and heavy borrowing, this proved disastrous. The late 1870s and early 1880s saw agencies and banks taking over a string of runs from the plains to the backcountry.

For Acland depression had arrived much earlier and much more personally. It seems that his precarious financial position in the early 1870s, when he was bailed out by Mills, triggered a deep emotional and spiritual despair in him.


Until that time, Acland had charge of the overall management of the station and employed an overseer who ran the property on a day-to-day basis following Acland’s orders. In March 1873 he wrote to his brother that Mt Peel was getting too much for him and, soon after that, he employed Mitton as manager, hoping that it would relieve him of a ‘great deal of worry and anxiety’.60 Acland decided that he could no longer live at Mt Peel and shifted the family to Willowbrook, a property he owned in Christchurch. Neither Acland’s wife, Emily, nor the children liked the move, but Acland wrote, ‘I am pretty well persuaded now that during the remainder of my pilgrimage my tent is to be mostly pitched here.’61 In the following years the family spent summers at Mt Peel and winters at Willowbrook, as well as spending time in Wellington when the Legislative Council was sitting.

In 1875 Acland wrote a poignant letter to his brother-in-law, Henry Harper, the Archdeacon of Timaru and Westland, describing his feelings:

It is now more than a year and a half since I received the shock which showed me the precipice on the edge of which I was standing and I cannot see that I am in reality any better than I was then . . . . I do in fact feel that [it is] my own doing that I have lost my way. I have blinded myself and I know not where or how to turn . . . trifles irritate me [and] provoke outbursts of temper such as you do not believe me to be capable of.62

Acland felt that he had made Mt Peel an idol and that he would be judged by God for it. In 1876 he wrote to his sister Agnes saying that he was much better than he had been, although he still had ‘nervous depression’.63 But his feeling that he had idolised his station remained. In June 1877 he wrote to Agnes that the children were violent ‘Mt Peelites’ who looked down on Christchurch, but that he might be punished for his love of Mt Peel.64

The economic depression that set in after the collapse of the land boom was briefly relieved by the success of the experiment to ship frozen mutton to England in 1882. However, the high initial prices soon dropped. In 1883 the price of best New Zealand mutton in London was 7 pence a pound, but by the early 1890s it had fallen to 4¼ pence. Although Mt Peel was a pure Merino run in the early 1880s and was not involved in fattening sheep, Acland did benefit from the frozen meat trade. In 1883, 1884 and 1885 prices for the station’s surplus sheep doubled from 3 shillings a head to 6. During this time Acland was able to reduce his current account debt to Dalgety and Company; at the end of 1884 he had trimmed it to £234, but in 1885 it increased again to £2,318.


Low prices for wool and sheep and a run of bad seasons in the second half of the 1880s exacerbated Acland’s financial difficulties. Even Mt Peel was affected by the severe drought of 1886–87 that dried up the market for sheep. In 1887 the only outlet for 4000 of his culls was to boil them down, returning around a shilling a head. The following year he sold 3500 sheep for only 1/6. Heavy snow in October 1887 killed thousands of lambs along Canterbury’s foothills, reducing the Mt Peel lambing percentage to thirty-seven. Tripp fared even worse as his was down to 20 per cent. The following winter Mt Peel lost 5000 sheep in the 1888 snow storms.

Acland’s despondency returned. He wrote to his brother Sir Thomas in late 1886, observing that ‘The wise ones were those who sold out a few years ago and for my family’s sake I wish I had done so but it is no use thinking of that now.’65 In a letter to his nephew, Harry Acland, in 1890 he noted ruefully that ‘I could probably about 14 or 16 years ago have sold out for perhaps double what I could now and those values are not likely to come again’.66 That year he left Christchurch to avoid the Agricultural Show. In 1859 he had been one of the instigators of the first sheep show held in Canterbury and had been a great supporter of the Agricultural Association over the years. ‘This year however’, he wrote in a letter to Agnes, ‘it appeared that walking around the ground all day was not exactly the thing for me.’67

Personal MisfortuneAcland’s experiences through the highs of the late 1850s and early 1860s and his struggles through the long depression were not at all untypical. Indeed, in many ways he did better than some who were bankrupted along the way. Unfortunately, in the 1890s, just when the frozen meat trade began to flourish, Acland experienced personal misfortune that was partly a result of his own doing.68 In the early 1880s Acland and Tripp had borrowed £30,000 from the Union Bank of Australia, which they invested through the law firm of their brother-in-law Leonard Harper. They were almost certainly acting for their English relatives who were keen to profit from the high interest rates that prevailed in New Zealand. In December 1891 Acland and Tripp also signed a guarantee for £5,000 with the Union Bank of Australia for Leonard Harper. They thought that Harper had temporary financial difficulties and that they were secured against Harper’s assets. Harper failed and absconded to Jersey and in 1893 the Union Bank called on Acland and Tripp for the money they owed. Both men were struggling in the economic downturn and neither was in a position to pay. Wool was still down: in the 1890–91 season the Mt Peel clip


brought in £7,500; the following year it was £7,400 and Tripp had commiserated with Acland that his own wool had never been so low.69 Prices for crossbred sheep were improving as the frozen meat trade was slowly being established as a more certain business, but Acland was still running mostly Merinos. Moreover, Mills still had a mortgage over Mt Peel’s land and stock, with Dalgety holding a second mortgage.

At this time Acland began to lose control of Mt Peel. In 1893 the station needed a new manager and his appointment could be made only with the approval of the managers of Dalgety and the Union Bank. Soon after being appointed to the manager’s position, Oliver Scott Thomson was given control of the station chequebook and, from that time, Barton Acland was denied access to the account. Hellamore, the manager of the bank, continued to apply pressure on the station. In March 1894 he directed Scott Thomson not to draw any cheques, including those for payment of wages and for shearing. At the same time he tried to persuade Mills to take over the property on his own account. In early 1895 Mills paid £7,500 to the bank to reduce Acland’s liability and Acland surrendered all of his securities to Mills.

This was by no means the end of Barton Acland’s trials. In June 1895 his sister Agnes, wife of Mills, died. Acland had remained very close to Agnes and over the years they had maintained their regular correspondence. The big snow of that year killed nearly 20,000 sheep on Mt Peel. The reduction in income as a result of this disaster meant that the station was unable to pay the interest on its £3,500 overdraft with the bank or to pay for its working expenses. Mills again saved Mt Peel by paying off the overdraft on the condition that the bank handed over to Dalgety and Company the stock mortgage that it held.70 However, Mills too was hurt by Acland’s financial crisis and in early 1896 he was forced to sell his home.

Barton Acland was devastated by these events. He wrote to George Harper about the problem which ‘hangs like a nightmare over my head’.71 Increasingly he became a minor player in the efforts to save the property in his name and was left to try to minimise his personal and family expenses as best he could. In December 1892 he cancelled his subscription to the Australian Pastoralist Review. The following year he resigned his membership to the Christchurch Club. He wrote to his son saying, ‘it is rather sad after 35 years or more and having been a founder member – still £12 is £12 and therefore it must go’.72 Several times he tried to reassure Mills that the family was living at Mt Peel at ‘a very small expense’, and that they practised rigid economy in everything connected with the house.73 The only help they had in the house were a cook and ‘a small girl’,

Frozen Waitaki River, 1895. The winter of 1895 saw the worst snow storms in the South Island since European settlement began. Hundreds of thousands of sheep perished, with the Canterbury hill and high country, the Mackenzie Country, the Upper Waitaki and Central Otago all being badly affected. With the snow came freezing temperatures. This photograph shows the local policeman standing on the frozen Waitaki River just below Kurow. The Kurow–Hakataramea Bridge can be seen in the middle distance. On 1 August 1895 the Otago Daily Times reported: ‘. . . snow is now lying 4ft or 5ft deep in Hakataramea district, and frozen sufficiently hard to bear a horse and rider, and up to the present time with no sign of a thaw setting in. On the 22nd the Hakataramea river was frozen over . . . and on the 23rd a complete bridge of ice . . . spanned the Waitaki river about half a mile below Kurow. This was caused by blocks of ice drifting down the river, and on reaching a narrow place drifting together in such quantities that during the night they were frozen over sufficiently hard to enable two men to walk across the ice bridge over the Waitaki, a river running at the rate of six or seven miles an hour, a feat never heard of before.’ North Otago Museum, 1046


with his daughters doing all they could in the way of house work.74 In February 1895 his daughter Harriet took Barton Acland to Hanmer Springs in the hope of easing the rheumatism in his hands and feet in the spa’s mineral waters. Acland wrote apologetically to Mills, explaining the reason for the expense.75 In another letter to Mills he listed all the horses on the station after a nephew, who had visited from England, had told Mills of the number of horses on the property. Acland tried to explain that working horses in New Zealand bore little cost compared with the riding horses found on English estates.76

Scott Thomson was left to try to farm Mt Peel out of its indebtedness. In 1897 the mortgage with Mills stood at £37,000. Dalgety and Company acted as Mills’ New Zealand agents and insisted that Scott Thomson provide them with a regular monthly report about general work and details of all receipts and expenses. Wool remained low, returning only £6,048 net in 1898, but sheep prices slowly improved and Scott Thomson was able to pay £3,600 off the mortgage in the year to June 1898. However, in October 1898 Mills died bringing Barton Acland’s disastrous financial dealings to a climax. F. Archer, who had recently replaced E. W. Parker as manager of the Christchurch branch of Dalgety, became executor of Mill’s Canterbury interests. In April 1899 Archer demanded that Acland repay his loan in full or Mt Peel would be sold at a mortgagee sale on 14 June 1899. Arthur Rhodes, a Christchurch lawyer and a family friend of the Aclands’, agreed to take over the mortgage and pay off Mills’ sons. Historian Geoffrey Rice tells the story of how Rhodes paid the money in person to Archer with bags full of gold sovereigns.77

The whole affair was too much for Acland who was 75 years old by this time. He had been unable to take any part in the negotiations regarding the outcome of Archer’s ultimatum, leaving it up to his sons Henry, John and Hugh, who was in London, and Arthur Rhodes. Acland’s decline is encapsulated in a letter from Scott Thomson in March 1900 to George Harper, the solicitor acting on behalf of the station. Scott Thomson was concerned about Mrs Acland and thought that she needed ‘a competent person to look after Mr Acland as she really is not fit for it – she is some use in the world and he is not much’.78

Death, then RecoveryJohn Barton Arundel Acland died at Mt Peel Station on 21 May 1904. Soon after, his assets were sworn at £40,512. The most valuable items in the inventory that made up this figure were £21,878 for 36,710 sheep and £15,893 for 5215 acres of freehold sections on Mt Peel, including improvements. At this time Mt Peel was still heavily in debt. In September 1899, after Rhodes had bailed out


the Acland family, the mortgage had stood at £25,992; at the time of Acland’s death it had been reduced to £6,750. Other liabilities included £4,500 owed to Dennistoun for a 627-acre freehold block of land on the plains below Peel Forest that had been bought to winter young stock and for fattening some of the surplus sheep before selling them.

The recovery that had taken place since the crises of the 1890s had been due to the lift in the prices for sale sheep and to Scott Thomson’s careful and frugal management of the station. Wool prices were still in the doldrums, with the 1900–01 clip bringing in £6,400 net. Scott Thomson was concerned that it would not meet the advance taken out on it and that they would have to refund about £600. However, halfbred and crossbred sheep were in demand for fattening and breeding. In early March 1900, Scott Thomson sold 3112 sheep at an average of nearly 13/6 per head.79 A year later he sold 1000 young halfbred ewes for £1 a head and expected to earn about £5,000 from sale sheep for the season. Consequently, in the financial year ending 30 September the station made a surplus of £2,500 that went towards reducing the mortgage. The following financial year, with wool up slightly and sheep prices holding well, income exceeded expenditure by £4,000, which Scott Thomson considered satisfactory.80 Scott Thomson retired at the end of 1904, worn out after twelve years in the job, and the recovery of the station’s fortunes continued under the new manager D. Livingston and the executors. Initially, Barton Acland’s wife, Emily, sons Henry and John, and his brother-in-law and family solicitor, George Harper, were the executors. After Emily’s death in 1905, Henry, George and son Hugh took control, with Henry playing the major role in overseeing the progress of Mt Peel. In 1907, within three years of Barton Acland’s death, the main debtors, Rhodes and Dennistoun, had been repaid, leaving the station unencumbered for the first time in nearly forty years. The same year saw the best wool prices for years, with the station earning £10,000 net for its wool clip as well as £7,500 for stock sales. As a result, in 1907 receipts amounted to £17,561, while working expenses were £8,600. Over the previous six years, average receipts had earned £11,513 while average expenses had been £6,349.

Despite the return to profitability, Mt Peel continued to suffer from the vicissitudes of high country weather and, in particular, heavy snow storms. In the winter of 1903 the station lost 7000 sheep and in 1908 8000.81 Consequently, after several years of producing good surpluses, in the year to 30 September 1909 the station had few sheep to sell and the stock account showed an income of £1,100. However, the property recovered quickly and in 1911, the year before it was subdivided, Mt Peel made a net profit of £8,191.


Conclusion: Not Much of a Business?

The profitability of pastoralism depended on a range of factors, and advantages such as having capital, initiative and experience as well as early arrival certainly had some bearing on whether a runholder was successful or not. Two other factors might have been even more important: luck and the quality of the natural resources of the different runs.

Luck, particularly in terms of timing, was a key to making a fortune or losing a potential one. In several letters Barton Acland regretted not selling up during the good times as others had done. George Duppa sold up in 1863, before wool prices fell, and left New Zealand with a fortune. Great timing. Samuel Butler’s timing was probably even better. He arrived in 1860, just as wool prices boomed, and sold out in 1864, just before wool and sheep prices fell, and doubled his capital. The lucky ones, who were able to hang in through the following years and make it through to the mid-1890s, saw profitability return to the business when the frozen meat trade finally overcame the teething problems of the eighties and early nineties. When Charles Tripp died in 1897, Orari Gorge was still heavily in debt, but its profitability was beginning to improve. When Barton Acland died in 1904 Mt Peel was well on the way to clearing debts that had accumulated through the early 1890s. Had he lived to 1907, Acland would have seen his station debt-free for the first time in forty years. Good timing might not have been everything, but it was important in the success of any pastoralist.

The quality of the resource endowments of pastoral stations was also vitally important in their success. At different times during the pastoral era, there were four main streams of income for stations on the grasslands: wool up to the mid-1870s, grain in the late 1870s and 1880s, the frozen meat trade especially from the mid-1890s and land sales from about the same time. Depending on the natural resources of their properties, some runholders were able to take advantage of all these opportunities as they arose. Duncan Cameron at Springfield and John Grigg at Longbeach are just two examples of runholders who made money from all four income streams. Glenmark did not have extensive areas of land suited to large-scale cropping, so George Moore missed out on this source of income. However, he made his early fortune from wool, did well from the frozen meat trade and then made a huge profit from selling land. Mt Peel was not in an environment where large-scale cropping was viable and Acland did not have extensive areas of freehold land to sell. For most of the time that Acland owned Mt Peel, he had to rely on wool as his main source of income, and when wool prices collapsed he was in trouble. However, by 1912,


when Mt Peel was subdivided, the station was financially better off than it had been over the preceding forty years. The station was in an environment that was ideal for growing pasture and Mt Peel’s managers were able to take advantage of this, shifting their production from fine Merinos to halfbred and crossbred sheep for the frozen meat trade. Many high country properties were unable to make this transition. Aridity, rabbits, altitude, limited areas of cultivable land and isolation forced high country runholders to continue to rely on fine wool as almost their only source of income. And as long as wool prices remained low, these runs struggled to remain profitable.

It is also notable that runholders like Acland and Tripp, and others on the better country, continued to develop their properties even when they had to borrow heavily to do so. The improvement ethos ran deep in this pioneering generation, and rather than retrench they tried to farm their way out of the downturn in wool and meat prices. It was the harsh environment and the rabbit pest in the high country that discouraged runholders in this region from taking the same risks. For them it was a matter of survival rather than improvement.

The experience of Barton Acland at Mt Peel Station supports Leo Acland’s conclusion that runholding was not much of a business. Barton Acland enjoyed advantages that many others did not have: he arrived early, he had capital, he gained some experience in sheep farming by working as a cadet before taking up his run, he took up a potentially productive station, his sheep were not affected by scab, his land was not overrun by rabbits and he was established on his property in time to enjoy the high wool prices of the early 1860s. Despite these advantages, when he died Acland hardly fitted the model of the wealthy wool king. Certainly, at his death, his assets were valued at £40,000, but four years earlier Scott Thomson valued his personal belongings at only £400.82 He had spent the last fifteen years of his life living frugally, and at various times from the early 1870s he had suffered emotional breakdown partly as a result of the strain caused by his financial problems.

237

CHAPTER EIGHT

Appraising Preconceptions, Prejudice and Proof

Pioneering pastoralists in the south island tussock grasslands found an environment that lent itself to sheep farming, but first it had to be modified. From the outset the early pastoralists realised that sheep farming would not flourish in the tall-tussock–shrubland

complex that dominated the open country. Burning produced fine pasturage where sheep thrived. Later, oversowing, drainage and cultivation improved the quality of feed for sheep and fencing helped to improve their management. From the early 1850s, sheep farming became the dominant land use across the region.

The spread of pastoralism across the tussock lands of the South Island was a part of a world-wide phenomenon where European people, livestock, techniques, technology and capital expanded across ‘new world’ landscapes. Environmental histories have highlighted the invasion of the ‘new’ world with aggressive ‘old’ world plants and animals, and the imposition of a capitalist system where local resources were transformed into international commodities, with severe consequences for local peoples and landscapes.

In New Zealand the established explanation of the pastoral impact on the grasslands of the South Island follows this pattern. It maintains that pastoralists misread the landscape and imposed an unsustainable system of land use; and that they quickly stripped the natural fertility of the soils and left the country depleted, eroded, and overwhelmed by pests and weeds. Much of the evidence


that critics use to argue that extensive sheep farming methods led to the desertification of the land came from the semi-arid districts of Central Otago, the Upper Waitaki and the Mackenzie Country. Yet these outcomes are often generalised to include all the ‘high country’ or all the ‘tussock grasslands and associated mountain lands’. In fact, the grassland environment was much more complex than these critics would have it, and this complexity resulted in considerable variations in outcomes across the region.

In a lecture at the University of Otago in 2004, botanist Alan Mark presented a historical perspective of the tussock grasslands and associated mountain lands.1 In his paper Mark set out the lineage of ‘scientists and others’ who have written about the deterioration of the vegetation of the tussock grasslands, among them John Buchanan (1868), Alfred Cockayne (1910), Leonard Cockayne (1919), George Thomson (1922), Victor Zotov (1938), Gibbs and Raeside, and Kenneth Cumberland (1945) and Chris Kerr (1992).2 Kerr’s 1992 paper set out the same lineage with the notable inclusion of botanist Donald Petrie (1912).3

In his paper, Kerr cited Buchanan’s writing to support his statement that the ‘deterioration of the tussock grasslands of Otago [was] caused by repeated burning’.4 Both Kerr and Mark quoted Buchanan’s observation on burning as: ‘Nothing can show greater ignorance of grass conservation than repeated burning which is so frequently practised’.5 In fact, the correct quotation is: ‘Nothing can show greater ignorance of grass conservation than repeated burning of the pasture in arid districts [my emphasis], which is so frequently practised.’6 It is interesting that both Mark and Kerr chose to leave this important qualification out of their text. Buchanan did not dismiss burning out of hand; he thought it inappropriate in arid areas. Buchanan went on to say that the deterioration of the grasslands by fire had reduced the carrying capacity so that ‘many of the runs require eight acres to feed one sheep’.7

Donald Petrie was surprised by Buchanan’s statement, writing that ‘in the mid-seventies the sheep-runs of Central Otago were reputed to carry at least one sheep to four acres, and the majority of them carried one sheep to three acres or somewhat less’.8 The paper in which Petrie made this observation is an important document in the land history of Central Otago as he was one of the few commentators who saw and wrote about the transformation of the landscape of that region as it took place.

Petrie made several important points in his analysis of the process of desertification that he observed in Vincent County. He noted that at higher altitudes and on the more fertile areas where rainfall was adequate, there was a ‘considerable wealth of grasses’.9 However, burning and grazing with sheep

APPRAISING PRECONCEPTIONS, PREJUDICE AND PROOF 239

had led to a ‘slow process of degeneration’ where soils were shallow and in the most arid parts, especially the areas around Alexandra, Clyde and Cromwell.10 The arrival of the rabbit plague exacerbated the problem. Petrie concluded that overgrazing, by sheep and rabbits, was the main cause of the desertification of these particular areas.11

Petrie realised that a complex intersection of factors had led to the deterioration of the tussock lands in parts of Vincent County, Central Otago and the Mackenzie Country: rainfall, altitude, aspect, soils, burning, sheep grazing and rabbits. He observed that the deterioration of the vegetation was not universal across all landscapes in these regions, and that in some areas, those with shallow soils and low rainfall, the vegetation was thin before pastoral settlement took place. This is supported by Alexander Garvie, who noted in 1858 that the grass in places was ‘rather thin’ and consisted ‘almost entirely of a single species’.12 It was in these areas that Petrie noted that sheep-farming methods were reducing the vigour of the vegetation before the rabbit plague. Others have been much less careful in their analysis.

Thomson, a self-taught pioneer ecologist, wrote about the first rabbit plague and relied on Petrie for his information on the depletion of the vegetation in Central Otago.13 But Thomson was more forthright in his comments, as can be seen in this quotation: ‘Before their advent [rabbits], runholders who had possession of the arid regions . . . were doing their best to denude the surface of the ground by overstocking with sheep and frequent burning.’14 Thomson provided no supporting evidence for this statement.

Alfred Cockayne, a biologist for the Department of Agriculture, criticised burning by pastoralists in an article published in 1910.15 He described burning taking place throughout the year, and the same country being burned twice within the same season. This paper is widely used to support the argument that pastoralists used fire indiscriminately. Yet Cockayne did not furnish any evidential support for his claims. Moreover, his suggestion that the same piece of country could be burned twice within the same season is unfounded; after the first burn there would not be enough vegetation to carry a second fire.

Mark and Kerr both quoted the observation made by ecologist Leonard Cockayne, father of Alfred, in 1919 that indiscriminate burning had turned acres of tussock grassland into ‘stony debris’.16 Interestingly, neither writer acknowledged the work of Whitehouse and others who have used photographic evidence and other dating techniques to demonstrate that erosion is a natural feature in the high country, and that most scree slopes long predate pastoral settlement.17


Zotov’s 1938 paper on the South Island tussock grasslands has been widely used to support the case that sheep-farming methods were responsible for the depletion of the vegetation and the erosion that ensued. Annual indiscriminate burning, according to Zotov, was the primary cause of the process of depletion. He went on to claim that ‘the rabbit [was] not in itself a major agent of depletion’.18 He drew these conclusions after a nine-week tour of the South Island made over sixty years after the outbreak of the rabbit irruption, after discussions with ‘old settlers’; from ‘two sources of information’, both unnamed; and from his own reconstruction of the vegetation at the time of settlement.19 He did admit that knowledge of native plant species and their associations was inadequate, which would have made his reconstruction difficult. There must be some question whether this evidence justified the conclusions that Zotov drew.

Cumberland’s research into contemporary burning by pastoralists on sixty South Island runs in his 1945 report was much more soundly based. He found that burning was ‘very rarely indiscriminate’.20 Yet, relying on the claims of Buchanan, the Cockaynes, and Zotov, Cumberland concluded that in the nineteenth century ‘annual [Cumberland’s emphasis] burning was often the rule’.21 Cumberland’s dilemma, whether to accept the evidence of his own research or to accept the claims of the established authorities, illustrates the problems that lie in the lineage of these critics of pastoral farming practice: Mark cites Kerr, who cites Cumberland, who cites Zotov, who cites the Cockaynes, who cite Buchanan. Quotations taken out of context, lack of evidential support for claims, extrapolation of data from a particular location to include all the grasslands, and biased selection of evidence do not provide for a rigorous analysis.

Just to emphasise the persistent misrepresentation of evidence, let us look at one final example. Soil scientists Gibbs and Raeside claimed that Petrie ‘named burning as the principal cause of erosion’ and that he saw overstocking by sheep and rabbits ‘to be a contributory factor, but not the prime cause of depletion’.22 Petrie actually wrote: ‘The hurtful effects of grass-burning have been seconded by a more important factor [my emphasis] – continuous overstocking [by rabbits and sheep] . . . . [I]n spite of all exertions [the rabbit population] remained a heavy burden, a burden, with stock added, too great for the pasture to bear.’23 In the following paragraph he wrote: ‘For my part, I cannot doubt that the present desert-areas are mainly the result of continued overstocking.’

Mark, Kerr, Gibbs and Raeside, Cumberland and Zotov and others have proposed that the impact of pastoralism on the tussock grasslands of the South Island was, in effect, an ecological disaster. For Mark and Kerr the solution to


the problem was to take the stock off the land – to end pastoralism and pastoral farming as a land-use option. Unfortunately, their account of our pastoral history of the South Island grasslands, which is an incomplete and slanted story, has strongly influenced the administration of the Crown pastoral leases in the last three or four decades.

Testing the Orthodox Narrative

This book is a settler history that has placed the pastoralists in the context of their own time and place. The pastoralists’ economic, social, cultural and natural environments shaped the way they operated. They were capitalists keen to profit from running sheep, initially on a low-cost extensive sheep-farming system. Understandably, they used methods that they knew from home to manage their stock and the land. In order to run their enterprises profitably, they also needed to learn to read their new environment. Their success in breeding sheep types to suit different landscapes is just one example of this process of learning and adaptation. As capitalists they had to respond to the changes in prices and changes in products demanded in the international marketplace. This led to the introduction of new management techniques and to the wholesale transformation of low-country landscapes in particular. The mentalité of the pastoralists and their belief in progress and improvement underpinned these processes of experimentation, learning and responding to the marketplace. Moreover, many of them envisaged their enterprises as long-term ventures. Some did make a quick profit and then returned to Britain. The majority did not.

Mt Peel in the Pastoral EraIn March 1912, with the government having resumed 50,000 acres for subdivision into smaller properties, Mt Peel Station sold 25,000 sheep at an auction held at the station sheep yards. The Timaru Herald described the sheep as being of ‘good quality’, and reported that ‘[they] were eagerly sought after, bidding was keen, and the whole offering was disposed of at prices that were highly satisfactory to the vendors’.24 Mt Peel kept 20,000 sheep to be run on the country that the Acland family had retained.

At the time of sale, the station ran 45,000 sheep and, judging by the sale report and prices for the sheep sold, they were good stock in good condition. This level of stocking had been carried on Mt Peel for many years. The station’s flock passed 35,000 sheep in 1870 and in the following forty-two years, up to the


time of subdivision, the flock averaged 40,757 sheep. Over that time the size, wool production and lambing performance of the sheep increased.

However, the history of Mt Peel is not one of relentless improvement and progress. Barton Acland suffered from similar contingent events and difficulties that others experienced, although his station was spared the worst excesses of rabbits and drought. Mt Peel sustained devastating sheep losses from snow events, damage from storms and floods, economic depression that resulted from the long-term decline in fine-wool prices, animal health problems, loss of land, encroachment of weeds and pests, and the personal financial crisis of Acland, which nearly led to the forced sale of the property. Despite these vicissitudes, the station maintained consistently high sheep numbers and the productivity of the stock improved, indicating that the stock loading of the station increased over time.

An even longer view of the station’s record shows that the production off the property has continued to increase. In 1910–11, in sheep alone, Mt Peel carried 31,361 stock units, a stocking rate of 1.33 stock units per hectare over the whole station. In 2007 the station consisted of 8800 hectares (21,700 acres) and carried 30,000 stock units in sheep, cattle and deer.25 The stocking rate was 3.4 stock units to the hectare.

The history of Mt Peel does not fit the orthodox thesis of decline. Moreover, in the pastoral era up to 1912, from Marlborough to Southland and from the plains to the hills and mountains, there were other stations that did not fit the model of an overburned, overgrazed, depleted landscape with declining productivity. There is a variety of reasons for the different impacts of pastoralism. The natural resources of each station, the motivation of the owner, the skill of the management, changing economic circumstances and contingencies all played a part in shaping the different outcomes.

Differences in resource endowments were fundamental in determining the course and outcome of the pastoral impact on grassland properties. Mt Peel had natural advantages that furnished opportunities for increasing the productivity of the station. It was a well-balanced run with extensive areas of well-watered, relatively low-altitude sunny country in a medium-to-high rainfall area. There were ample flats and terraces and thousands of acres of easy hill country. The dark country on the Orari side of the Mt Peel Range and the higher tops provided good summering for stock, particularly in dry seasons.

However, there were also disadvantages that placed constraints on the productivity and development of the station. The station was subject to severe climatic events. Occasional heavy snow falls killed thousands of sheep. Difficult


access between the Orari and front country exacerbated the problem, as it was impossible to get snow-bound sheep out of the Orari after heavy snow. Sheep did not do well in wet years, and footrot remained a serious health problem that reduced the productivity of the sheep and cost time and effort to treat. Occasional floods eroded land and damaged fences, bridges and roads and forced the owners to erect a new woolshed after the old one was nearly swept away.

Like many of the early pastoralists, Acland was an improver. Although he did not play a hands-on part in the daily activities of running the property, he was in regular contact with his managers and, until old age and ill-health caught up with him in late in the 1890s, he took an active role in the direction of the station. Over time his staff and contractors cultivated hundreds of acres of flats and terraces and sowed green feed and then permanent pasture. Easy hill blocks were oversown with clovers and cocksfoot. Artificial fertiliser was used to boost turnip and young grass crops from 1890. Fencing subdivided paddocks and hill blocks to improve stock management and ease sheep handling. Selective breeding improved sheep productivity. The land management story on Mt Peel is one of intensification and increasing inputs. This was a classic example of pastoral farming with a view to the long term, not exploitative pastoralism. All the while, the native grassland remained an integral part of the farming operation of the station.

The intensification of land use combined with changes in prices for agricultural products encouraged Mt Peel to change its sheep-breeding policy. Sheep farming in the grasslands began with Merino sheep imported from the Australian colonies and Acland was an enthusiast for the breed. However, fine wool prices slowly declined from the mid-1870s, which made runs that relied almost totally on the income from wool barely viable economically. A shift to cross-breeding produced a halfbred-type sheep that grew stronger combing wool that was in demand for the worsted trade. The halfbred also produced a faster maturing and better fleshed carcase for the frozen meat trade. This type did much better on the improved country on Mt Peel and proved to be more profitable than the Merino, so that the last of the original breed were sold off in the 1912 sale.

A crucial advantage that Mt Peel enjoyed over runs in other parts of the grasslands is that the station was not overwhelmed by rabbits in the period up to 1912. Management faced increased rabbiting costs in the first decade of the twentieth century, but rabbits did not have any noticeable impact on sheep numbers and sheep productivity. Even the costs of control measures were minimal compared to a run like Earnscleugh that was devastated by the rabbit


plague. The rabbit was the key agent in the depletion of the grasslands in the period up to 1912. Runs in the semi-arid regions were simply overwhelmed by the pest. Despite Acland’s motivation and ability, it is highly unlikely that he would have been any more successful in preventing or combating the rabbit irruption than anyone else had he taken up a run in Vincent County, the Upper Waitaki or the Mackenzie Country.

Conclusion

At the outset, pastoralists realised that they needed to modify the tussock lands to make them suitable for sheep grazing, and all grassland properties began with the simple practices of burning and stocking the land. Thereafter, the extent and pace of development on the stations of the region depended on a variety of factors and circumstances. The resource endowments of the different runs probably proved to be the most significant influence on how far landowners improved their stations. On the plains, downlands and easier hill country, pastoralists soon became pastoral farmers. In semi-arid and mountainous areas, aridity, the short growing season, steep terrain and isolation provided constraints on land improvement, and many runholders remained pastoralists. By the early 1890s, a differentiation between the largely freehold low country and the largely leasehold high country had been established. In fact the term ‘high country’ for the semi-arid and mountain lands began to appear in common usage about this time. However, in the hills of the Amuri District, along the foothills adjoining the Canterbury Plains, and in the hill districts of Otago and Southland, the distinction between the two systems remained blurred.

The variations in landscape and climate across the grassland environment cannot be emphasised enough. The timing of the transformation of the grasslands and the processes involved were not uniform and the outcomes of that transformation were not uniform. There were marked differences across the region. The orthodox argument that the methods of the pastoralists led to a degraded landscape does not explain those differences. The evidence from Mt Peel and many other runs outside the semi-arid areas is that, up to the time of their subdivision, productivity remained high and even continued to increase.

An improvement ethos underpinned the pastoral era, and the actions of the pastoral improvers were characterised by enterprise, enthusiasm and energy. Improving pastoralists applied scientific ideas and technology from around the world to their farming systems. Pastoralism reached its ecological limits in the semi-arid and hard mountain country. Contemporary technology and scientific


knowledge could not solve the problems that restricted production in these areas, and economic and biological constraints turned pastoralists in the high country from improvement to survival. Aridity and rabbits placed constraints on pastoral farming in inland Marlborough, the Mackenzie Country, the Upper Waitaki and parts of Central Otago; they still do. Critics of pastoralism focus on these regions and choose to ignore the successes of pastoral farming elsewhere in the grasslands: the Rutherfords in the Amuri; Hall, Cameron and Grigg on the Canterbury Plains; Deans in the foothills; Tripp in the mountains; Murray and Roberts in Otago; and Holmes in northern Southland.

However, despite the innovation and enterprise of the early pastoralists, by 1914 many of the old problems were still unresolved and new problems had emerged. Rabbits remained a threat to the viability of sheep farming in many areas, and deer were beginning to compete for feed with sheep and cattle in the backcountry. Declining soil fertility and trace element deficiencies showed up in poor pasture productivity, the reversion of large areas of grassland to scrub and weeds, and the difficulty of maintaining permanent pastures without regular recourse to the plough. More intensive management of sheep led to a marked increase in infestations of parasites, both internal (intestinal and lung worms) and external (sheep lice and keds), resulting in high death rates in young stock and the reduced productivity of adult animals. It was not until the scientific and technological breakthroughs that followed World War II that many of these problems were resolved.

Despite these difficulties, Mt Peel Station remains in the hands of the Acland family 150 years after Barton Acland and Charles Tripp first took it up. The Aclands have survived the same highs and lows that most other pastoralists experienced and even came close to being bankrupted off the station. However, any knowledgeable visitor to Mt Peel today would recognise that the station is in great heart, with productive pastures and high quality stock. Without doubt, Mt Peel Station is a highly modified environment; it is also a highly successful property.

246

Preface1 G. W. Russell, New Zealand Parliamentary

Debates, 29 August 1912.

One The Pastoral Frontier1 MB 44, Acland Family Papers, Box 7, 4 January

1855, Macmillan Brown Library, University of Canterbury, Christchurch.

2 C. Warren Adams, A Spring in the Canterbury Settlement, 1853; reprinted Christchurch: Capper Press, 1971, p.30.

3 W. David McIntyre, The Journal of Henry Sewell, Vol. , February –May , Christchurch: Whitcoulls, 1980, p.123.

4 Samuel Butler, A First Year in the Canterbury Settlement, 1863; reprinted London: A. C. Fifield, 1914, p.32.

5 Ibid., p.33.6 Ibid.7 W. David McIntyre, The Journal of Henry

Sewell, Vol. , May –May , Christchurch: Whitcoulls, 1980, p.118.

8 John C. Weaver, The Great Land Rush and the Making of the Modern World, –, Montreal; London: McGill–Queens University Press, 2003, p.21.

9 Nelson Examiner, 5 October 1844, p.124.10 Ibid., 27 July 1844, p.84.11 P. R. Stephens, ‘The Age of the Great Sheep

Runs, 1856–80’, in R. F. Watters (ed.), Land and Society in New Zealand: Essays in Historical Geography, Wellington: A. H. & A. W. Reed, 1965, p.52.

12 A. D. McIntosh (ed.), Marlborough: A Provincial History, 1940; reprinted Christchurch: Capper Press, 1977, p.92.

13 Ibid., pp.91, 105.14 Sheila S. Crawford, Sheep and Sheepmen of

Canterbury, –, Christchurch: Simpson & Williams, 1949, p.22; W. J. Gardner, The Amuri: A County History, Christchurch: Whitcombe & Tombs, 1956, p.123.

15 Bill Carter and John MacGibbon, Wool: A History of New Zealand’s Wool Industry, Wellington: Ngaio Press, 2003, p.13.

16 L. G. D. Acland, The Early Canterbury Runs, 4th ed., Christchurch: Whitcoulls, 1975, pp.13–14.

17 Herries Beattie, Early Runholding in Otago, Dunedin: Otago Daily Times, 1947, p.126; Kenneth B. Cumberland, Landmarks, Surry Hills, NSW: Reader’s Digest, 1981, p.76.

18 Beattie, Early Runholding, pp.132, 134.

19 Butler, A First Year, p.66.20 James V. Macfarlane, From Arrochar to

Canterbury: Some Links in a Three Hundred Year Old Chain; Including Notes about John Macfarlane – and his Wife, Catherine Cameron and Their Family, Coldstream, Rangiora, Canterbury, New Zealand, Wanganui: James V. Macfarlane, 1989, pp.117–18, 122–5.

21 Ibid., pp.126–7.22 A. H. McLintock, The History of Otago:

The Origins and Growth of a Wakefield Class Settlement, Dunedin: Otago Centennial Historical Publications, 1949, pp.134–6.

23 Nelson Examiner, 27 July 1844, p.84.24 Ibid.25 John Deans (ed.), Pioneers of Canterbury: The

Deans Family Letters, –, Dunedin: Reed, 1937, p.92.

26 Peter Bromley Maling, The Torlesse Papers: The Journal and Letters of Charles Obins Torlesse Concerning the Foundation of the Canterbury Settlement in New Zealand, –, Christchurch: Pegasus, 1958, p.54.

27 Ibid., pp.54–55.28 Ibid., pp.143–4.29 Alexander Lean, Diary/notebook, 1854–1855,

Transcript, Canterbury Museum Documentary Research Centre.

30 Colonel Alexander Lean, Reminiscences, 1889, Canterbury Museum Documentary Research Centre, pp.11–12.

31 Lean, Diary, 7 April 1854.32 Lean, Reminiscences, p.42.33 Acland, Early Canterbury Runs, p.107.34 McIntyre, Journal of Henry Sewell, Vol. , p.208.35 Ibid., p.209.36 Acland Papers, Box 7, 4 December 1855.37 A. Hewson, ‘Early Days in the Ashburton

County’, Canterbury Museum Documentary Research Centre, p.12.

38 Mark Pringle Stoddart, ‘Reminiscences of Mark Pringle Stoddart, Written Sixteen Years after He Arrived in February 1851’, Canterbury Museum Documentary Research Centre, p.12.

39 Hewson, ‘Early Days’, p.25; Butler, A First Year, p.52.

40 Maling, Torlesse Papers, p.66.41 E. Jollie, ‘From Nelson to Canterbury’, in

David McLeod (ed.), Alone in a Mountain World: A High Country Anthology, Wellington: A. H & A. W. Reed, 1972, p.24.

42 Stoddart, ‘Reminiscences’, p.5.43 Hewson, ‘Early Days’, p.21.

NOTES

NOTES TO PAGES 13–28 247

44 Edgar Jones, Autobiography of an Early Settler in New Zealand, 1933; reprinted Christchurch: Kiwi Publishers, 1996, p.44.

45 Acland, Early Canterbury Runs, p.17.46 H. Beattie (ed.), Pioneer Recollections: Second

Series, Dealing Chiefly with the Early Days of the Mataura Valley, 1911; reprinted Christchurch: Cadsonbury, 1997, p.34.

47 Ibid.48 Herries Beattie, The Pioneers Explore Otago:

A Record of Explorers, Travellers, Surveyors, Bushmen, Seekers of Pastoral Country, Inland Voyagers, and Wayfaring Men, Dunedin: Otago Daily Times, 1947, p.27.

49 Ibid., p.28.50 Ibid.51 Ibid., p.29.52 Ibid., p.59.53 Ibid., pp.60, 61.54 Alexander Garvie, ‘Report on the

Reconnaissance Survey of the South-Eastern Districts of the Province of Otago, Executed During the Months of October and November, also February, March and Part of April, 1857–8’, The Otago Provincial Government Gazette, 3 (January 1856–December 1859), p.280.

55 Ibid.56 Ibid., p.279.57 J. T. Thomson, ‘Report to the Commissioners

of the Waste Land Board on the Reconnaissance Survey of the Southern Districts of Otago, Executed During the Months of January, February, and March 1857, by J. T. Thomson, Chief Surveyor’, The Otago Provincial Government Gazette, 3 (January 1856–December 1859), p.263.

58 J. T. Thomson, ‘Report to the Commissioners of the Waste Land Board on the Reconnaissance Survey of the North-Eastern and Interior Districts of the Province of Otago, Executed During the Months of October, November, December, and January, 1857–8, by J. T. Thomson’, The Otago Provincial Government Gazette, vol.3 (January 1856–December 1859), p.272.

59 Ibid.60 Beattie, Pioneers Explore Otago, p.60.61 Thomson, ‘Report 1857–8’, p.272.62 John Buchanan, ‘Sketch of the Botany of

Otago’, Transactions and Proceedings of the New Zealand Institute, 1 (1868), p.181.

63 B. P. J. Molloy, ‘Recent History of the Vegetation’, in G. A. Knox (ed.), The Natural History of Canterbury, Wellington: A. H. & A. W. Reed, 1969, pp.340–60; M. S. McGlone, ‘The Origin of the Indigenous Grasslands of South-eastern South Island in Relation to Pre-human Woody Ecosystems’, New Zealand Journal of Ecology, 25, no.1 (2000), pp.1–16.

64 Robert Bateman Paul, Letters from Canterbury, New Zealand, London: Rivington’s, 1857, p.40.

65 Deans (ed.), Pioneers of Canterbury, pp.80, 90.66 Ibid., p.111.

67 Laurence J. Kennaway, Crusts: A Settler’s Fare Due South, 1874; reprinted Christchurch: Capper Press, 1970, pp.21, 34.

68 Ibid., p.19.69 Lean, ‘Reminiscences’, p.30.70 Butler, A First Year, p.108.71 Acland Papers, Box 11, Letter to Henry Acland,

13 December 1886.72 Butler, A First Year, p.110.73 Lady Barker, Station Life in New Zealand, 1870;

reprinted Christchurch: Vintage, 2000, p.130.74 M. P. Stoddart, ‘The Shagroon’s Lament’,

in David McLeod (ed.), Alone in a Mountain World: A High Country Anthology, Wellington: A. H. & A. W. Reed, 1972, p.155.

75 Rainfall Normals for New Zealand to , New Zealand Meteorological Service, Miscellaneous Publication 185, 1983.

76 Summaries of Climatological Observations to , New Zealand Meteorological Service Miscellaneous Publication 143, 1973.

77 Appendix to the Journal of the House of Representatives of New Zealand, 1890 H-42; 1907 H-34; Statistics of The Dominion of New Zealand, 1907, 1908, 1909, 1910.

78 A. P. Barker, ‘An Ecological Study of Tussock Grassland, Hunter Hills, South Canterbury, New Zealand’, Department of Scientific and Industrial Research Bulletin, no.107, 1953, p.10.

79 Kennaway, Crusts, p.38.80 Summaries of Climatological Observations. 81 Bruce Allan, ‘Grazing Management and

Hill Pasture Research Integration’, in K. F. O’Connor (ed.), Celebrating Tara: A Brief History of Tara Hills, Lincoln, Christchurch: NZIAS Publication, 1998, p.41.

82 Acland, Early Canterbury Runs, p.21.83 Kennaway, Crusts, pp.220–3.84 Acland, Early Canterbury Runs, p.228.85 Donald Offwood, Camerons of the Glen: The

Story of the Camerons of Glenfalloch Station, Nokomai, Central Otago, Christchurch: Caxton Press, 2008, p.149.

86 Janet Thomson, Shepherd’s Progress: Elliotts in Central Otago, Wellington: Ngaio Press, 2008, pp.89, 92.

87 Acland Papers, Box 57, 14 April 1898.88 Ibid., Box 7, 24 January–5 February 1855.89 Ibid., 29 January 1855.90 Ibid.91 Butler, A First Year, p.69.92 Acland Papers, Box 7, B2/23, pp.11–12.93 Ibid., 5 February 1855.94 Ibid., 8 February 1855.95 Ibid., 9 February 1855.96 McIntyre, Journal of Henry Sewell, Vol. , p.129.97 Acland, Early Canterbury Runs, p.78.98 Acland Papers, Box 7, 13 March 1855.99 Ibid., 30 March 1855.100 Ibid.101 Ibid., 21 April 1855.102 Ibid., 31 December 1855.103 John Barton Acland, Notes on Sheep-Farming

248 NOTES TO PAGES 28–44

in New Zealand with a Short Notice of the Canterbury Province, London: W. Clowes & Sons, 1858, p.7.

104 C. G. Tripp, Lecture Given by the Late C. G. Tripp of Orari Gorge, Canterbury at Silverton, Devon 1862, Wellington: Ferguson & Osborn, 1926, pp.8–9.

105 Acland, Early Canterbury Runs, p.79.106 See Map 1.3. The Establishment of Runs in

Canterbury, showing years when they were first taken up, p. xiv.

107 Kennaway, Crusts, p.60.108 G.W. Harte, Mount Peel is a Hundred: The

Story of the First High-country Sheep Station in Canterbury, Timaru: Timaru Herald, 1956, p.13.

109 Acland Papers, Box 7, 15 September 1855.110 Ibid., 17 September 1855.111 Ibid., 18 September 1855.112 Ibid.113 Ibid., 10 October 1855.114 Ibid.115 Ibid., 17–20 October 1855.116 Sir John Cracroft Wilson had served in

the Indian Civil Service and was known in Canterbury as the Nabob. He established a farm he called Cashmere near Christchurch and at various times owned Culverden, Broadlands, Highpeak and Cracroft stations.

117 Acland Papers, Box 7, 22–27 February 1856.118 Hewson, ‘Early Days’, p.20.119 Acland Papers, Box 7, 29 April 1855.120 Ibid., 3 May 1856.121 Ibid., 12 May 1856.122 Tripp, Lecture, p.7.123 Acland Papers, Box 7, 21 September 1855.124 Acland, Early Canterbury Runs, p.143.125 Map 1.5. Mt Peel Station 1861 to 1912, p.34. 126 Peter Newton, High Country Journey,

Wellington: A. H. & A. W. Reed, 1952, p.59.127 Acland Papers, Box 57, Station Letterbook, 23

May 1898.128 Ibid., Box 4, J. B. A. Acland Diary, 3 February,

19 March, 28 October, 4 November 1864; 31 July 1867.

129 Ibid., E. R. Chudleigh Diary, Box 90, 24 December 1865.

130 Acland, Early Canterbury Runs, p.21.131 Harte, Mount Peel, p.68. 132 Acland Papers, Box 52, 2 January 1896; 22

February 1896.133 Tripp, Lecture, p.7.

Two Indiscriminate Burning?

1 Material from this chapter was published as an article, ‘ “The Exceeding Joy of Burning”: Pastoralists and the Lucifer Match. Burning the Rangelands of the South Island of New Zealand in the Nineteenth Century, 1850 to 1890’, Agricultural History, 80, no.1 (Winter 2006), pp.17–34.

2 Lady Barker, Station Life in New Zealand,

1870; reprinted Christchurch: Vintage, 2000, pp.225–6.

3 Stephen J. Pyne, Vestal Fire: An Environmental History, Told through Fire, of Europe and Europe’s Encounter with the World, Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1997, p.430.

4 James Belich, Making Peoples: A History of the New Zealanders From Polynesian Settlement to the End of the Nineteenth Century, Auckland: Penguin, 1996, p.343.

5 Alexander Garvie, ‘Report on the Reconnaissance Survey of the South-Eastern Districts of the Province of Otago, Executed during the Months of October and November, also February, March, and Part of April, 1857–8’, The Otago Provincial Government Gazette, vol.3 (January 1856–December 1859), p.280.

6 John Buchanan, ‘Sketch of the Botany of Otago: Written for the New Zealand Exhibition, 1865’, Transactions and Proceedings of the New Zealand Institute, 1 (1868), p.182.

7 Chris Kerr, ‘The High Country in Transition: Some Implications for Occupiers and Administrators’, Tussock Grasslands and Mountain Lands Institute Review, no.49 (1992), p.362; Alan Mark, ‘Our Golden Landscapes: An Historical Perspective on the Ecology and Management of Our Tussock Grasslands and Associated Mountain Lands’, Hocken Lecture 2004, University of Otago, p.2, http://www.botany.otago.ac.nz/staff/markhocken.html, accessed 5 February 2007.

8 Kevin F. O’Connor, ‘Changing Diversity in Open Country Grasslands: The Varied Effects of Early Pastoralism on New Zealand Landscapes’, in Geoff Kearsley and Blair Harris (eds), Glimpses of a Gaian World: Essays in Honour of Peter Holland, Dunedin: University of Otago Press, 2004, pp.70–71.

9 A. H. Cockayne, ‘The Natural Pastures of New Zealand I: The Effect of Burning on Tussock Country’, Journal of the Department of Agriculture, 1, no.1 (1910), pp.12–15.

10 Timaru Herald, 14 July 1910, p.3.11 W. T. L. Travers, 7 October 1868, New Zealand

Parliamentary Debates, Vol.4 (25 September to 20 October 1868), p.191.

12 Otago Witness, 8 August 1895, p.16.13 Leonard Cockayne, ‘An Economic

Investigation of Montane Tussock-Grassland of New Zealand’, New Zealand Journal of Agriculture, 18, no.1 (1919), pp.6–7.

14 Report of the Commission Appointed to Inquire into and Report Upon the Southern Pastoral Lands, Appendix to the Journal of the House of Representatives of New Zealand, C-15 1920, p.14.

15 R. McGillivary, ‘The Mackenzie Country Grasslands: Progress of Natural Regeneration and Experimental Sowings’, New Zealand Journal of Agriculture, 39, no.2 (August 1929), p.73; F. W. Hilgendorf, ‘The Grasslands of the South Island of New Zealand: An Ecological

http://www.botany.otago.ac.nz/staff/markhocken.html



Survey’, Department of Scientific and Industrial Research Bulletin, no.47 (1935), p.22; Kenneth B. Cumberland, ‘High-Country “Run”: The Geography of Extensive Pastoralism in New Zealand’, Economic Geography, 20, no.3 (1944), p.148; Kenneth B. Cumberland, ‘Burning Tussock Grassland: A Geographic Survey’, New Zealand Geographer, 1, no.2 (October 1945), p.150; R. H. Relph, ‘A Century of Human Influence on High Country Vegetation’, New Zealand Geographer, 14, no.2 (October 1958), p.133; Alexander S. Mather, ‘The Desertification of Central Otago, New Zealand’, Environmental Conservation, 9, no.3 (Autumn 1982), p.215.

16 V. D. Zotov, ‘Survey of the Tussock-grasslands of the South Island of New Zealand’, Department of Scientific and Industrial Research Bulletin (1938), p.212A.

17 Otago Witness, 12 April 1900, p.6.18 Zotov, ‘Survey of the Tussock-grasslands’,

p.228A.19 Ibid., p.224A.20 Ibid., pp.212A, 222A.21 Kenneth B. Cumberland, ‘A Century’s

Change: Natural to Cultural Vegetation in New Zealand’, Geographical Review, 31, no.4 (October 1941), p.536.

22 Cumberland, ‘Burning Tussock Grassland’, pp.153–4.

23 Ibid., p.160.24 Relph, ‘Century of Human Influence’, p.133.25 Ibid., p.139.26 Ibid., p.140.27 R. P. Hargreaves, ‘The Golden Age: New

Zealand about 1867’, New Zealand Geographer, 16, no.1 (April 1960), p.3; R. P. Hargreaves, ‘Speed the Plough: An Historical Geography of New Zealand Farming Before the Introduction of Refrigeration’, PhD thesis, University of Otago, 1966, p.185.

28 Alan H. Grey, Aotearoa and New Zealand: A Historical Geography, Christchurch: Canterbury University Press, 1994, p.209.

29 A. D. McIntosh (ed.), Marlborough: A Provincial History, 1940; reprinted Christchurch: Capper Press, 1977, p.104.

30 Roberta McIntyre, Whose High Country? A History of the South Island High Country of New Zealand, Auckland: Penguin, 2008, p.57.

31 New Zealand Parliamentary Debates, Vol.4 (7 October 1868), p.191.

32 Marlborough Express, 15 February 1868, p.7.33 North Otago Times, 7 February 1868, p.3.34 J. M. Sherrard, Kaikoura: A History of the

District, Christchurch: Caxton Press, 1996, p.138.

35 A. Hewson, Early Days in the Ashburton County, 1918; republished Ashburton: Ashburton Museum and Historical Society, 1996, p.15.

36 K. F. O’Connor, ‘The Role of Burning and Top-dressing in Snow-tussock Management’, Tussock Grassland and Mountain lands Institute

Review, 1, no.2 (1961), pp.19–23; A. F. Mark, ‘The Narrow-leaved Snow Tussock’, Tussock Grasslands and Mountain Lands Institute Review, no.10 (1966). Mark came to a similar conclusion after a snow tussock-burning trial.

37 K. F. O’Connor, ‘Why Manage Grazing Animals?’, Tussock Grasslands and Mountain Lands Institute Review, no.35 (1977), p.6.

38 K. F. O’Connor, personal comment, Christchurch, 11 November 2004.

39 Ian E. Whitehouse, ‘Erosion in the Eastern South Island High Country – A Changing Perspective’, Tussock Grasslands and Mountain Lands Institute Review, no.42 (December 1984), p.17.

40 M. J. McSaveney and Ian E. Whitehouse, ‘Anthropic Erosion of Mountain Land in Canterbury’, New Zealand Journal of Ecology, 12, supplement (1989), p.159.

41 I. E. Whitehouse and A. J. Pearce, ‘Shaping the Mountains of New Zealand’, in J. M. Soons and M. J. Selby (eds), Landforms of New Zealand, 2nd ed., Auckland: Longman Paul, 1992, p.151.

42 P. G. Holland and R. P. Hargreaves, ‘The Trivial Round, The Common Task: Work and Leisure on a Canterbury Hill Country Run in the 1860s and 1870s’, New Zealand Geographer, 47 (April 1991), p.22.

43 James F. Hoy and Thomas D. Isern, ‘Bluestem and Tussock: Fire and Pastoralism in the Flint Hills of Kansas and the Tussock Grasslands of New Zealand’, Great Plains Quarterly, 15 (Summer 1995), pp.173–4.

44 Dr D. Munro, The Nelson Examiner, 27 July 1844, p.84.

45 Buchanan, ‘Sketch of the Botany of Otago’, p.181.

46 B. P. J. Molloy, ‘Recent History of the Vegetation’, in G. A. Knox (ed.), The Natural History of Canterbury, Wellington: A.H. & A.W. Reed, 1969, p.359.

47 M. S. McGlone and Janet M. Wilmshurst, ‘Dating Initial Maori Environmental Impact in New Zealand’, Quaternary International, 59 (1999), pp.5–16.

48 H. E. Connor and H. A. MacRae, ‘Montane and Subalpine Tussock Grasslands in Canterbury’, in G. A. Knox (ed.), The Natural History of Canterbury, Wellington: A.H. & A.W. Reed, 1969, pp.191, 195.

49 C. J. Burrows, ‘Recent Changes in Vegetation of the Cass Area of Canterbury’, New Zealand Geographer, 16, no.1 (1960), p.66.

50 M. S. McGlone, ‘The Origin of the Indigenous Grasslands of Southeastern South Island in Relation to Pre-human Woody Ecosystems’, New Zealand Journal of Ecology, 25, no.1 (2001), pp.11–12.

51 Connor and MacRae, ‘Montane and Subalpine Tussock Grasslands’, pp.168, 177–87.

52 G. W. Harte, Mount Peel is a Hundred: The Story of the First High-country Sheep Station in Canterbury, Timaru: Timaru Herald, 1956, p.15.


53 E. Jollie, ‘From Nelson to Canterbury’, in David McLeod (ed.), Alone in a Mountain World: A High Country Anthology, Wellington: A. H. & A. W. Reed, 1972, p.25.

54 Laurence J. Kennaway, Crusts: A Settler’s Fare Due South, London: Sampson, Low, Marston, Searle, 1874, pp.130–2.

55 Hewson, Early Days in the Ashburton County, pp.22, 43.

56 James Herries Beattie, The Southern Runs, Invercargill: Southland Times, 1979, p.74.

57 C. H. Gillingham, Ecology of Heathlands, London: Chapman and Hill, 1972, pp.32, 171–87.

58 Pyne, Vestal Fire, p.352.59 Gordon E. Cherry and John Sheail, ‘The

Uplands’, in E. J. T. Collins (ed.), The Agrarian History Of England and Wales, Vol.VII, –, Part , Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000, p.1703.

60 John Barton Acland, Notes on Sheep-farming in New Zealand, With a Short Notice of the Canterbury Province, London: W. Clowes & Sons, 1858, p.9.

61 Hargreaves, ‘Speed the Plough’, p.185.62 Samuel Butler, A First Year in the Canterbury

Settlement, London: A. C. Field, 1914, p.133.63 E. C. Studholme, Te Waimate: Early Station Life

in New Zealand, Wellington: A. H. & A. W. Reed, 1954, p.98.

64 David McIntyre (ed.), The Journal of Henry Sewell, Vol., February –May , Christchurch: Whitcoulls, 1980, p.461.

65 Hewson, Early Days in the Ashburton County, p.22.

66 Rollo Arnold, New Zealand’s Burning: The Settler’s World in the Mid-s, Wellington: Victoria University Press, 1994, p.90.

67 L. R. C. Macfarlane, Te Raka: Land of Happy Sunshine, Christchurch: Whitcombe & Tombs, 1954, p.39.

68 Ibid.69 Timaru Herald, 27 July 1910, p.3.70 Ibid., 1 August 1910, p.5.71 Macfarlane, Te Raka, p.39.72 Rakaia Terrace Station Journal, 30 June

1853–14 June 1854, Canterbury Museum Documentary Research Centre.

73 Rockwood Station Diary 1855–1857, Transcript, Canterbury Museum Documentary Research Centre, 2 September 1856.

74 Henry Ford, Diary, Typescript of Grampian Hills Station day book kept by Henry Ford until March 1866, and the farm diaries of Pareora and Holme Stations, October 1862–December 1873, Canterbury Museum Documentary Research Centre, 7–8 September 1866; September 1877.

75 Frank Mathias, Journal, 1 October 1859 to September 1861, Hocken Collections, 10 September 1860.

76 Ibid., 1 May 1860; 29 September 1860.77 Ibid., 18 September 1861.

78 W. S. Davidson, William Soltau Davidson, –. A Sketch of his Life Covering a Period of Fifty-two Years, –, in the Employment of the New Zealand and Australian Land Company Limited, Edinburgh: Oliver & Boyd, 1930, p.13; Noel Crawford, The Station Years: A History of the Levels, Cannington and Holme Station, with Special Attention to the Upper Regions of the Pareora River, Where They Joined, Timaru: Noel Crawford, 1981, pp.38–39.

79 Waitangi Station Diaries, 16 September 1887; 10, 13 August 1900; 31 August, 14 September 1901; 9 August 1905.

80 MB 44, Acland Family Papers, Box 4, Macmillan Brown Library, University of Canterbury, Christchurch. All the references for Mt Peel used in this section of the chapter come from this source.

81 Studholme, Te Waimate, p.96.82 Whitehouse, ‘Erosion in the Eastern South

Island High Country’, p.17.83 Barker, Station Life, p.225.84 Zotov, ‘Survey of the Tussock-grasslands’, p.224.

Three ‘Rabbits on the Brain’

1 MB44, Acland Family Papers, Box 11, 30 July 1886, Macmillan Brown Library, University of Canterbury, Christchurch.

2 Ibid., Box 12, 13 July 1887.3 Ibid.4 Ibid.5 Ibid.6 K. Myers, I. Parer, D. Wood and B. D. Cooke,

‘The Rabbit in Australia’, in H. V. Thompson and C. M. King (eds), The European Rabbit: The History and Biology of a Successful Colonizer, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994, p.108.

7 P. C. Bull, ‘Some Facts and Theories on the Ecology of the Wild Rabbit’, New Zealand Science Review, 14, no.5 (May 1956), p.51.

8 V. D. Zotov, ‘Survey of the Tussock-grasslands of the South Island of New Zealand’, Department of Scientific and Industrial Research Bulletin, 1938, p.228A.

9 Ibid.10 K. A. Wodzicki, ‘Introduced Mammals of New

Zealand’, Department of Scientific and Industrial Research Bulletin, no.98, 1950, p.126.

11 Office of the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment, Investigation of the Proposal to Introduce Myxomatosis for Rabbit Control, Government Printer: Wellington, September 1987, p.35 (hereafter Hughes Commission).

12 Leonard Cockayne, An Economic Investigation of the Montane Tussock-Grassland of New Zealand [–], compiled B. P. J. Molloy, Christchurch: Queen Elizabeth II National Trust, 2001, p.7.

13 Kevin F. O’Connor, ‘The Use of Mountains: A Review of New Zealand Experience’, in A. Grant Anderson (ed.), The Land Our Future: Essays on Land Use and Conservation in New


Zealand in Honour of Kenneth Cumberland, Auckland: Longman Paul, 1980, p.209.

14 Hughes Commission, p.32.15 Alexander S. Mather, ‘The Desertification of

Central Otago, New Zealand’, Environmental Conservation, 9, no.3 (Autumn 1982), pp.212, 215.

16 Rachael E. Egerton, ‘Unconquerable Enemy or Bountiful Resource? A New Perspective on the Rabbit in Central Otago’, BA Hons essay, University of Otago, 1993, p.12.

17 R. M. Burdon, High Country: The Evolution of a New Zealand Sheep Station, Auckland: Whitcombe & Tombs, 1938, p.133.

18 Wodzicki, ‘Introduced Mammals of New Zealand’, p.110.

19 George M. Thomson, The Naturalisation of Animals and Plants in New Zealand, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1922, p.89.

20 Joan Druett, Exotic Intruders: The Introduction of Plants and Animals into New Zealand, Auckland: Heineman, 1983, p.152.

21 E. Stodart and I. Parer, Colonisation of Australia by the Rabbit, Canberra: CSIRO, 1988, p.16.

22 Thomson, Naturalisation of Animals and Plants, p.90.

23 G. B. Corbet, ‘Taxonomy and Origins’, in Thompson and King (eds), The European Rabbit, p.5.

24 P. M. Rogers, C. P. Arthur and R. C. Soriguer, ‘The Rabbit in Continental Europe’, in Thompson and King (eds), The European Rabbit, p.56.

25 Ibid., p.57.26 Myers, et al., ‘The Rabbit in Australia’, p.120.27 Ibid., p.122.28 Ibid.29 Wodzicki, ‘Introduced Mammals of New

Zealand’, p.107.30 Bull, ‘Some Facts and Theories on the Ecology

of the Wild Rabbit’, p.56.31 Ibid.32 Appendix to the Journals of the House of

Representatives of New Zealand (AJHR), 1876, I-5, p.6.

33 A Runholder, ‘Rabbits in New Zealand’, Chamber’s Journal, 58 (1881), p.410.

34 AJHR, 1907, H-34; 1893, H-16. 35 RCD Applicant Group, The Answer is Blowing

in the Wind. Summary Document: The Case for RCD, Dunedin: RCD Applicant Group, 1997, p.7.

36 AJHR, 1876, I-5, p.14.37 Ibid., p.9.38 Peter Chandler, Land of the Mountain and the

Flood: A Contribution to the History of Runs and Runholders of the Wakatipu District, Dunedin: Queenstown and District Historical Society, 1996, p.30.

39 Otago Witness,7 May 1881, p.7; 23 February 1884, pp.7–10; 1 March 1884, pp.6–10.

40 AJHR, 1887, C-16, p.1.41 Ibid., H-18, p.6.

42 Ibid., 1876, I-5, p.6. 43 Ibid., 1884, I-5, pp.123, 124.44 Wodzicki, ‘Introduced Mammals of New

Zealand’, p.108.45 AJHR, 1881, I-6, p.14.46 Timaru Herald, 27 July 1910; Otago Witness, 18

March 1903; Otago Witness, 30 August 1905.47 Peter Newton, High Country Journey,

Wellington: A. H. & A. W. Reed, 1952, p.65.48 Wodzicki, ‘Introduced Mammals of New

Zealand’, p.121. 49 AJHR, 1884, I-5, p.140.50 Ibid., 1876, H-10, p.4.51 Ibid.52 Ibid., 1881, I-6, p.8.53 Joint Committee of Canterbury Chamber of

Commerce and Canterbury Agricultural and Pastoral Association, ‘Report on Rabbit Pest’, New Zealand Country Journal, 12, no.1 (January 1888), p.24.

54 Ibid., p.23.55 Country Journal, 15, no.6 (November 1891),

p.510; G. A. Hamilton, History of Northern Southland, Invercargill: Southland Times, reprinted 1971, p.90.

56 Chandler, Land of the Mountain and the Flood, p.13.

57 AJHR, Sheep Returns.58 Chandler, Land of the Mountain and the Flood,

p.13.59 AJHR, 1885, C-9, pp.1–3.60 Ibid., 1887, C-17, pp.1–2.61 Ibid., 1881, I-6, p.9.62 Otago Witness, 11 March 1887, p.17. 63 The name of the station is now spelled

Castlerock. However, Beattie and Hall-Jones both used Castle Rock and this appears to have been the early usage.

64 Otago Witness, 5 May 1883, p.7; Hamilton, History of Northern Southland, p.56.

65 Otago Witness, 17 April 1890, p.7.66 Ibid., 26 December 1900, p.4.67 Country Journal, 3, no.3 (1879), pp.181–3; A.

H. H. Webster, Teviot Tapestry. A History of the Roxburgh–Millers Flat District, Dunedin: Whitcombe & Tombs, 1948, p.18; F. W. G. Miller, Beyond The Blue Mountains: A History of the West Otago District, 1954; reprinted Christchurch: Capper Press, 1978, p.32.

68 Otago Witness, 23 August 1905, p.8.69 Country Journal, 6, no.4 (1 July 1882), p.254.70 Ibid.71 Otago Witness, 23 August 1905, p.8.72 AJHR, 1881, I-6, p.6.73 Ibid.74 Otago Witness, 23 August 1905, p.8.75 AJHR, 1886, I-5, p.37.76 Otago Witness, 7 March 1895, p.6.77 Ibid., 12 September 1895, p.5.78 AJHR, 1886, I-5, p.36.79 Ibid., 1920, C-15, Report of the Commission

Appointed to Inquire into and Report upon the Southern Pastoral Lands, p.5.


80 The Agricultural Pests Destruction Council described the severity of the rabbit problem in different regions as: intractable, severe and rabbit prone. Earnscleugh Station is in the heart of the intractable area of Alexandra/Clyde/Cromwell. Environmental Impact Report on a Proposal to Introduce Myxomatosis as another Means of Rabbit Control in New Zealand, prepared by John Bamford & Associates, 1987.

81 C. W. S. Moore, The Dunstan: A History of the Alexandra–Clyde District, Christchurch: Capper Press, 1978, p.10.

82 AJHR, 1876, I-5, p.9; 1886, I-5, p.64.83 Hughes Commission, p.41.84 Ibid.85 AJHR, 1876, I-5, p.9.86 Ibid., I-6, p.6.87 Ibid., 1881, I-6, p.4.88 Ibid., 1886, I-5, p.64.89 Ibid., 1881, I-6, p.6.90 Otago Witness, 20 October 1898, p.20; 26 July

1900, p.5.91 Ibid., 23 August 1900, p.5.92 Ibid., 25 December 1907, p.22.93 Ibid., 15 March 1905, p.7.94 Ibid., 25 December 1907, p.22.95 John A. Gibb and J. Morgan Williams, ‘The

Rabbit in New Zealand’, in Thompson and King (eds), The European Rabbit, p.159.

96 Acland Papers, Box 7, 2 June 1863.97 Ibid., Box 59, F3, 3, 30, 39.98 Ibid., F3, iv, 35, 38.99 AJHR, 1884, H-3, p.ii.100 Acland Papers, Box 11, 30 June 1886.101 Ibid., 17 October 1886.102 Ibid., Box 59, F3, iv, 38.103 Ibid., Box 11, 12 May 1885.104 Ibid., Box 59, F3, 3, 35, 49; F3, 3, iv.105 Ibid., Box 11, p.296.106 Ibid., 5 April 1886; 2 June 1886.107 Ibid., 30 July 1886.108 Ibid., Box 51, 19 March 1894.109 Ibid., 10 April 1894 110 Ibid., Box 57, 28 May 1898.111 Ibid., Box 52, 11 May 1895.112 Ibid., 24 January 1896.113 Ibid., 14 October 1897.114 Ibid., Box 57, 1 August 1898.115 Ibid., Box 52, F1, 5.116 Ibid., Box 53, 7 May–22 June 1901.117 Ibid., 15 June 1901.118 Ibid., Box 57, March 1902.119 Ibid., 2 June 1902.120 Ibid., 1 April 1905.121 Ibid., Box 59, 37-216.122 Gibb and Williams, ‘The Rabbit in New

Zealand’, p.162.123 Bull, ‘Some Facts and Theories on the Ecology

of the Wild Rabbit’, p.56.124 P. Rogers, C. Arthur and R. Soriguer, ‘The

Rabbit in Continental Europe’, in Thompson and King (eds), The European Rabbit, p.56.

125 Otago Witness, 14 June 1894, p.12.

126 Gibb and Williams, ‘The Rabbit in New Zealand’, pp.175, 176; AJHR, 1888, H-18, pp.1–7.

127 Bull, ‘Some Facts and Theories on the Ecology of the Wild Rabbit’, p.54.

128 Ibid.; Wodzicki, ‘Introduced Mammals of New Zealand’, p.139.

129 Robert Wallace, The Rural Economy and Agriculture of Australia and New Zealand, London: Sampson Low, Marston & Company, 1891, p.313.

130 Ibid., p.321.131 Charles Elton, Voles, Mice and Lemmings:

Problems in Population Dynamics, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1942, p.413.

132 Wodzicki, ‘Introduced Mammals of New Zealand’, p.139.

133 Otago Witness, 27 August 1896, p.5.134 Ibid., 15 February 1894, p.7.135 Ibid., 8 August 1895, p.16.136 D. Petrie, ‘Report on Grass-denuded Lands

of Central Otago’, New Zealand Department of Agriculture Industries and Commerce Bulletin, no.23 (December 1912), pp.7–8.

137 O’Connor, ‘The Use of Mountains’, p.210.138 Bull, ‘Some Facts and Theories on the Ecology

of the Wild Rabbit’, p.56.139 Myers, et al., ‘The Rabbit in Australia’, p.143.

Four Overstocking, Overgrazing, Sheep Numbers and Stock Loading

1 Andrew Hill Clark, The Invasion of New Zealand by People, Plants and Animals, New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1949, pp.209–12.

2 Leonard Cockayne, ‘An Economic Investigation of Montane Tussock-Grassland of New Zealand’, New Zealand Journal of Agriculture, 18, no.1 (1919), p.7; F. W. Hilgendorf, ‘The Grasslands of the South Island of New Zealand: An Ecological Survey’, Department of Scientific and Industrial Research Bulletin, no.47 (1935), p.22; Alexander S. Mather, ‘The Desertification of Central Otago, New Zealand’, Environmental Conservation, 9, no.3 (Autumn 1982), p.212; V. D. Zotov, ‘Survey of the Tussock-grasslands of the South Island of New Zealand’, Department of Scientific and Industrial Research Bulletin, (1938), p.212A.

3 J. G. Hughes and K. F. O’Connor, ‘Design of Grazing Management Systems for Tussock Country’, Tussock Grasslands and Mountain Lands Institute Review, 33 (September 1976), p.10.

4 Kevin F. O’Connor, ‘The Use of Mountains: A Review of New Zealand Experience’, in A. Grant Anderson (ed.), The Land Our Future: Essays on Land Use and Conservation in New Zealand in Honour of Kenneth Cumberland, Auckland: Longman Paul, 1980, p.210.

5 Ibid., p.208.6 Ibid., p.209.7 I. E. Coop, ‘A Table of Ewe Equivalents’,


Tussock Grassland and Mountain Lands Institute Review, 13 (September 1967), pp.46–47.

8 Acland Papers, Boxes 50, 52, 57, 63, 65, 72.9 I. E. Coop, ‘Some Vital Statistics of High

Country Sheep Flocks’, Tussock Grasslands and Mountain Lands Institute Review, 10 (March 1966), p.8.

10 Acland Papers, Box 52.11 Ibid., Box 63.12 Ibid., Box 57, Station Letterbooks, F2, 3, 27

February 1901.13 Ibid., 23 May 1898.14 Ibid., 1 March 1901.15 This issue is dealt with in more detail in

Chapter 7.16 Acland Papers, Box 57, Station Letterbooks, 12

June 1899.17 Ibid., 8 December 1902.18 Ibid., 18 January 1904.19 Press, 8 February 1869, p.3.20 New Zealand Country Journal, 21, no.5

(September 1897), p.394.21 Otago Witness, 9 January 1886, p.13.22 Country Journal, 19, no.3 (May 1895), p.217.23 Ibid., 5, no.1 (January 1881), p.87.24 Otago Witness, 2 August 1900, p.7; 30 August

1900, p.4.25 Ibid., 13 March 1901, p.4.26 Timaru Herald, 5 April 1871, p.2.27 Otago Witness, 13 March 1886, p.6.28 Country Journal, 18, no.5 (September 1894),

p.371; 20, no.6 (November 1896), p.511; 21, no.2 (March 1897), p.105.

29 Ibid., 21, no.2 (March 1897), p.106.30 W. H. Scotter, ‘Canterbury 1857–1868: The

Superintendencies of W. S. Moorhouse (1857–63; 1866–8) and Samuel Bealey (1863–6)’, in W. J. Gardner (ed.), History of Canterbury Volume II. General History, – and Cultural Aspects, 1850–1950, Christchurch: Canterbury Centennial Historical and Literary Society, 1971, p.201.

31 Robert L. Peden, ‘Sheep Farming Practice in Colonial Canterbury 1843 to 1882: The Origin and Diffusion of Ideas, Skills, Techniques and Technology in the Creation of the Pastoral System’, MA thesis, University of Canterbury, 2002, pp.159–69.

32 Stevan Eldred-Grigg, A Southern Gentry: New Zealanders who Inherited the Earth, Wellington: A. H. & A. W. Reed, 1980, pp.75, 103.

33 Jim McAloon, No Idle Rich: The Wealthy in Canterbury and Otago –, Dunedin: University of Otago Press, 2002, p.29.

34 Ibid., p.52.35 Peter J. Bowler, The Invention of Progress: The

Victorians and the Past, Oxford: Blackwell, 1989, p.13.

36 D. B. Waterson, Squatter, Selector, and Storekeeper: A History of the Darling Downs, –, Sydney: Sydney University Press, 1968, pp.68–69.

37 Samuel Butler, A First Year in the Canterbury

Settlement, London: A. C. Field, 1914, p.50.38 Ibid., p.33.39 Ibid., pp.33–34.40 Ibid., pp.69–70; John Barton Acland, Notes

on Sheep-Farming in New Zealand, with a short notice of the Canterbury Province, London: W. Clowes & Sons, 1858, p.7; C. G. Tripp, Lecture Given by the Late C. G. Tripp of Orari Gorge, Canterbury at Silverton, Devon , Wellington: Ferguson & Osborn, 1926, pp.4, 8–9.

41 Lyttelton Times, 18 September 1858, p.2.42 Acland Papers, J. B. Acland Letterbook 1885–

1887, p.451.43 Appendix to the Journal of the House of Representa-

tives, Sheep Returns, 1880, H-9; 1901, H-23.44 ‘English’ grasses was the widely used expression

for the pasture plants, such as ryegrass, cocksfoot, fescue and timothy, that were introduced to improve the quality of feed for livestock. Many of these grasses had originated in the grasslands of Europe and Asia and were later introduced into Britain.

45 AJHR, Sheep Returns. 46 L. G. D. Acland, The Early Canterbury Runs, 4th

ed., Christchurch: Whitcoulls, 1975, p.111. 47 Country Journal, 13, no.1 (January 1889), p.167.48 Ibid., 17, no.1 (January 1893), p.15.49 Otago Witness, 19 April 1905, p.6.50 Ibid.51 Marlborough Express, 28 December 1900, p.2.52 Otago Witness, 13 March 1901, p.16.53 David Freeman-Greene, ‘The Origin,

Inception and Early Development of a New Zealand High Country Run, Against the Background of Current Social and Economic Legislation. Orari Gorge: Charles George Tripp’, MA thesis, University of Canterbury, 1950, Appendix B.

54 Helen M. Thompson, East of the Rock and Pillar: A History of the Strath Taieri and Macraes Districts, Dunedin: Whitcombe & Tombs, 1949, p.36.

55 Otago Witness, 3 May 1884, p.6.56 Ibid.57 Thompson, East of the Rock and Pillar, pp.38–

39.58 Ibid., pp.3–4.59 Otago Witness, 27 February 1907, p.20.60 Ibid., 8 February 1905, p.25.61 Ibid., 23 December 1903, p.16.62 Statistics of New Zealand for the Year ,

1913, p.530. See Table 6.9. Sheep Numbers in Canterbury and Otago/Southland, 1858 to 1912, p.235.

63 Tom Brooking, Robin Hodge and Vaughan Wood, ‘The Grasslands Revolution Reconsidered’, in Eric Pawson and Tom Brooking (eds), Environmental Histories of New Zealand, Melbourne: Oxford University Press, 2002, p.172.

64 Otago Witness, 29 April 1887, p.7.65 AJHR, 1910, H-23, p.8.


66 Statistics of New Zealand, 1896, p.420; 1905, p.465; 1912, p.577.

67 Otago Witness, 15 March 1900, p.5; 24 July 1901, p.16.

68 AJHR, 1912, H-23B.69 Otago Witness, 13 February 1900, p.13; 2

August 1900, p.7.70 Ibid., 27 March 1901, p.14; 24 April 1901, p.5;

7 August 1901, p.9.71 Ibid., 26 April 1905, p.20.72 Appendix One: CHART: 10.17, p.383.73 AJHR, 1881, I-6, p.6.74 K. A. Wodzicki, ‘Introduced Mammals of New

Zealand’, Department of Scientific and Industrial Research Bulletin, no.98, 1950, p.125.

Five Constructing the Landscape

1 K. F. O’Connor, ‘The Implications of Past Exploitations and Current Developments to the Conservation of South Island Tussock Grasslands’, New Zealand Journal of Ecology, 5 (1982), p.97.

2 Kevin F. O’Connor, ‘Changing Diversity in Open Country Grasslands: The Varied Effects of Early Pastoralism on New Zealand Landscapes’, in Geoff Kearsley and Blair Harris (eds), Glimpses of a Gaian World: Essays in Honour of Peter Holland, Dunedin: University of Otago Press, 2004, p.61.

3 E. J. T. Collins, ‘Introduction’, in E. J. T. Collins (ed.), The Agrarian History of England and Wales, Volume VII, 1850–1914, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000, p.11.

4 MB 44, Acland Family Papers, Box 7, 17–20 October 1855, Macmillan Brown Library, University of Canterbury, Christchurch.

5 Rakaia Terrace Station Journal, 30 June 1853 to 14 June 1854, Canterbury Museum Documentary Research Centre, 30 June 1853.

6 L. G. D. Acland, The Early Canterbury Runs, 4th ed., Christchurch: Whitcoulls, 1975, p.81.

7 Rakaia Terrace, 30 June, 3, 5, 10 August 1853.8 A. Hewson, ‘Early Days in the Ashburton

County’, Canterbury Museum, Documentary Research Centre, p.2.

9 Rakaia Terrace, 30 June to 9 June 1853.10 Lyttelton Times, 6 September 1851; 8 March

1856; 25 April 1860.11 Ibid., 26 July 1851, p.1.12 Ibid.; C. G. Tripp, Lecture Given by the Late

C. G. Tripp of Orari Gorge, Canterbury at Silverton, Devon, , Wellington: Ferguson & Osborn, 1926, p.8.

13 Acland Papers, Box 7, 21 September 1862.14 Ibid., Box 4, 1–4 June, 11 July 1867.15 Lyttelton Times, 7 August 1852, p.9.16 Ibid., 7 July 1864, p.4; Henry Ford, Diary,

Typescript of Grampian Hills Station day book kept by Henry Ford until March 1866, the farm diaries of Pareora and Holme Stations, October 1862–December 1873, Canterbury Museum, Documentary Research Centre, 31 July 1872.

17 Lyttelton Times, 28 May 1853, p.5.18 Rakaia Terrace, 30 July, 1 August 1853; 19

January 1854.19 Acland Papers, Box 50, June/July 1882.20 Ibid., Box 4, 21–28 June 1875; April, July 1876.21 Ibid., Box 50.22 Ibid., 8 September; Box 51, 16 May and 1

November 1892. 23 Ibid., Box 51, 4 July 1893.24 Ibid., Box 50.25 Ibid., 11 January to April 1887.26 H. H. Allan, ‘The Vegetation of Mount Peel,

Canterbury, N.Z. Part 2. The Grasslands and Other Herbaceous Communities’, Transactions and Proceedings of the New Zealand Institute, 57 (March 1927), pp.86–87.

27 Press, 6 October 1868, p.3.28 W. Quin, ‘Tapanui’, Country Journal, 16, no.5

(September 1892), p.447.29 Andrew Simson, ‘Fencing’, Country Journal, 11,

no.1 (January 1887), p.50.30 Ibid.; Quin, ‘Tapanui’, Country Journal, 11,

no.4 (July 1887), p.325.31 Otago Witness, 1 July 1887, p.8.32 Ibid.33 William Morgan, ‘Fences and Enclosures’,

Country Journal, 11, no.4 (July 1885), pp.289–91.34 Lyttelton Times, 6 September 1851, p.1.35 Ibid., 4 February 1854, p.4; 11 March 1854,

p.4; 9 July 1856, p.136 R. P. Hargreaves, ‘Farm Fences in Pioneer New

Zealand’, New Zealand Geographer, 21, no.2 (October 1965), p.150.

37 Lyttelton Times, 23 May 1863, p.6.38 Timaru Herald, 15 October 1864, p.5.39 A. E. Woodhouse, Blue Cliffs: The Biography of

a South Canterbury Sheep Station –, Christchurch: A. H. & A. W. Reed, 1982, p.8; Henry Ford, Diary, 18 February 1865.

40 Press, 17 September 1866, p.2.41 Lyttelton Times, 23 May 1863, p.6.42 Henry Ford, Diary, April to October 1867.43 Otago Witness, 2 March 1904, p.7.44 David Freeman-Greene, ‘The Origin,

Inception and Early Development of a New Zealand High Country Run, Against the Background of Current Social and Economic Legislation. Orari Gorge: Charles George Tripp’, MA thesis, University of Canterbury, 1950, p.62.

45 Press, 21 January 1874.46 Woodhouse, Blue Cliffs, pp.28–32.47 Ibid., p.28.48 Country Journal, 3, no.3 (May 1879), p.181.49 Ibid., 22, no.5 (September 1898), p.454. 50 Timaru Herald, 4 July 1873, p.4.51 Hewson, ‘Early Days in the Ashburton

County’, p.9.52 Acland Papers, Box 4, 6 August 1868.53 Ibid., Box 9, 1 April 1872.54 Ibid., Box 51, 20 February 1891.55 Ibid., Box 4, 31 December 1869.56 Maps show Rawtor Creek, but local usage


changed it to Rata.57 Acland Papers, Box 13, 29 September 1894.58 Ibid., Box 51, 4 October 1894.59 Ibid., Box 57, 29 August 1898.60 Ibid., 15 March 1899.61 Ibid., 7 August 1899.62 Ibid., 17 January 1906.63 Ibid., 3 February 1906.64 Ibid., 3 July 1911.65 Hewson, ‘Early Days in the Ashburton

County’, p.10.66 Rakaia Terrace Diary, 11, 29 August 1853. 67 Rockwood Station Diary, 1855 to 1857,

Canterbury Museum, Documentary Research Centre, 5–26 October 1855.

68 Acland Papers, Box 7, 13 October 1859.69 Rakaia Terrace Diary, 6 October 1853, 19 June

1854.70 Rockwood Station, 27, 29 November 1855.71 Australasian, 14 February 1865.72 Southern Provinces Almanac, 1860; 1866, p.56.73 Graeme Wynn and Garth Cant, ‘The Bonanza

Wheat Boom’, in Garth Cant and Russell Kirkpatrick (eds), Rural Canterbury: Celebrating its History, Wellington: Daphne Brasell and Lincoln University Press, 2001, pp.65–69.

74 O’Connor, ‘Changing Diversity in Open Country Grasslands’, p.74.

75 Timaru Herald, 4 July 1873, p.2.76 Ibid., 23 February 1874, p.4.77 Otago Witness, 27 March 1880, p.6.78 Ibid., 16 October 1880, p.7.79 Ibid., 27 March 1880, p.5.80 Ibid., 20 November 1880. p.6.81 Country Journal, 1, no.4 (1877), p.282. 82 Ibid., 2, no.3 (May 1878), p.198.83 Acland Papers, Box 4, 7 January 1870.84 Ibid., Box 4, 6 to 31 December 1875.85 Ibid., Box 4, 9 to 29 August 1876.86 Ibid., Box 50, 5 February 1885, February 1886.87 Ibid., Box 50, 3 March, 8 April 1879;

Woodhouse, Blue Cliffs, p.6.88 Ibid., Box 4, 15 April, 28 May 1874.89 Ibid., Box 4, 18, 19 August 1876.90 Ibid., Box 50, back page of 1879 diary.91 Ibid., Box 52, 28 April 1890.92 Ibid., Box 52, 13 October 1897.93 Otago Witness, 21 June 1905, p.22.94 Statistics of New Zealand, 1870 to 1912.95 Geoff Park, ‘“Swamps which might doubtless

easily be drained”: Swamp Drainage and its Impact on the Indigenous’, in Eric Pawson and Tom Brooking (eds), Environmental Histories of New Zealand, Melbourne: Oxford University Press, 2002, p.151.

96 James V. Macfarlane, From Arrochar to Canterbury: Some Links in a Three Hundred Year Old Chain; Including Notes about John Macfarlane – and his Wife, Catherine Cameron and their Family, Coldstream, Rangiora, Canterbury, New Zealand, Wanganui: James V. Macfarlane, 1989, p.127.

97 Country Journal, 4, no.4 (July 1880), p.231.

98 John Small and Gilmour Blee, Miles of Tiles: A Journey through Longbeach and Surrounding Districts History, 2nd ed., Ashburton: Longbeach and Districts Historical Committee, 1999, p.46.

99 Country Journal, 4, no.4 (July 1880), p.232.100 Ibid., 16, no.5 (September 1892), p.445.101 Michael Lane, History of Steam Ploughing, 1998,

http://www.steamploughclub.org.uk/history.htm, accessed 11 December 2006.

102 Acland Papers, Box 7, 13 December 1862; Box, 4, 27 July 1864.

103 Ibid., Box 4, 15 August 1874.104 Ibid., Box 4, 17 March 1875.105 B. L. Evans, A History of Agricultural Production

and Marketing in New Zealand, Palmerston North: Keeling Mundy, 1969, p.5.

106 Country Journal, 13, no.2 (March 1889), p.141; no.5 (September 1889), p.378.

107 Ibid., 13, no.2 (March 1889), p.141.108 Waitangi Station Diaries, 24 March 1891.109 Ibid., 26 April to 19 September 1892.110 Ibid., 24 July to 30 December 1893.111 Country Journal, 16, no.5 (September 1892),

p.445.112 Ibid.113 Gareth Vaughan Wood, ‘Soil Fertility Manage-

ment in Nineteenth Century New Zealand Agriculture’, PhD thesis, University of Otago, 2003, pp.389, 391; M. Murphy, ‘Agriculture’, New Zealand Official Yearbook (1895), p.329.

114 Lyttelton Times, 18 October 1864, p.8; Timaru Herald, 13 October 1869, p.3.

115 Country Journal, 5, no.4 (July 1881), p.225.116 Ibid., 10, no.1 (January 1886), p.35.117 Ibid., 12, no.3 (May 1888), p.189.118 Ibid., 14, no.3 (May 1890), p.181.119 Ibid.120 Otago Witness, 10 February 1883, p.6.121 Country Journal, 15, no.6 (November 1892),

p.458.122 Acland Papers, Box 50, 2 December 1890.123 Ibid., Box 51, 21 January, 29 December 1891. 124 Otago Witness, 27 July, 1904, p.6.125 Country Journal, 2, no.3 (May 1878), p.198.126 J. G. H. White, ‘Improvement of Hill Country

Pasture’, in R. H. M. Langer (ed.), Pastures and Pasture Plants, Wellington: A. H. & A. W. Reed, 1973, pp.261–4.

127 A. H. Cockayne, ‘The New Zealand Grass-Grub’, Journal of the Department of Agriculture, 3, no.3 (September 1911), p.221.

128 Statistics of the Dominion of New Zealand for the Year (1913), pp.263, 264.

Six Sheep Breeding

1 Erik Olssen, ‘Lands of Sheep and Gold: The Australian Dimension to the New Zealand Past, 1840–1900’, in Keith Sinclair (ed.), Tasman Relations: New Zealand and Australia, 1788–1988, Auckland: Auckland University Press, 1987, p.40.

http://www.steamploughclub.org.uk/history.htm



2 Ian Horsfield, ‘The Economics of the Sheep Farming Industry 1850-80’, PhD thesis, Victoria University of Wellington, 1981, p.62; Andrew Hill Clark, The Invasion of New Zealand by People, Plants and Animals, New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1949, p.384.

3 H. B. Austin, The Merino: Past, Present and Probable, Sydney: Grahame Book Co., 1947, p.64. The term ‘80s or 90s’ refers to the old Bradford system of measuring the fineness of wool. Under this system, 70s and above were regarded as fine Merino.

4 Charles Massy, The Australian Merino, Victoria: Viking O’Neil, 1990, pp.131–4.

5 F. Weld, Hints to Intending Sheep Farmers in New Zealand, London: Trelawny Saunders, 1851, p.8.

6 Ibid., p.2; Mark Pringle Stoddart made the same observation in the Lyttelton Times, 5 July 1851, p.6.

7 Otago Witness, 13 October 1883, p.7.8 Ibid.9 Lyttelton Times, 24 April 1861, p.3.10 Ibid., 21 January 1863, p.4.11 MB 44, Acland Family Papers, Box 7, 2

May–5 June 1860, Macmillan Brown Library, University of Canterbury, Christchurch.

12 Otago Witness, 9 June 1883, p.6.13 New Zealand Country Journal, 3, no.6

(November 1879), p.371.14 Ibid., 17, no.1 (January 1893), p.15; Otago

Witness, 27 February 1907, p.20.15 Appendix to the Journals of the House of

Representatives, 1895, H-23; 1905, H-28; 1912, H-23B.

16 B. L. Evans, A History of Agricultural Production and Marketing in New Zealand, Palmerston North: Keeling Mundy, 1969, pp.5, 104–5; Corriedale Sheep Society, The Corriedale, ‘New Zealand’s Own Breed’, History of Development, Christchurch: Corriedale Sheep Society, 1939, p.10; P. G. W. Stevens, James Little and His Corriedale Sheep, Christchurch: Canterbury Agricultural College, undated, p.8; William Perry, Sheep Farming in New Zealand, Christchurch: Whitcombe & Tombs, 1923, p.52; C. G. F. Simkin, The Instability of a Dependent Economy: Economic Fluctuations in New Zealand –, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1951, p.169.

17 Chris Mulvaney, A Guide to the Management of Footrot in Sheep, Wellington: Woolpro, 2002, p.9.

18 D. J. Stewart, ‘Footrot in Sheep’, in J. R. Egerton, W. K. Young and G. G. Riffkin (eds), Footrot and Foot Abscess of Ruminants, Boca Raton, Florida: CRC Press, 1989, p.11.

19 Mulvaney, Guide to the Management of Footrot, p.7.

20 Ibid., pp.16–19.21 William Youatt, Sheep, their Breeds,

Management, and Diseases To Which is Added the Mountain Shepherd’s Manual, first published London: Simplan, Marshall & Co., 1837;

reprinted 1866, p.189. 22 G. F. James (ed.), A Homestead History, Being

the Reminiscences and Letters of Alfred Joyce of Plaistow and Norwood, Port Phillip, to , Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 1942, p.139.

23 John Deans (ed.), Pioneers of Canterbury: The Deans Family Letters, –, Dunedin: Reed, 1937, p.135.

24 Lyttelton Times, 10 November 1866.25 Country Journal, 3, no.6 (November 1879),

p.395.26 W. S. Davidson, William Soltau Davidson

–: A Sketch of his Life Covering a Period of Fifty-two Years, –, in the Employment of the New Zealand and Australian Land Company Limited, Edinburgh: Oliver & Boyd, 1930, p.23.

27 E. C. Studholme, Te Waimate: Early Station Life in New Zealand, Wellington: A. H. & A. W. Reed, 1940, pp.115–16.

28 Acland Papers, Box 4, 30 June 1873.29 Ibid., Box 51. 30 Peter Holland, Kevin O’Connor and Alexander

Wearing, ‘Remaking the Grasslands of the Open Country’, in Eric Pawson and Tom Brooking (eds), Environmental Histories of New Zealand, Melbourne: Oxford University Press, 1992, p.77.

31 Lyttelton Times, 12 October 1859.32 Ibid., 11 June 1862, p.333 Ibid., 27 December 1864, p.3.34 Country Journal, 1, no.4 (October 1877),

p.267. In the early years of cross-breeding, the terms halfbred and crossbred were used without distinction. However, as the practice became more widespread, the term halfbred was increasingly used only for the first cross between a Merino and a Longwool, and the term crossbred was used for subsequent crosses, such as the three-quarter bred and beyond. A Longwool described British breeds such as the Leicester, Lincoln and Romney Marsh, in contrast to the Down breeds, such as the Southdown, which grew shorter and finer wool.

35 Press, 16 March 1872; Otago Witness, 10 November 1883, p.6.

36 Country Journal, 1, no.4 (October 1877), p.275.37 Lyttelton Times, 29 February 1860, p.4.38 Ibid., 17 May 1864, p.4.39 Ibid., 22 December 1863, p.4.40 Johannes C. Anderson, Jubilee History of South

Canterbury, Auckland: Whitcombe & Tombs, 1916, p.95.

41 Henry Ford, Diary, the farm diaries of Pareora and Holme Stations, October 1862–December 1873, Canterbury Museum Documentary Research Centre, 22 September 1872; January 1873.

42 Timaru Herald, 26 July 1871, p.2.43 Lyttelton Times, 12 October 1861, p.6.44 Ibid., 25 October 1862, p.5.45 Timaru Herald, 7 December 1870, p.2.46 Press, 9 March 1872.


47 Ibid., 29 October 1872.48 Lyttelton Times, 13 May 1863, p.3.49 Ibid., 11 June 1862, p.3.50 Ibid., 20 May 1863, p.5.51 Noel Crawford, The Station Years: A History

of the Levels, Cannington, and Holme Station, with Special Attention to the Upper Regions of the Pareora River, Where They Joined, Timaru: Noel Crawford, 1981, p.36; Press, 16 March 1872.

52 Press, 16 March 1872.53 Ibid., 3 July 1875.54 Davidson, William Soltau Davidson, –,

p.23.55 Ibid., pp.24–25.56 Ibid., p.2557 Stevens, James Little and His Corriedale Sheep,

p.7.58 Ibid., pp.8–1059 Country Journal, 7, no.4 (July 1883), p.302.60 Evans, A History of Agricultural Production and

Marketing, p.104.61 Tom Brooking, Lands For the People? The

Highland Clearances and the Colonisation of New Zealand: A Biography of John McKenzie (Dunedin: University of Otago Press, 1996) deals with the politics of this major transformation of the estates of the plains and downlands in detail.

62 Ibid., 1 September 1883, p.7.63 These ewes were too old for the high

country so they were sold to farmers where the environment was easier and they could continue to be productive for another year or two.

64 Country Journal, 7, no.3 (May 1883), p.245.65 Acland Papers, Box 11, 11 April 1885.66 Country Journal, 14, no.6 (November 1890),

p.455.67 Otago Witness, 16 April 1896, p.12.68 Ibid., 13 August 1896, p.4.69 W. Quin, ‘Tapanui’, Country Journal, 20, no.5

(September 1896), pp.480–1.70 Country Journal, 12, no.3 (May 1888), p.220.71 Ibid., 11, no.6 (November 1887), p.442; 17,

no.1 (January 1893), p.3; 21, no.3 (May 1897), p.204.

72 Otago Witness, 6 February 1896, p.7.73 F. R. Marshall, ‘Features of the Sheep

Industries of United States, New Zealand, and Australia Compared’, United States Department of Agriculture Bulletin, no.313 (13 November 1915), p.20; Otago Witness, 28 May 1896, p.5; 9 January 1907, p.6.

74 Otago Witness, 14 November 1895, p.6.75 Ibid., 9 January 1907, p.6.76 Marshall, ‘Features of the Sheep Industries of

United States, New Zealand, and Australia’, p.1.

77 Ibid., p.21.78 Ibid.79 William Perry, Sheep Farming in New Zealand,

Auckland: Whitcombe & Tombs, 1923, p.45.80 Otago Witness, 7 June 1894, p.12.

81 Ibid., 11 September 1901. 82 Acland Papers, Box 12, Letter to C. G. Tripp,

25 February 1887.83 Ibid., Box 13, Letter to Arthur Mills, 12 May

1894.84 Ibid., Letter to C. G. Tripp, 27 January 1892.85 Statistics of New Zealand, no.28, 1865; no.28,

1879, pp.210–11, 1875; pp.254–5, 1885; pp.349–50, 1895; pp.442–3, 1905; pp.262–4, 1912.

86 Acland Papers, Box 11, Letter to Henry Acland, 17 July 1886.

87 Ibid., Letter to Henry Jenkinson, 15 August 1886.

88 Ibid., Box 12, Letter to Henry Acland, 21 January 1890.

89 Ibid., Box 50, 3 May 1878.90 Ibid., 5 March, 2 May 1879.91 Ibid., 22 February, 27 December 1882.92 Ibid., 21 February 1883; 29 March 1884; 3

January, 18 March 1885; Box 11, Letter to Agnes Mills, 26 March 1886.

93 Country Journal, 9, no.2 (March 1885), p.197.94 Acland Papers, Box 50, 2 May 1885.95 Ibid., 11 April 1887.96 Ibid., 1 May 1888.97 Ibid., Box 12, Letter to Henry Jenkinson,

19 March 1890; Letter to Mary (his sister), October 1890.

98 Ibid., Letter to Johnny Acland, 1 September 1890.

99 Letter to Johnny Acland, 11 September 1890.100 Ibid., Box 51, 7 May 1892.101 Ibid., Beginning of 1892 Diary.102 Ibid., Box 52, 25 April 1897.103 Ibid., 6, 9, 10, 14 March 1897.104 Ibid., Box 62, Stock Totals 1906 to 1915.105 Ibid.106 Timaru Herald, 1 March 1912, p.3.107 Acland Papers, Box 51, 13 April 1894.108 Ibid., Box 57, Letter to H. D. Acland, 9 March

1906.109 Ibid., Box 62, Stock Totals 1906 to 1915.110 Personal comment by John Acland Snr, 19

November 2003.111 Ibid.

Seven ‘Not Much of a Business’

1 L. G. D. Acland, The Early Canterbury Runs and Glossary of Station Words, 1930; reprinted Christchurch: Whitcombe & Tombs, 1951, p.21.

2 W. H. Scotter, ‘The Pastoral Age’, in W. J. Gardner (ed.), A History of Canterbury, Volume . General History, – and Cultural Aspects, –, Christchurch: Canterbury Historical and Literary Committee, 1971, p.178.

3 W. H. Scotter, Ashburton: A History with Records of Town and County, Christchurch: Caxton Press, 1972, p.83.

4 Sir John Hall, ‘Sheep Driving in the Early


Days’, in E. Stevenson et al. (eds), Canterbury Old and New, –, Christchurch: Whitcombe & Tombs, 1900, p.126.

5 Stevan Eldred-Grigg, A Southern Gentry: New Zealanders Who Inherited the Earth, Christchurch: A. H. & A. W. Reed, 1980.

6 William Pember Reeves, The Long White Cloud: Ao Tea Roa, 1898; reprinted Melbourne: Viking O’Neil, 1897, p.185.

7 William Vance, Land of Promise: The Story of Waikakahi, Timaru: Timaru Herald, 1958, pp.52, 64, 66–67.

8 Jim McAloon, ‘The Colonial Wealthy in Canterbury and Otago: No Idle Rich’, New Zealand Journal of History, 30, no.1 (April 1996), p.33.

9 Peter Bromley Maling, Samuel Butler at Mesopotamia together with Butler’s ‘Forest Creek’ Manuscript and his Letters to Tripp and Acland, 1960; reprinted Wellington: Historic Places Trust, 1984, p.28.

10 Scotter, ‘The Pastoral Age’, p.202.11 Hall, ‘Sheep-Driving in the Early Days’,

pp.121–2.12 Samuel Butler, A First Year in the Canterbury

Settlement, 1863; reprinted London: A. C. Fifield, 1914, p.41.

13 Ibid., p.42.14 A. G. Bagnall, Wairarapa: An Historical

Excursion, Trentham, Wellington: Masterton Lands Trust, 1976, p.237.

15 Letter to Editor, C. F. Cooperative, MB 44, Acland Papers, Box 12, Letterbook, 12 March 1887.

16 Letter to the Manager, C. F. Cooperative, MB 44, Acland Papers, Box 12, Letterbook, 8 February 1887.

17 Alice G. Clayton, Explorations and Exploded Myths: Mason’s Through the Weka Pass, Templeton: Hilton Press, 2000, p.105; Acland, The Early Canterbury Runs, pp.31, 251.

18 Scotter, Ashburton, p.42.19 Edgar Jones, An Autobiography of an Early

Settler in New Zealand, 1933; reprinted Christchurch: Kiwi Publishers, 1996, pp.42–43.

20 Acland, The Early Canterbury Runs, p.254.21 G.W. Harte, Mount Peel is a Hundred: The

Story of the First High-country Sheep Station in Canterbury, 1858; reprinted Timaru: Timaru Herald, 1956, p.24.

22 Laurence J. Kennaway, Crusts: A Settler’s Fare Due South, 1874; reprinted Christchurch: Capper Press, 1970, pp.220–3.

23 Lady Barker, Station Life in New Zealand, 1870; reprinted Christchurch: Vintage, 2000, pp.192–205.

24 Hall, ‘Sheep-Driving in the Early Days’, p.124.

25 W. J. Gardner (ed.), A History of Canterbury, Volume . General History, – and Cultural Aspects, –, Christchurch: Whitcombe & Tombs, 1971, p.37.

26 Acland, The Early Canterbury Runs, p.273.

27 Margaret Wigley, ‘Ready Money’: The Life of William Robinson of Hill River, South Australia, and Cheviot Hills, North Canterbury, Christchurch: Canterbury University Press, 2006, p.142; W. J. Gardner, A Pastoral Kingdom Divided: Cheviot, –, Wellington: Bridget Williams Books, 1992, pp.6, 14.

28 Gardner, History of Canterbury, p.206. 29 C. F. Overton, Fifty Years of Sheep Farming in

Canterbury, Otago and Southland, Dunedin: Otago Daily Times, 1949, p.29.

30 Acland, The Early Canterbury Runs, p.110.31 John Brown, Ashburton, New Zealand: Its

Pioneers and its History –, Dunedin: A. H. & A. W. Reed, 1940, p.368.

32 Ibid., p.359.33 Cyclopedia of New Zealand, Vol.111, p.801.34 Scotter, Ashburton, p.98. 35 Ibid., p.86.36 Ibid., p.87.37 Janet Holm, Nothing but Grass and Wind: The

Rutherfords of Canterbury, Christchurch: Hazard Press, 1992, p.78.

38 E. C. Richards (ed.), Diary of E. R. Chudleigh –: Settler in New Zealand, 1950; reprinted Christchurch: Cadsonbury, 2003, p.221.

39 Lord Lyttelton, Two Lectures on a Visit to the Canterbury Colony in –, London: Simkin, Marshall, 1868, p.33.

40 Lyttelton Times, 18 May 1861, p.4.41 Acland, The Early Canterbury Runs, p.22.42 Otago Witness, 9 August 1867, p.12.43 Timaru Herald, 10 August 1867, p.2.44 Acland Diary, Box 4, 3 to 5 February 1868. 45 Acland, The Early Canterbury Runs, p.144.46 Acland Diary, Box 9, 9 March 1875.47 Acland Papers, Box 9, Letter to Tripp, 15

December 1871.48 Ibid., Letter to Percy Cox, 20 February 1872.49 Ibid., Note, 7 January 1873.50 Ibid., Letter to Agnes Mills, 11 January 1873.51 Ibid., Letter to Tripp, 28 August 1877.52 Acland, The Early Canterbury Runs, p.290.53 Acland Papers, Letter to Chudleigh, 1 April

1872.54 Ibid., Letter to brother Sir Thomas Dyke

Acland, 11 January 1877.55 Ibid., Letter to Mitton, 5 June 1876.56 Ibid., 26 July 1875.57 Ibid., Box 50, 2 May 1879.58 Harte, Mt Peel is a Hundred, p.29.59 Barbara Harper, Kettle on the Fuchsia: The Story

of Orari Gorge, Wellington: A. H. & A. W. Reed, 1967, pp.130–1.

60 Acland Papers, Letter to brother Sir Thomas Dyke Acland, 1 March 1873; Letter to Agnes Mills, 27 April 1873.

61 Ibid., Letter to Agnes Mills, 9 April 1875.62 Ibid., Letter to Archdeacon Harper, 13 June

1875.63 Ibid., Letter to Agnes Mills, February/March

1876.


64 Ibid., 28 June 1877.65 Ibid., Letter to Tom Acland, 1 December 1886.66 Ibid., Letter to Harry Acland, 21 January 1890.67 Ibid., Letter to Agnes Mills, 8 November 1890.68 Geoffrey Rice, ‘Bags of Gold: Class, Business

and Family in Late Nineteenth-Century Canterbury’, History Now, nos.1 and 2, vol.11, 2005, pp.7–18. This article describes the impact of the collapse of Leonard Harper’s business on Acland and Mt Peel.

69 Acland Papers, Letter to Agnes Mills, 6 September 1891.

70 Ibid., Copy of letter from Arthur Mills to Parker, Dalgety and Co., Christchurch, 20 February 1896.

71 Ibid., Letter to George Harper, 21 December 1891.

72 Ibid., Letter to Johnny Acland, 23 September 1893.

73 Ibid., Letters to Arthur Mills, 30 April 1894; 29 October 1894.

74 Ibid., 4 March 1896.75 Ibid., 4 February 1895.76 Ibid., 29 September 1894.77 Rice, ‘Bags of Gold’, p.15.78 Acland Papers, Box 57, Oliver Scott Thomson,

letter to George Harper, 13 March 1900.79 Ibid., Thomson letter to A. E. G. Rhodes, 13

March 1900.80 Ibid., Thomson letter to George Harper, 10

November 1902.81 Harte, Mount Peel is a Hundred, p.70.82 Acland Papers, Box 57, Scott Thomson letter

to George Harper, 17 April 1900.

Eight Appraising Preconceptions, Prejudice and Proof

1 Alan Mark, ‘Our Golden Landscapes: An Historical Perspective on the Ecology and Management of Our Tussock Grasslands and Associated Mountain Lands’, Hocken Lecture 2004, University of Otago, http://www.botany.otago.ac.nz/staff/markhocken.html, accessed 5 February 2007.

2 Ibid., p.2.3 Chris Kerr, ‘The High Country in Transition:

Some Implications for Occupiers and Administrators’, Tussock Grasslands and Mountain Lands Institute Review, no.49 (1992), pp.32–33.

4 Ibid., p.32.5 Mark, ‘Our Golden Landscapes’, p.2; Kerr,

‘The High Country in Transition’, p.32.6 John Buchanan, ‘Sketch of the Botany of

Otago’, Transactions and Proceeding of the New Zealand Institute, 1 (1868), p.182.

7 Ibid.8 D. Petrie, ‘Report on the Grass-denuded Lands

of Central Otago’, New Zealand Department of Agriculture, Industries, and Commerce Bulletin, no.23 (1912), p.4.

9 Ibid., p.3.10 Ibid.11 Ibid., p.8.12 Alexander Garvie, ‘Report on the

Reconnaissance Survey of the South-Eastern Districts of the Province of Otago, Executed During the Months of October and November, also February, March and Part of April, 1857–8’, Otago Provincial Government Gazette, no.3 (January1856–December 1859), p.280.

13 George M. Thomson, The Naturalisation of Animals and Plants in New Zealand, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1922, p.92.

14 Ibid.15 A. H. Cockayne, ‘The Effect of Burning on

Tussock Country’, Journal of the Department of Agriculture, 1, no.1 (1910), pp.12–15.

16 Mark, ‘Our Golden Landscapes’, p.2; Kerr, ‘The High Country in Transition’, p.32.

17 Ian E. Whitehouse, ‘Erosion in the Eastern South Island High Country: A Changing Perspective’, TGMLI Review, no.42 (December 1984), p.17; M. J. McSaveney and Ian E. Whitehouse, ‘Anthropic Erosion of Mountain Land in Canterbury’, New Zealand Journal of Ecology, 12 supplement (1989), p.159; I. E. Whitehouse and A. J. Pearce, ‘Shaping the Mountains of New Zealand’, in J. M. Soons and M. J. Selby (eds), Landforms of New Zealand, 2nd ed., Auckland: Longman Paul, 1992, p.151.

18 V. D. Zotov, ‘Survey of the Tussock-grasslands of the South Island of New Zealand’, Department of Scientific and Industrial Research Bulletin (1938), pp.212A, 228A.

19 Ibid., pp.212A, 216A, 224A, 228A.20 Kenneth B. Cumberland, ‘Burning Tussock

Grassland: A Geographic Survey’, The New Zealand Geographer, 1, no.2 (October 1945), p.160.

21 Ibid., p.21.22 H. S. Gibbs and J. D. Raeside, ‘Soil Erosion

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23 Petrie, ‘Report on the Grass-denuded Lands of Central Otago’, p.11.

24 Timaru Herald, 1 March 1912, p.3.25 Otago Daily Times, 17 February 2007.



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274

INDEX

Acheron Bank Station, 30, 59Acheron River, 12Acland, Agnes, see, Mills, Agnes Acland, Emily (née Harper) (Barton Acland’s wife), 229,

233, 234Acland, Harriet (Barton Acland’s daughter), 233Acland, Harry ((Barton Acland’s nephew), 230Acland, Henry (Barton Acland’s son), 85, 87, 233, 234Acland, Hugh (Barton Acland’s son), 233, 234Acland, John (Barton Acland’s son), 195, 196, 233, 234Acland, John Barton Arundel, vi, vii–viii, xvi, 1–3, 7,

12, 18, 108, 109, 112, 113, 114, 136–7, 145, 150, 152, 170, 185–6, 204, 211, 216, 217–18, 242, 245; and establishing Mt Peel, 33–37, 34, 35, 137–8, 139, 141, 207; and finding Mt Peel, 29–32, 40, 51, 38–39, 136–7; and his introduction to sheep farming, 22–29; and rabbit irruption, 65, 84–86; farming practices of, 54, 156, 157, 161, 164, 193–7; financial difficulties and success of, 218–36

Acland, L. G. D. (Leo), 13, 20, 23, 25, 28, 117, 199, 201, 204, 209, 210, 215, 219, 236

Acland, Sir Thomas Dyke (Barton Acland’s father), 1Acland, Thomas Dyke (Barton Acland’s brother), 1, 65,

229, 230Acton Station, 10Adams, C. Warren, 1–2Adams, Thomas Kinnersley, 11agricultural and pastoral shows and societies, 114, 173,

182, 188, 230Ahuriri River, 73Aitkin, John Christie, 6Albury Station, 11Alexandra, 14, 14, 19, 221, 239Alford Station, 23, 23, 144–5Allan, H. H., 141Allandale Station, 181, 182, 182Amuri District, 26, 27, 57, 67, 68–69, 74, 75, 77, 86, 111,

142, 200, 206, 217, 244Amuri Ewe Fair, 122anise, 13, 15, 16Aoraki/Mount Cook, 7, 29Aparima River, 154Archer, F., 233Arthur, C. P., 69, 89Ashburton and district, 85, 115, 116, 160, 200, 213, 215Ashburton Gorge, 144, 181Ashburton River, vii, 30, 31, 160, 170, 215Ashburton Station, 30, 32Ashley River, 6, 9, 30Austin, H. B., 169Australia, viii, 4, 21, 167; and rabbit irruption in, 66, 70,

90, 94; importation of sheep from, 3, 7, 168, 172, 206, 214; Merinos in, 106, 168–70, 186, 187–8; squatters from, 6, 10, 111, 112

Awatere River, 5–6Awatere Valley, 5, 73

Baker, John, 73Bakewell, Robert, 188Balmoral Station, 217Balruddery Estate, 205Banks Peninsula, 138, 140Barker, Dr, 59Barker, Francis, 108Barker, Lady, 18, 20, 41, 54, 58, 209, 221Beattie, Herries, 7Begg, James, 68–69Belich, James, 41–42, 48Ben McLeod Range, 34, 38–39, 55, 85, 143, 149Benmore Station, 29, 49–50Bessemer, Henry, 142Bidwell, Charles, 4Birch Hill Station, 206Birchdale Station, 206Blackstone Hill Station, 21Blakiston, Arthur, 193Blue Cliffs Station, 20, 143, 145Boulton, P. B., 156, 165Bowler, Peter, 112Bray, Joseph, 215Brocas, Jon, 77Brookdale Station, 136Brookstead farm, 129Broome, Frederick, 20–21, 36, 41, 54, 209, 221Brown, John, 215Brydone, Thomas, 185 Buchanan, John, 16–17, 42–43, 49, 50, 51, 68, 238, 240Bull, P. C., 66, 70–71, 89, 90, 94Bullen, G. F., 73Burdon, R. M., 68Burke, Michael John, 26, 27–28, 30Burke’s Pass, 52Burnett, Andrew, 29Burnett family, 53Burnham, 10burning, viii, ix–x, 9, 12, 13, 17, 31, 38–39, 40, 41–64,

167, 168, 237; and rabbit irruption, 65–66, 68, 91–92, 93; as management tool, 54–58; as UK farming practice, 54, 64; overburning, 57, 68; see also, Mt Peel Station, burning on

Burrows, C. J., 50Butement, John, 76Butler, Samuel, 2, 7, 12, 18, 24, 28, 55, 56, 57, 111,

112–13, 114, 200–1, 202–3, 204, 223, 225, 235Butler’s Creek, 34

cabbage trees, 13, 25, 32, 39, 52cadet, see, ‘parlour shepherd’, cadet Cameron, Duncan, 118, 212–13, 215, 216, 235, 245Campbell, Robert, 29, 169Campbell, Sir Norman, 73Campbell brothers, 55Canterbury, ix, 3, 4, 6–7, 8, 9, 12, 13, 20, 22, 36–37, 52,

Pages numbers in bold refer to images and captions.

INDEX 275

74–75, 88–89, 92, 108, 112, 114, 115, 118, 126–8, 138, 141, 153–4, 156, 158–60, 178, 199, 209; Plains, 2, 3, 6, 10–11, 27, 53, 118, 173, 211–12, 215, 244, 245; South, 6, 26, 47–48, 70, 153

Canterbury Association, 2, 6–7, 11Canterbury Block, 211Canterbury Crown Lands, 73Cass River, 132Castle Hill Station, 46, 46Castle Rock Station, 76, 79, 92, 93, 118, 119, 130Caverhill, John Scott, 22Chaffey, R. A., 129Chandler, Peter, 73Chapman, Edward, 10Chapman, Robert, 178Chertsey, 188Chevalier, Nicholas, 27Cheviot Hills Station, 22, 211Christchurch, 1, 3, 8, 10, 11, 12, 19, 20, 22, 26, 30, 31,

47, 112–13, 140, 160Christchurch Club, 112–13, 113, 218, 231Chudleigh, E. R., 36, 145Clarence Valley, 47, 52, 73Clark, A. H., 168Clarke, William Joseph ‘Big’, 80, 81Clayton Station, 20, 49–50, 209, 210, 210Clent Hills Station, 27, 144, 181Clifford, Charles, 4–5, 6Clifton Falls farm, 129Clogstoun, Captain, 210Cloudy Range Station, 73Clough, Abner, 32Clough, Robinson, 32clover, 31, 116, 125, 135, 136–7, 152, 157–8, 160, 163, 243Clutha River, 14, 15, 72, 80, 81, 82Clyde, 72, 239Cockayne, A. H. (Alfred), 43, 238, 239, 240Cockayne, Leonard, 43, 44, 66, 67, 238, 239, 240Coldstream Estate, 7–8, 160Coleridge, Lake, 12, 59colonisation, viii–ix, 3–4, 44, 211Connemara Station, 136Connor, H. E., 50Conway River, 22, 148Cook, John, 129Coop, Ian, 99, 105, 106Corriedale sheep, see, sheep, breedsCorriedale Station, 181, 182Cowan, Cuthbert, 72, 75, 76Cox, Alfred, 27Cox, Percy, 223, 226Cracroft Station, 31, 56Craigieburn Range, 46crops, see, grain; oats; turnips; wheatCromwell, 239Crown land, 6, 7, 73, 76, 85, 241cultivation, viii, 92, 118, 124, 125, 135, 137, 152–6, 153,

154, 155, 159, 160, 162–3, 168, 173, 183, 187, 205, 215–16, 237

Culverden, 121Cumberland, Kenneth, 44, 45, 48, 49, 63, 238, 240Cunningham, Mr (runholder), 206

Dalethorpe Station, 6Dalgety and Company, 150, 223, 224–6, 229, 231, 233

Dampier, William, 121Davidson, William Soltau, 60, 173, 181–2, 185Davie, Cyrus, 59de Malmanche, Joe, 77Deans, John, 9, 17Deans, Mrs, 178, 179Deans brothers, 6, 8, 9, 17, 32, 172–3, 245decayed vegetation, 9, 12, 13, 53Delamain, F. W., 52, 209, 210Dennistoun, 234diaries, station, 42, 49, 54, 56, 58–60, 63–64, 139; see also,

Mt Peel, station diaries ofdisease, stock, 206–7, 208, 245; see also, footrotDomett, Alfred, 121, 136Double Corner Station, 22Douglas, John, 125draining, viii, 41–64, 117, 125, 137, 159–61, 173, 237drought, see, weather, high country Druett, Joan, 68–69Dudley, Benjamin Wooley, 2Dumoulin, Henry, 27Dumoulin, William, 27Dunedin, 19, 47, 129, 160, 221Dunedin, 110, 183, 184, 184, 192Dunstan Mountains, 16Duppa, Darrell, 25Duppa, George, 22, 24–25, 111, 200, 204, 235

Earnscleugh Station, 14, 72, 81–84, 86, 88, 90, 92, 93, 118, 119, 120, 243–4

Easedale Nook Station, 23Ede, Benjamin, 220Egerton, J. R., 172Elderslie Station, 205, 205Eldred-Grigg, Stevan, 112, 200Elgee, Frank, 54Eliot, James, 21Ellesmere, Lake, 160Elton, Charles, 91Ensor, Charles, 188Enys, Charles, 46Enys, John, 46erosion, x, 44, 45, 47–49; see also, scree slopesEvans, Harry, 148exploration of high country, vii–viii, 7, 13–15, 17, 20,

29–32, 50, 54, 168

Fairlight Station, 21fencing, 25, 54, 62, 79, 118, 125, 136, 137, 144, 147,

168, 205, 214, 228; see also, ‘Merino’ fence; Mt Peel Station, fencing on

fern, 13, 14, 15, 16, 62Fernside Station, 206fertiliser, use of, 163–4, 165, 183, 243Five Rivers Estate, 79, 92, 130flax, 8, 9, 13, 15, 16, 25, 52Flaxbourne Station, 5, 6, 118, 119, 120, 130floods, see, weather, high country footrot, 13, 35, 149, 161, 168, 171–4, 178, 179, 180, 192,

196–7, 207Ford, Henry (Harry), 58, 64, 138, 143forest cover, 9, 11, 16–17, 29, 45, 47–48, 50, 51, 138, 217Forest Creek, 33, 34, 35Forks River, 132Four Peaks Station, 210

276 INDEX

Fowler, John, 161Fox, William, 3, 11, 135Fraser, William, 14, 81, 83–84, 93, 130freeholding, 6, 21, 74, 79, 81, 117, 124, 125, 150, 201,

206, 211–12, 215, 225–6, 227, 233, 234, 235, 244frozen meat trade, viii, x, 100, 105, 109, 110, 118, 126–8,

131, 135, 147, 156, 161–4, 165, 171, 176, 183–5, 192, 195, 197, 211, 216, 229, 236

Galloway Station, 15, 77, 118, 119, 120, 124, 128Gardner, Jim, 200–2Gardner, W. J., 218Gardner, William, 129Garland, Dr, 129Garvie, Alexander, 14, 15, 16, 42–43, 49, 239Gawler Downs Station, 30Gibb, John A., 89Gibbs, H. S., 238, 240Gladbrook Station, 118, 119, 124, 126, 130, 185Glenfalloch Station (Nokomai), 21Glenquoich Station, 21Glenmark Station, 32, 56–57, 206, 211, 213, 213, 214,

215, 216, 235Glens of Tekoa Station, 118, 119, 120–2, 121, 122, 123,

126, 206Glentanner Station, 73Glenthorne Station, 19, 58Godley, John Robert, 6–7Godley River, 132Godwin, Mr (Mt Peel farm hand), 61goldmining and gold rushes, 178, 211gorse and broom, 49, 61, 62, 135, 138–9, 141–2, 144,

165, 205Gould, George, 215Gould and Miles, 222grain, vii, x, 116, 135, 152–5, 168, 173, 183, 212, 216; see

also, oats; wheatGrampian Hills Station, 58, 118, 119, 143grasses, 8–9, 116, 152, 160; blue, 13; brood-, 16;

cocksfoot, 38, 125, 158, 243; ‘English’, 21, 38, 117, 125, 126, 135, 149, 152, 154, 162, 183, 191, 201, 214, 227, 228; oat, 16; see also, speargrass

grasslands and bush, nineteenth-century descriptions and photographs of, 7–16, 62, 72, 117, 125, 135

Green, Reverend William Spotswood, 53Greenfield Estate, 155Greenhills Station, 74Greenwood, G. D., 188Greenwood brothers, 6, 9, 22Grey, Alan H., 45, 48Grey, Governor George, 5–6, 211Grigg, John, 112, 117, 143, 160, 208, 214, 215, 235, 245Gully, John, 5

Haast River valley, 69, 89, 94Hakataramea Station, 196Hakataramea Valley, 89Hakatere Station, 33Haldon Station, 29Hall, George, 58, 152Hall, John, 18, 58, 112, 118–19, 132, 137–8, 139, 145,

152, 157, 199–200, 202, 207, 245Hall, Thomas, 58, 152Hall brothers, 18Halswell Station, 26

Hamilton, Dundas, 210Hamilton, George, 210Hamilton, Hugh, 210Hands, Reverend Alfred, 38–39Hanmer, Thomas, 22, 24–25Hanmer and Harper, 223Hanmer Springs, 12, 233hares, 84, 85, 86Hargreaves, R. P., 45, 48, 49, 54, 64Harman, J. S., 59Harper, Bishop Henry John Chitty, 25, 33Harper, Charles, 209, 210Harper, Ellen Shepherd, see, Tripp, EllenHarper, Emily, see, Acland, EmilyHarper, George, 25, 231, 234Harper, Henry, 25, 229Harper, Leonard, 223, 230Harper Range, 40Hawarden–Waikari area, 182Hawkdun Station, 21Hawkeswood Station, 21Hay, John, 9Hayhurst, Mrs, 30Hayward, Mr, 139Heddon Bush Station, 154Hellamore, Mr, 231Hewson, Alexander, 12, 31–32, 53, 56, 145Hewson River, 146Highpeak Station, 30Hilgendorf, F. W., 44Hill, Henry, 41Hinds River, 213Hodge, H. K., 76Hodge, J. A., 76Holland, P. G., 49, 64Holme Station (Pareora), 58, 118, 119, 124, 138, 143, 177Holmes, J. S., 187–8Holmes, Matthew, 79Homebush Station, 32Hope, Arthur, 217Horsfield, Ian, 168Horsley Down Station, 171, 218Hoy, James F., 49–50, 64Hughes Commission, 67–68, 94Hui Hui farm, 182Hunter Brown, Charles, 22Hurunui River, 22, 29, 121, 206

Invercargill, 19, 71, 72, 160Inverness Station, 136Irvine, Adam, 138, 158Isern, Thomas D., 49–50, 64Ivey, W. E., 187

John Swan and Sons, 185Joint Committee on the Sheep and Rabbit Act, 73Jollie, Edward, 12, 52Jollie Brook Block, 122, 122, 123, 123Jollie’s Pass, 52Jones, Edgar, 13, 206, 207Jones, Johnny, 7Joyce, Alfred, 172

Kaikoura, 71, 73–74Kaikoura Station, 74

INDEX 277

Karoo Hill Station, 129Kaiwara Station, 57Kakanui Mountains, 16Kawarau Station, 76kea, 84, 85, 86Keefe, Peter, 148Keene, Charles, 74Keene, George, 74Kennaway, Frances, 52Kennaway, Laurence, 18, 20, 30, 52, 209, 210Kennaway brothers, 17–18, 20, 210Kermode, William, 211, 213–14Kerr, Chris, 42–43, 238, 240Kinloch Estate, 158Kitching, John Fry, 79–81, 209koromiko, 10Kowai Bush, 9, 11, 11, 140Kowai River, 11, 23Kurow, 77, 78, 116

Lagmhor Station, 200Laidlaw, W. S., 82, 83, 84Laing, Mr (shepherd), 28Lake Coleridge Station, 58–59, 59Lake County, 98, 115, 116, 124land: purchases from Maori, 4–5, 7; see also, Crown land;

freeholding; leaseholdingLauder Station, 21, 21lawyer/bush lawyer, 51, 62Lean, Colonel Alexander, 10, 18, 27leaseholding, 10, 21, 74, 76, 79, 81, 117, 124, 150, 211,

212, 225, 226, 227, 244Ledard Station, 206Lee, Edward James, 52Lendon Station (later Corwar), 10Leslie Hills Station, 118, 119, 130, 136, 217Levels Station, The, 6, 60, 64, 142, 173, 177, 180, 188Lilybank Station, 132, 132Livingston, D., 234Little, H. T., 182Little, James, 181–2, 187, 188Livingston, 150–1Loburn Station, 7–8Longbeach Station, 143, 160–1, 208, 208, 215, 235Lyttelton, 1–2, 3, 9Lyttelton, Lord, 218

Macfarlane, Dugald, 206Macfarlane, John, 7–8, 160Macfarlane, L. R. C., 57Mackenzie Country, 19, 29, 29, 57, 58, 67, 73, 74, 75,

86, 88, 89, 95, 97, 115, 120, 129, 132, 132, 143, 165, 217, 238, 239

Malvern Hills Station, 12, 25, 25, 26, 28, 218management, land, 34, 40, 41–42, 67, 96–97, 110–11,

134; see also, burning; draining; fencing; fertiliser, use of; oversowing

Manapouri district, 77Mandamus River, 121Mannering, Mr (runholder), 206Manuherikia district, 15Manuherikia River, 14, 16manuka, 10, 13, 16, 31, 52Maori settlements, 9, 50Mararoa district, 77

Mark, Alan, 42–43, 238, 240Marlborough, 2, 6, 45, 67, 69, 70, 71, 73–74, 75, 84, 88,

96, 97, 118, 158–9, 207, 245Marshall, F. R., 189–90Mason, George, 206Mason, Richard, 206matagouri (wild Irishman), 12, 13, 14, 15, 17, 31, 51, 52,

55, 62, 63, 71Mataura River, 73, 160Mataura Valley, 13Mather, Alexander S., 44, 68Mathias, Frank, 58–59Mayfield farm, 154McAloon, Jim, 112, 200, 218McArdell, Mr (runholder), 76McBeath, John, 175McGillivary, R., 44McGlone, M. S., 50McIntosh, Peter, 48McLean, Allan, 200, 201McLeod, Alexander (Sandie), 61, 84, 85, 141, 148, 149McLeod, John, 141McLeod, Mr (farm hand on Mt Peel), 61McMeekan, Campbell Percy, 96McRae, G. W., 206McRae, William, 121McSaveney, M. J., 49meat, sheep, vii–viii, 100, 118, 162, 167, 177–8; see also,

frozen meat trademeat processing works, 78, 109, 164, 178, 183; rabbit

canning, 78; Washdyke, 157, 227–8Mendip Hills Station, 136, 136Menlove, E., 129‘Merino’ fence, 142–3, 149Mesopotamia Station, 12, 33, 55, 55, 56, 75, 85, 118,

119, 130, 146, 148, 203Mieville, F. L., 13, 14Millington, Gordon, 129Mills, Agnes (née Acland) (Barton Acland’s sister), 223,

229, 230, 231Mills, Arthur, 223, 224–5, 228, 231, 233Minchin, Edward Corker, 27Mistake Station, The (later Godley Peaks), 118, 119–20,

129, 132, 217Mitchell, Captain, 6Mitton, Michael, 51, 65, 85, 139, 141, 156, 158, 161,

174, 195, 227, 229Moa Flat Station, 36, 79–81, 88, 90, 93, 118, 119, 126,

130, 145, 209Moeraki Station, 170Moffatt, Mr (gardener), 18Molesworth Station, 20, 118, 119Molloy, B. P. J., 50Moore, George Henry, 206, 211, 212–14, 235Moorhouse, Ben, 84, 206, 207, 223, 224, 226Moorhouse, Mrs, 224Moorhouse, Thomas, 224Morgan, William, 142Morrow, Mr (runholder), 226Morse, Nathaniel George, 5Morven Hills Station, 118, 119, 124, 126, 171, 200Motunau, 6, 9, 22Moutere Station, 15Mount Alford, 23Mount Cook, see, Aoraki/Mount Cook

278 INDEX

Mt Cook Station, 29, 53, 53Mt Grey Station, 6, 188Mount Harper, 85Mt Hutt Station, 10Mt Mason Station, 206Mt Nicholas Station, 73, 76Mt Parnassus Station, 118, 119, 130, 136Mt Peel Range, 27, 33, 146, 149Mt Peel Station, vii, ix, x, xvi, 22, 27, 34, 38–39, 38–39,

40, 40, 52, 52, 61–62, 84, 86–87, 101–4, 108, 109, 114, 126, 130, 141, 147, 148, 203, 207, 216, 241–4; and agricultural practices and management on, 157–9, 161, 162, 164, 174, 227, 243; and rabbit irruption, 65, 84–88, 92, 236, 243; and sheep numbers and stock loading at, 95, 100–1, 103–10, 114, 147–51, 194–5, 196, 219, 221–2, 242; and transport, 51, 216–17; and weather, 108–9, 193, 211, 216–17, 219, 221, 230, 231, 234, 236, 242; burning on, 60–62, 151, 158, 161; cultivation on, 147, 152, 156–7, 162, 164, 174, 227; exploration of, 29–32, 136–7; fencing on, 138–9, 145–51, 152, 227, 243; Holnicote homestead, 145, 218, 219–20, 220; sheep breeds on, 107–8, 147, 149–50, 162, 170, 192–7, 217, 228, 236, 243; site for, 33–37, 51; station diaries of, 60–62, 84, 158, 161, 174; subdivision of, 37, 88, 108, 145–7, 150–1, 162, 235–6

Mt Possession Station, 33Mt Royal Station, 125, 125Mt Somers Station, 27, 33, 118, 119, 170, 199, 226Munro, Dr David, 4, 8–9, 16, 50Murray, Roberts and Company, 185Murray, William, 124, 245myxomatosis, introduction of, 67

Nairn, C. J., 13–14National Mortgage and Agency Company, 224Nelson and district, ix, 4, 5–6, 7, 8, 9, 12, 52, 111, 121New Zealand and Australian Land Company, 185, 187,

188, 196New Zealand Company, 4, 8New Zealand Loan and Mercantile Agency Company

Limited, 76 New Zealand Sheep Breeders’ Association, 189Newton, Peter, 33Ngai Tahu, 7Nichols, Charles, 129Nichols, Jasper, 129Norman, Edmund, 29, 143North Station, 76Nosworthy, Hon. W., 75

Oamaru, 19, 47, 78, 116, 129oats, 153, 154, 156, 162–3Obelisk Range, 82O’Connor, Kevin, 43, 48–49, 67–68, 93Ohau River, 29, 73Ohau, Lake, 29, 73Okaiterua Station, 72, 93Olssen, Erik, 168Omarama, 20, 73, 116One Tree Hill Station, 136Opihi River, 26, 30Opuha River, 26Orari district, 34, 35, 85, 87, 149, 242–3Orari Gorge Station, 33, 85, 118, 119, 123–4, 137–8,

144, 195, 226, 228, 235

Orari River, vii, 30, 46, 141, 207Oreti Plain, 154Oreti River, 72, 73, 76, 154Otaio Station, 27Otago, ix, 2–3, 4, 7, 8, 13, 17, 19, 20, 37, 42, 45, 47, 69,

70, 73, 75, 76–77, 79–81, 88, 108, 115, 126, 128, 141, 158–9; Central, 14–15, 19, 67–68, 69, 71, 75, 81, 88, 89, 91–93, 95, 97, 98, 100, 159, 165, 212, 238, 239, 245; North, 47–48, 88, 110, 153, 154, 170, 200; South, 50

Otematata, 116Ottley Fells Station, 47overcropping, 216overgrazing, ix–x, 9, 43, 45, 49, 57, 63, 64, 66, 83, 92,

93, 95–132oversowing, viii, 116, 157–9, 168, 237Overton, C. F., 214

Pareora Lagoon, 12Palmer, Robert, 148Palmerston, 125 Park, Geoff, 159Parker, E. W., 233‘parlour shepherd’, cadet, 24, 25, 26, 28, 32, 113–14Pastoral Product Price Index, 97pastoralism: criticism of, ix–x; expansion of, vii–viii, 2–3,

5–6, 8, 17, 22, 29–30, 42; exploitative, 137pastoralists, x–xi, 41–42; and agricultural information,

113–14, 134; as improvers, xi, 111, 114, 117, 132, 134, 137, 157, 164, 168, 198, 210, 227–8, 241, 243; criticisms of, 200; failures of, vii, 199, 200, 202, 206, 212, 214–15; practices of, 48–49, 54, 97, 124; returning to England, 111–12, 200, 241

Paul, Robert Bateman, 17Peache, A. E., 199, 226Pearce, A. J., 49Peel Forest, 35, 51, 51, 146, 207, 234Peel Forest Station, 32, 40Petre, Henry, 4Petrie, Donald, 92–93, 238–9Phantom River, 34, 146Phillips, Henry, 152Phillips family, 152pigs, wild, 31, 84, 85, 86Point Station, The, 49, 59predators, see, kea; pigs, wildPukaki River, 29Pukaki, Lake, 29, 73Pyke, Vincent, 81Pyne, Stephen, 41–42, 54, 64

Quin, W., 80, 81, 141, 187, 192

rabbit calicivirus disease, 91rabbit irruption, x, 14, 21, 43, 47, 63, 64, 65–94, 97,

111, 115, 116, 120, 124, 128–30, 131, 133, 141, 165, 212, 239–40, 244, 245; see also, Australia, and rabbit irruption in; Mt Peel Station, and rabbit irruption

Rabbit Nuisance Act, 83, 86–87Rabbit Nuisance Committee 1881, 77, 82Raeside, J. D., 238, 240Raincliff Station, 26, 27, 28, 30Rakaia Forks Station (Mt Algidus Station), 58–59, 59Rakaia Gorge, 17, 144Rakaia River, 9, 10, 12, 28, 30, 31, 170, 202, 203, 215

INDEX 279

Rakaia Terrace Station, see, Terrace Station, TheRan, Professor, 179–80Rangiora, 160Rangitata district, 31, 34, 35, 85, 87, 149Rangitata River, vii, 30–31, 32, 33, 35, 40, 51, 56, 84, 89,

141, 146, 151, 160, 207, 217, 221, 224, 226Raukapuka Run, 26–27, 26–27Raven, Reverend John, 11Redcastle Station, 200Rees, W. G., 77Reeves, William Pember, 200Reid, C. W., 129Reid, J. F., 129Reid, John, 205Relph, R. H., 44, 45, 48, 49resource endowments, 84, 95, 114–15, 201–2, 212,

214–15, 216, 235, 242, 244Retreat Station, The, 22Rhodes, Arthur, 233, 234Rhodes, Robert Heaton, 145Rhodes brothers, 6, 60, 142Riccarton, 6, 9, 17, 173Rice, Geoffrey, 233Rich, F. D., 170Rich, George, 170Richmond Station, 85, 217rivers, as barriers, viii, 11, 30–31, 51, 209Riverton, 71Roberts, John, 124, 245Robinson, John, 207Robinson, William, 211Rockwood Station, 25, 58, 152Rogers, P. M., 69Rolleston, William, 59Ross, G. A. E., 209, 210Ross and Glendinning empire, 21Russell, Mr (runholder), 30Russell, George Warren, viiiRutherford, Andrew, 136Rutherford, Edmund, 217Rutherford, George, 112, 136, 217Rutherford, John, 217Rutherford, Robert, 217Rutherford, William, 136Rutherford family, 245

Samson, Ned, 32Sawdon Station, 143, 143Scott Thomson, Oliver, 22, 35, 36, 86–87, 108, 109,

149–50, 151, 158, 196, 231, 233, 234, 236Scotter, W. H., 199, 201, 215Scottish Free Church Society, 7scree slopes, x, 46, 48, 49Sealy, E. P., 55Selwyn County, 115, 116Selwyn River, 11, 12, 30Sewell, Henry, 2, 11, 22, 26, 56Sharp, W., 32Shaw, Jonathan, 169Shaw, Thomas, 169shearing, 24, 28, 32, 205, 205sheep breeding, 167–98; cross-breeding, 142–3, 147,

149, 171, 178, 179–83, 185, 187–92, 193, 195, 196sheep breeds: Border Leicester, 175, 189, 189, 192,

196, 205; Border Leicester–Merino crossbreds, 172;

Cheviot, 79, 173, 175, 187; ‘Colonial’ Halfbred, 191, 191, 197; Corriedale, 173, 181, 182, 188–9, 190, 190, 191–2, 196, 197; Cotswold, 173; Cotswold–Merino, 178; crossbreds, 107, 171, 187, 188, 195, 214; English Leicester, 107, 177, 180, 181, 188, 188, 189, 192, 195, 196; halfbreds, 177, 178, 183, 185, 186, 187, 189, 190, 191, 191, 192, 195; Halfbreds, 106, 191, 191; Hampshire, 173; Leicester, 173, 175, 196, 205; Lincoln, 175, 177, 180–1, 188, 188, 189, 192, 196, 205; Merino–Southdown, 178, 179; Merinos, 74, 81, 106–7, 119, 121, 122, 124, 126, 149–50, 161, 168–71, 172–3, 174, 175–8, 179–83, 185–7, 186, 188, 193–6, 197, 214, 216, 222, 243; New Zealand Romney, 189, 189, 191, 197; Romney Marsh, 173, 175, 181, 182, 187, 188, 189, 189, 191–2, 205; Southdown, 173, 175, 183; see also, Australia, importation of sheep from; Australia, Merinos in

sheep numbers, 95, 98, 114–28; see also, Mt Peel Station, and sheep numbers and stock loading at; stock loading

shelter belts, 21, 27, 36, 125, 133, 135, 136, 143, 144, 145, 205

Shennan, Watson, 16Shennan brothers, 14–15Shepherd’s Bush Station, 39, 223, 224, 224, 226Sherrard, John, 148Simons Pass Station, 29Sinclair Range, 55Smith, Robert, 32, 137Smith, William, 73snow, see, weather, high country Snowdale Station, 206Snowdon Station, 30, 58, 59soil: fertility of, 9, 10, 37, 100, 156, 163, 212, 216, 237,

244–5; loss, 49; type, 13, 14, 29, 37, 42, 45, 50, 52, 69–70, 72, 81–82, 90, 140, 161, 179, 190, 192, 215, 239

Soriguer, R. C., 69, 89Southern Alps, 19, 45, 50Southland, 13, 19, 20, 68, 69, 70, 71, 73, 75–76, 77, 79,

83, 84, 88, 115, 118, 126, 128, 141, 158–9, 160, 161, 187

Spain, Stephen Thomas, 83speargrass (Spaniard), 12, 13, 15, 16, 17, 31, 52, 62Spooner, William Charles, 179Springfield Station, 118, 119, 120, 130, 215, 216, 235squatters, 5–6, 10, 172; see also, Australia, squatters fromSt James Station, 206St Leonards Station, 26, 111, 142, 143, 200Stafford, Sir Edward (E. W.), 9, 209Stephen, W., 13–14Stevens, Mr (Mt Peel farm hand), 62Steventon Station, 36, 41, 209stock loading, 67, 88, 92, 95–97, 98–100, 114–26,

131, 175; overstocking, 66, 67–68, 92, 95–131; understocking, 54, 214

Stoddart, Mark Pringle, 12, 18, 137Stonyhurst Station, 6Stringfellow, James, 188Strode, A. C., 81Studholme, E. C., 56, 60–61, 173–4Studholme, Michael, 117, 214Studholme brothers, 117, 180subdivision, of stations, vii, ix, x, 92, 135, 136, 144, 145surveyors, 7, 9, 14, 15–16, 40, 50, 168Sutton, Mr (rabbit inspector), 85, 87

280 INDEX

Sutton, John Alfred, 60, 129, 162Swyncombe Station, 74, 74

Taieri district, 124, 160Tancred, Henry, 25, 26, 28–29Tancred, Sir Thomas, 25, 26Tapanui, 15, 68Tapui farm, 129Tara Hills Station, 20Tasman Glacier, 53Taylor Range, 27Te Akatarawa Station, 73Te Anau, Lake, 13–14Te Puaha (chief of Kapiti), 5Te Waimate Station, 56, 117, 117, 155, 173Tekapo River, 29Temuka, 153, 160Terrace Station, The (Rakaia Terrace Station), 18,

49–50, 58, 118–19, 120, 124, 130, 137, 144, 144, 145, 152, 157, 171, 199–200, 202, 207

Teviotdale Station, 6, 186Thompson, Mr (runholder), 27Thomson, George, 238, 239Thomson, John Turnbull, 15–16, 17, 66Timaru, 47, 117ti-ti, 8toi-toi, 8, 9, 10, 13, 52Tokarahi farm, 129Tonkin and Company, 78Torlesse, Charles Obins, 9–10, 11, 12, 30Torlesse Range, 46Totara Estate, 47Townend, Annie, 213–14Travers, W. T. L., 47Trelissick Station, 46, 46Tripp, Charles George, vii–viii, xvi, 1–3, 7, 24–25, 26–

27, 28, 112, 114, 136, 137–8, 144, 170, 193, 195, 217, 218, 222, 223, 226, 227, 228, 230, 245; and finding and establishing Mt Peel, 29–33, 38–39, 40

Tripp, Ellen (née Harper), 33Tuckett, Frederick, 4, 8Tuhawaiki (Ngai Tahu leader), 7turnips, 155, 155–6, 162–4, 173, 183, 201, 216, 227tussock, 13, 15–16, 25, 50, 51–52, 133; blue, 8; fescue,

8; snow, 15, 16, 31, 48, 50; tall, 11, 17, 25, 48–49, 50, 51, 52, 55, 71

tussock and shrubland, viii–x, xvi, 9, 29, 38–39, 40, 43, 48–49, 50, 63–64, 125, 135, 237

tutu, 12, 13, 15, 16

Underwood farm, 35Union Bank of Australia, 222, 225, 230, 231

Vavasour, William, 4vegetation, see, names of individual types of vegetationVincent County, 67–68, 81, 92, 98, 100, 115, 116, 118,

124, 165, 238–9, 244Vogel scheme, ix

Waiau River, 206Waikakahi Station, 200, 201, 201Waimakariri River, 11, 11, 30, 47, 135, 135, 203Waimakariri valley, 45, 63Waimate County, 115, 116, 160Waimate Gorge, 117

Waimea Estate, 155Waipara River, 22, 89Wairaki River, 13Wairarapa, ix, 4–5, 90Wairau River, 13, 22Wairau Valley, 6, 73Waitaki, Upper, 75, 95, 115, 238, 244, 245Waitaki County, 92, 115, 116Waitaki Plains Station, 200Waitaki River, 15, 16, 29, 32, 73, 77, 232Waitaki Valley, 73Waitangi Station, 60, 63, 64, 73, 118, 119, 128, 129, 129,

162–3Waitt, Robert, 6Wakanui Station, 206, 207, 213Wakatipu, Lake, 76, 84Wakefield, Bobby, 77Wakefield, Edward Gibbon, viii–ix, 4Walker, Lancelot, 210Walker, Sherbrooke, 210Wallace, Professor Robert, 90–91Wallace County/District, 79, 81, 88, 90, 115–16Wanaka, Lake, 32, 84Ward, Joseph, 73–74washing, of sheep, 23, 23, 24, 28Waterson, D. B., 112weather, high country, vii, viii, x, 17–22, 116, 118, 197,

207, 209–11, 232; droughts, viii, 17, 21–22, 35, 56, 97, 110, 116, 120, 126, 128, 131, 209, 211, 212, 214; floods, viii, 22, 35, 36, 45, 47, 209, 221, 224; rainfall, 19–20; snow, 20–21, 22, 35–36, 46, 108–9, 116, 209, 210, 212, 221; storms, viii, x, 17, 35–36, 47

Weaver, John, 3Webster, Dr, 182weeds, xi, 63, 132, 139, 141, 165–6, 237; see also, gorse

and broomWeld, Frederick, 4–5, 6, 169whalers, 7wheat, 153–4, 162, 163, 215White, Taylor, 76Whitehouse, Ian, 49, 62–63, 239Whiterock Station, 207wild carrot, 13wild parsnip, 13Williams, J. Morgan, 89Wills River valley, 69, 89, 94Wilson, John Cracroft (‘Nabob’), 31, 112Winchmore Station, 215Windsor Park Estate, 129, 154Wodzicki, K. A., 67, 68, 70, 75, 90, 91, 130Wood, W. D., 74wool market, viii, x, 4, 10, 93, 118, 126, 153, 166, 167,

176, 193–4, 203–4, 211–12, 214, 216, 218–21, 222, 223, 234

wool types: crossbred: vii, 100, 188, 189; halfbred, vii, 188, 189, 192; Merino, vii, 100, 136, 176, 179–80, 186, 189, 190, 192, 197

Wool Supply Association, 176–7Woollcombe, Belfield, 22Wortley, J. Stuart, 22, 24Wyatt, William, 32

Youatt, William, 172

Zotov, V. D., 44, 49, 63–64, 66–67, 93–94, 238, 240

First published 2011This ebook edition 2012

Auckland University Press, University of AucklandPrivate Bag 92019, Auckland 1142, New Zealandwww.auckland.ac.nz/aup

© Robert Peden, 2011

isbn 978 1 86940 746 9

National Library of New Zealand Cataloguing-in-Publication DataPeden, Robert (Robert Lindsay)Making sheep country : Mt Peel Station and the transformation of the tussock lands / by Robert Peden.1. Hill farming—New Zealand—South Island—History. 2. Sheepranches—New Zealand—South Island—History. 2. Mt Peel Station (N.Z.)—History. I. Title.636.301099387—dc 22

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Making Sheep Country: Mt Peel Station and the Transformation of the Tussock Lands