XXV. BUSH.
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XXV.
BUSH.
Fern tree--Pines--Turnip trees--Blue Gum--Birds--A Lark--Beasts and Reptiles--Area of forests.
THE bush of New Zealand differs from other countries. It has a dark, dank look, the foliage is generally dark green, and so close that the rays of the sun even at noon scarcely penetrate the leafy canopy. Locomotion in the bush is necessarily slow. Sometimes a dead pine, forty feet long, and two or three feet in diameter,
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obstructs the path; at another supple-jacks and prickly thorns bar all progress. The intervening space between large trees is filled up with a rich undergrowth of young trees and ferns; the latter alone number fifty varieties in the vicinity of Dunedin. Here the tree fern grows in perfection, and is the most beautiful plant in New Zealand. This tree requires age to show its graceful drapery, but looks prettiest when it is about ten or twelve feet high, although it attains double that height in very secluded places. The fronds are six and eight feet long, and one and a half feet broad, giving to the tree the appearance of a gigantic green parasol, highly figured, and having a long slender black stem. The wood of the fern tree is valueless, yet it is sometimes made into picture frames, and these are regularly spotted like the skin of the leopard.
Beautiful as is the fern tree, it is almost equalled by the young rimu. This is a tree that attains maturity in two hundred years, and is always beautiful; but when five or six years of age, its long, graceful, cord-like leaves hang down like the weeping-willow, and give it an appearance quite different from the aged tree. Thousands of these young trees have been transplanted because of their beauty, but only to wither and die.
The principal native wood used for building purposes are the White, Red, and Black pines, and Black birch; also Miro and Totara, both of which have a grain like cedar. None of these trees have cones. There is a great variety of other trees used for fencing, fuel, and food. The Hini-hini is the most useful tree for a man who settles in the bush, where there is no grass for a cow. I have often seen on a stormy night a bush farmer take an American axe and cut this tree for food to his cows; and so fond are they of the green leaves and small twigs, that the moment they see the axe in the farmer's hand, they commence to low and run after him. They stand quietly by while a tree six or eight inches in diameter is being felled, and the moment the crash is over they rush forward and devour the leaves. Two such trees make an excellent supper for half a dozen cows, which they munch with the relish of turnips.
Persons settling in the bush in Stewart's Island, and such localities, will find the Hini-hini and the laurel leaves of the
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Broadleaf (a large tree, generally hollow) most excellent herbage for cows, and the milk makes rich butter. As the Government offers land to persons paying their own passage to New Zealand, I would advise hardy bushmen and fishermen to settle on such land. They do not need much capital, the fencing is all round them, and the crops can be put in the moment the bush is felled, dried, and burned off.
The following extract is from an Act passed in October 1873, for giving free grants of land to certain immigrants:--
"Immigrant paying own passage to New Zealand entitled to land of value of £20 for himself, and if with family, like portion of land for each adult member.
"2. Every person of the age of eighteen years, and not exceeding sixty years, arriving in New Zealand after the passing of this Act from the United Kingdom or elsewhere than any of the Australasian Colonies, including Tasmania, who shall have paid the cost of his passage to New Zealand, and who desires to settle upon and cultivate land therein, shall, subject to the provisions hereinafter contained, be entitled to a free grant of a piece of land to the value of twenty pounds.
"And if any such person be the head of a family, the value of the piece of land to which such person shall be entitled shall be proportionate to the number of the members of such family the cost of whose passage shall have been paid by him, that is to say:--
"In respect of his or her own passage, land to the value of twenty pounds; and in respect of the passage of each member of such family of the age of fourteen years or upwards, land to the value of twenty pounds; and for each member of such family of less age than fourteen years, land to the value of ten pounds.
"Family, what may consistof.
"Members of a family, for the purposes of this Act, shall include wife, child, grandchild, nephew and niece of the head of the family: Provided that no person shall be entitled to such free grant of land unless he shall, before leaving the place of departure for New Zealand, have obtained from the Agent-General of New Zealand, or any person appointed by him for the purpose, a certificate in writing that he and those members of his family in respect of whom he claims to be entitled as aforesaid are suitable immigrants.
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"Immigrant must make claim.
"3. Every person claiming to be entitled to land under this Act must, within sixty days after his first arrival in New Zealand, apply personally to the Immigration Officer under 'The Immigration and Public Works Act, 1870,' at the port or place where he arrives, or, if there be no such Immigration Officer at that port or place, then to such Immigration Officer whose office shall be nearest to such port or place, and furnish to such officer a statement of his claim to be so entitled, showing when and by what ship and at what port or place he (or he and his family, as the case may be) arrived, and from what port or place he or they emigrated, and the name and age of himself, or of himself and each member of his family, as the case may be; and he shall then, or within sixty days thereafter, furnish such proof of the truth of the statement as shall be required by the Immigration Officer.
"Claimant to be registered.
"On the Immigration Officer being satisfied of the truth of such statement, the name of such person shall be registered by the Immigration Officer in a register to be kept for the purpose, together with the amount in value to which he shall be entitled to select land under this Act in respect of his own passage, or his own passage and that of his family, and every such person so registered shall be deemed a registered immigrant.
"At any time within five years registered immigrant may apply for land to be purchased for him, if he has resided continuously in New Zealand.
"5. At any time within five years after the arrival of a registered immigrant in New Zealand, such immigrant may apply to the Minister to purchase for him land to the amount in value to which he is entitled according to such register, if such immigrant shall have resided continuously in New Zealand from the date of such arrival until the time of applying to the Minister, but not otherwise."
The Blue Gum (Eucaliptus) has been acclimatized from Tasmania, and forms the chief feature in the numerous plantations that ornament and shelter the villas of our prosperous settlers, giving to the rural scenes of the country a cosy and home-like look. This tree grows with a rapidity unknown in its native clime, being twenty feet high in ten years, and fifty feet in nineteen years, with
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fine straight stems. They are evergreen, and cast their bark and leaves so imperceptibly that no change is visible in the winter, and when they are in seed they are covered with white-looking roses, having a resinous smell.
There is a very large white pine bush near Invercargill (the second town in Otago), in which there are sixteen saw-mills, and at Riverton, thirty miles distant, there is a great forest, chiefly Red pine. These forests will far more than supply our wants for the next hundred years, and is a good district for sawyers to settle in
New Zealand does not possess a single good singing bird, but the plumage of some of them is very beautiful. The following is a list of the birds:--The sparrow hawk, tui or parson bird, bell bird or mocker, wood robin, yellow breasted tit, pied fan-tail, yellow-top paroquet, brown parrot, wood pigeon, black oyster catcher or red bill, pied oyster catcher, weka or wood hen, Paradise duck, little teal, grey duck, two species of gull, cormorant or black shag, pied shag, white throated shag, also another species of shag locally called the "blue shag," perhaps the most abundant on the coasts of Stewart's Island, easily shot, and pretty highly esteemed by the sailors as an article of food, the little penguin, the great penguin. This bird was caught alive on the rocks in Half-moon bay.
The Acclimatization Society has introduced a great number of birds, amongst which the lark is conspicuous. The last Sabbath I was privileged to spend in my New Zealand home, a happy lark rose at my feet, winging his way to heaven in ever widening circles, and chanting his matin hymn Strange memories were awakened by the heavenly song, and a strong wish to know if I ever would stand upon that spot again, and hear the lark singing.
There is an agreeable and pleasing sensation in wandering through the primeval forests in the south of New Zealand which is not to be found elsewhere. In other places a sense of undefined danger is apt to steal over the mind, but here the traveller feels he has nothing to fear from man, beast, or reptile. No black snakes, centipedes, grizzly bears, or tigers disturb the universal silence and repose that reign on every side, and the benighted traveller lights
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his fire, boils his billy, wraps himself in his blankets, and goes to sleep with a sense of complete security. The quantity of forest land in Otago is estimated at 2570 square miles.
The terror of man in an uncivilized state is an evil that must enter largely into the calculations of an emigrant. The strife that was waged for many years between the North American Indians and the first settlers is one of the most terrible episodes of American colonization, and has to a limited extent been re-enacted in Tasmania, Australia, the North Island of New Zealand, and is going on at present in Fiji. These drawbacks to progress and prosperity never have, and never can, blight the energies of the southern settlements; and it is doubtless to the total absence of such disturbing elements that Otago and Canterbury have for many years been the richest and most populous provinces of New Zealand.
