1853 - Earp, G. B. New Zealand: Its Emigration and Gold Fields - CHAPTER XVI. AGRICULTURE AND LAND-CLEARING.

       
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  1853 - Earp, G. B. New Zealand: Its Emigration and Gold Fields - CHAPTER XVI. AGRICULTURE AND LAND-CLEARING.
 
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CHAPTER XVI. AGRICULTURE AND LAND-CLEARING.

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AGRICULTURE.

CHAPTER XVI.

AGRICULTURE AND LAND-CLEARING.

Remarks by a backwoodsman--Experimental agriculture--Modes of clearing land--Canadian method--Combination of labour.

WE cannot commence a few remarks on this subject more appropriately than with the following remarks from a practical American backwoodsman. A close attention to them, in new agriculture in particular, cannot but be productive of advantage.

"Agriculture furnishes a healthful and profitable employment. No employment conduces in so high a degree to preserve the moral health of the community. Where can rational liberty find a safer asylum than in a country where the great body of the people are actively engaged in agricultural industry and in agricultural improvements? Every branch of industry, except agriculture, is liable to be over-done, and when this happens, distress, more or less severe, is sure to follow. Who ever heard of a national distress occasioned by a spirited agriculture? If the merchants who imported silks and other gewgaws from Europe, and by so doing involved people in debt, had been skilful, industrious farmers, who will pretend that the country would have suffered as it now does? Science is indispensable in order to the success of agriculture; but experiment is the great lever of improvement. The business of science or theory is to reason on facts; who can be a

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EXPERIMENTAL FARMING.

good farmer without reasoning? The business of experiment is to test the truth of theory, and thereby come at certain knowledge. Every farmer who tries experiment in agriculture for the public good, deserves the gratitude of the whole country. But individual efforts are insufficient, there must he union of efforts in order to meet with great success. Suppose that one hundred farmers in different parts of the state can be found who would be willing to appropriate each one half acre of land for the purpose of trying some experiment in the culture of wheat. Suppose these one hundred farmers can act in concert, and each agree to try some different experiment, and continue their efforts we will say for five years, varying the mode of experiment each year; only think! five hundred different experiments skilfully conducted: who can tell what such a course of management may accomplish?"

The former denizen of a town, if he give up his mind altogether to agricultural pursuits, is generally found to make greater progress than a professed agriculturist. He knows nothing at starting, and in this he has a decided advantage over a man whose agricultural habits are fixed. He has nothing to unlearn, which the other has. The one progresses in the ABC of his future calling, whilst the other is literally floundering in the mud of his past experience.

The best interests of a farmer in a virgin soil, are comprised in one word--"experimentalize." Never mind any man's opinions, for no man has had sufficient experience to form one worth listening to. The greatest talkers upon agricultural subjects in a new colony are invariably the most ignorant. The native who pokes a hole in the ground with a stick and drops a potato therein, treading it down with his foot, will produce a better crop, in quality certainly, than the farmer who proceeds, secundum artem, to improve a soil which, from its over-fertility, requires disimproving. The question is how to improve upon the native method, rather than how to improve upon known systems. The native is generally very free with his advice upon his own methods of agriculture, and this is

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MODES OF CLEARING LAND.

worth listening to; but we will not continue our own advice upon the subject, lest we prove the truth of our own apothegms.

A modification of the process employed in Canada would appear to be best adapted for clearing land in New Zealand. The practice there is not to burn the forest indiscriminately, as is often done in New Zealand, but first to cut the underbrush, and suffer this to dry, so that it may ignite the more readily. This is then burnt off, and the trees afterwards chopped. In New Zealand, it would appear, the better plan is to cut the underwood first, and suffer this to dry whilst the timber is being chopped. By the time the latter operation is performed, and the branches cut, the whole will be in a fit state for burning.

An easier method than that of chopping, is to use the crosscut saw. The writer often employed this method in New Zealand, and found that two men would cut through an ordinary tree in about twenty minutes, so that an acre of forest land may soon be laid bare. Two more men also with the cross-cut saw will separate the branches almost as fast as the other two saw down the trees. If the whole mass be suffered to lie for a few months, the fire will then clear away all but the stumps. The stumps themselves it would be folly to clear away till they were so far rotted as to permit being dragged out with oxen. This will be in about two years. From the peculiarity in the New Zealand forest trees of having no taproot, the clearing out of the stumps can be effected much more easily than in most other colonies. The branches of the roots, which extend to a great distance from the tree, but for the most part along the surface of the ground, are easily divided with the axe, and decay thereby accelerated.

The only objection to firing the bush is, that you may interfere with the arrangements of the proprietor of a neighbouring section, as, unless proper precautions are taken, the fire will extend beyond your own. It would be to the interest

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COMBINATION OF LABOUR.

of all proprietors of land to join with their neighbours in extirpating the forest. It is matter of surprise that the system of "logging bees," as the phrase goes in Canada, has not obtained in New Zealand, and the more so, as many Canadian people are resident there. It is a system of combination of labour. The whole district turns out for the purpose of destroying the timber on one man's section, he being expected to render the like assistance in his turn, when called upon by those who have aided him. The person thus aided by his neighbours gives a feast somewhat in the same way as still obtains in some rural districts in England, at what is called "harvest home" and "sheep-shearing." It is astonishing what a mass of forest will disappear in a single day under this system. Fifty or a hundred hands make quick work when it is thus set about in earnest, and with a neighbourly feeling; and the consumption of food at the feast, after the day's work is done, is of trifling value, compared, with the services performed. By the adoption of such a system, much good is effected in every way. Not only is the land speedily cleared, but kind and neighbourly feelings are promoted, which would be much more conducive to the happiness of all, than the solitary selfishness which is the characteristic of our nation in the colonies no less than at home.


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