XXII. SHEEP FARMING.
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XXII.
SHEEP FARMING.
Runs--Value of wool--A New Zealand Duke--Number of sheep--Broadcast Turnips--Fencing.
NEW ZEALAND was for a long time supposed to be ill-adapted for the growth of wool. Sixteen years ago the writer was asked by an intelligent person if sheep would thrive in Otago!
The development of Otago has in a great measure been brought about by the enterprise of sheep-farmers in search of grazing country. The Otago Government wisely offered sheep-runs for fourteen years to those who discovered them, on payment of a few pounds annually, and on condition that the runs were partially stocked with sheep (500) in six months. Sheep-farmers traversed the country in all directions to spy out the grazing land, and in a short time the country was explored to the Billowy mountains on the west, and the discovery of immense areas of pastoral country may be said to have finally determined the prosperity of Otago. The sheep usually depastured on the waste land of the province is the Merino; but the New Zealand Land Company and others have imported long-woolled sheep with great advantage to themselves and the province. The long-woolled sheep are common on the lowlands, but the Merino is the best for the highlands of Otago.
The extent of a run generally depends on natural boundaries such as rivers, brooks, and mountains, and vary in size from fifteen thousand to sixty thousand acres.
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Up to 1866 the small sum of £4000 was all the rent the Government received for six million acres; but a law was passed in that year which converted the £4000 of rent into £50,000 annually. This was accomplished by offering to add ten years to existing leases, which would expire in a few years. Tor a while it was thought none would avail themselves of this privilege, but ultimately all the run-holders agreed to pay the increased rental, and receive an increase of tenure. The consequence of this act was a great increase in the revenues of Otago, a great increase of sheep-- for some of the runs had never been fully stocked, --a great increase in the export of wool, and general prosperity of the place. The real author of this change in the rent-roll of Otago was Sir F. D. Bell, who was a member of the Provincial Council at the time of its passing, and first suggested the idea to the Government.
In 1853 the wool trade of Otago was represented by the trifling sum of £300; but the following table shows how it has increased:--
In 1854 the value of wool was £5,000
1855, . . . 8,901
1856, . . . 19,591
1857, . . . 18,318
1858, . . . 38,215
1859, . . . 60,058
1860, . . . 47,805
1861, . . . 119,450
1862, . . . 192,596
1863, . . . 256,281
In 1864, . . . £340,549
1865,... 393,087
1866, ... 513,956
1867, ... 585,136
1868, ... 572,939
1869, . . . 642,867
1870, ... 730,593
1871, ... 689,182
1872.......
1873....... 1
The total wool export for New Zealand from 1853 to 1873
amounts to ............. £19,783,588
and for Otago for same period (as shown above)... 7,556,028 2
Here we see the wool industry of Otago rise in twenty years from, nothing to seven and a half millions sterling, and the next twenty years will see that great sum doubled, even at the present rate of production; for the run-holders are increasing the grazing-powers of their runs by cultivation. In the south of the province Mr. Campbell has advertised for the ploughing of ten
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thousand acres in one of his runs. This gentleman leases an area equal to any dukedom in Great Britain.
Sheep-farming has now become so prosperous that fears are entertained that they will buy up the whole country, and it is to prevent this that the arable land has been reserved for small capitalists and emigrants on deferred payments (see page 56). All the land would be taken up at £2 per acre, and it is perhaps the highest test of the value of the waste lands of Otago that sheep-farmers would give such a price for land in its primitive state; but the natural grasses are very abundant, and well adapted for sheep pasture.
The number of sheep in 1871 was... 3,731,445
Cattle........ 143,609
Horses........ 25,804
Pigs........ 20,024
There are about seven and a half millions of acres leased in the province, and the quantity for all New Zealand is fifteen millions of acres. But as the area of New Zealand is similar to the area of Great Britain and Ireland, what must the future of New Zealand be when its seventy million acres of surface are utilized, and stocked with sheep and cattle? The day is not far distant when the gold of the white man will purchase the last acre of the Maori. No purpose of man can stay the rapid stride of destiny in this direction. Everything has been done to pamper, to please, and preserve the most splendid savage in the world, but it will not do. The very revenues which he derives from leasing his lands to the white man only accelerates the great work of Maori decay. When that work is complete, New Zealand will rise with renewed strength and vigour to take that place amongst the nations which position, climate, people, and Providence have assigned to her.
The profits of sheep-farming induced me, thirteen years ago, to sell my land in the suburbs of Dunedin, and purchase seven square miles of beautiful land, most of it arable, and surrounded with twenty miles of substantial sod fence. The farmers are largely engaged in the breeding and fattening of sheep. Turnips are grown for winter feed on a plan that supersedes thinning. This
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is a kind of labour that cannot be got except through Chinamen, who take contracts to thin turnips at 5s. per acre; but the plan to which I allude is this:-- 3/4 lb. of turnip seed is mixed with a sack of sids or shillicks, and put into a grass sowing-machine, which sows a bag to the acre. Thousands of acres are annually sown in this way, 3/4 lb. of seed being uniformly distributed over an acre. They come away beautifully, and the sheep are netted upon them in the ordinary way. Last year the writer weaned 1000 crossbred Leicester lambs upon thirty-two acres of oats and rye-grass, and this kept them for four months in fine condition.
There are thousands of miles of fencing on the runs of Otago. Two kinds of fencing are used, post and wire fence, and sod dike, with double ditch. This sod bank is built like a stone wall, four, five, and six feet high, with ditches on each side: it is a sheep-proof fence, and costs 14s. per chain. It is 3 feet thick at the base, and 15 inches on cap sod. Farmers use the same fence for cattle.
