A YEAR IN NEW ZEALAND.

Southland Times, Volume III, Issue 26, 6 January 1864, Page 6 (Supplement)

A YEAR IN NEW ZEALAND.

The Saturday has the, following long critique on a work called " A First Year in Oauterbury Settlement,'' by Mr Samuel Butler, who visited that Province in* 1862-3. ■ For some time past we have heardlit tie of the social and industrial progress of New Zealand. Letters and newspapers from thence have been full of political disturbances and military alarms, of wars and rumors of wars, of aggressions on native rights, and of the horrorsof native vengeance, until we have almost forgotten that there exist in the islands colonies which the disturbances have not afFected, and whose peaceful growth has gone on uninterrupted by the conflict which has been raging in their neighborhood. The Middle Island has nothing to fear from native, disturbers of its peace. There are few Maories there, and those few •'are not disposed to turbulence. The settlements of Nelson, Marlborough, Canterbury, and Otago are among the most secure of our colonies, exempt alike from the risks of war, to which colonial greed and native impatience will probably, for many years to come, expose their neighbors of the North Island, and f om that social torment which the extinct system of transportation has inflicted upon Australia. How far the recent gold discoveries in Otago may have disturbed the course of industry and injured the permanent prosperity of that and the neighboring settlements, we do not know. But certainly the southern Provinces of New Zealand afford as fair arid as safe a field to European -emigrants at this moment as they have ever dour> ; and there is no reason why these settlements should not receive the only thing of which they stand greatly in need — a fair share of the surplus population of England. Mr Butler is a gentleman of University education and cultivated taste, who, in 1859, went out on board an emigrant ship to s ek his fortune in the Canterbury settlement; and this little volume, published at the instance of his friends, is founded principally upon the letters and journals of hjs first year in that colour. The book is slight and somewhat rambling, as might be expected xnitl^-r -tlie circumstarices ; but it is written with spirit, is easy to read, and deserves a somewhat larger circulation than it is likely to enjoy. It is too common-place to be very amusing, and too incomplete to be very instructive ; while, from its very nature, it is hardly capable of rendering much service to inteniling colonists, although one or two chapters there are, on the conditions of •success and the nature of life in the settlement, which deserve their attention. The author's inclination is evidently to regard matters in their most pleasant aspe ct ; and, therefore, if his readers judge by his tone rather than by his facts, they would be in danger of grievous disappointment if, iv reliance on his impressions of the settlement, they should venture to follow his example. Even four months spent on board ;.n emigrant ship did not weary him, and he contrived to find matter for amusing letters in the incidents of a most monotonous voyage, duriug which he but once or twice caught sight of land. Passing t!) rough the tropics in November, lie does not seem to have b :en much pleased with them, lie pronounces the Southern Cross a delusion — "an irrtiguiar kite turned upside down, with only three respectable stars and one very poor and very much out of place." in latitude 27° S., he complained greatly of the cold, though in the midst of summer : a -d when the thermometer stood at fifty, rhe passengers congratulated, themselves on a warm day. The experience of an equatorial calm also dispelled many magnificent illusions : — " We knew that the weather about the line was often calm, but had pictured to ourselves a gorgeous sun, iiolden sunsets, cloudless sky, and sea of 'the deepest blue. On the contrary, such weather is never known there, or only by mistake. It is a gloomy region. Sombre sky and sombre 1 sea. Large cauliflower-headed masses of dazzling cumulus tower in front of a back-ground of lavender-colored satin. There are cloud.-* of every shape and size. Th** sails idly flap as the sea rises and fails Witn a heavy, regular, but windless sweil. Creaking yards and groatiing rudder seem to Jameut th t they cannot j>et on. The horizon is hard aud black, save when blent softlj' into the sky upon one. quarter or another by a rapidly-approaching squall. A puff of wind. " Square the yards ! " The ship stirs again ; another — she moves slowly onward ; it blows — she slips through the water ; it blows hard — she runs ; very hard — she flies ; a drop of rain — the wind lulls; three or four more of the size of half-a-crowo. — it falls very light;, it rains hard, and then the wind is dead ; whereon the rain comes down, in a torrent which those must see who would believe. The air is so highly charged with moisture that any damp thing remains damp, and any dry thing dampens. The decks are always wet. Mould springs up anywhere, even on the very boots which one is wearing; the atmosphere is like that of a vapour bath, and the dense clouds- seem to ward off the light, but not th e h e at of th e s u n . The d r ea ry nfbnotony of such weather 'affects the spirits of all, and even the health of some. One poor girl, who had long beeri consumptive, but who apparently • had -railied much, during the, voyage, seemed to give way suddenly as soon asvve had; been a day in this belt of cairns, and. four days after we lowered her over the ship's side into the deep." Mr Butler .reached Port Lytileton, the harbor of Chiistchurch, towards the

end of January,. 1860,., that is, in. this middle 6i summer. " The- first aspect of the country did not seem attractive. 1 The scenery was monotonous, the plains; vast and unbroken, /and the "dißtant" mountains even in shape and. far from picturesque — 'the whole forming "a sort, of cross between the plains of XiOmbardv and the feus of North Cambridge-, shire." The want of wood which char-' acterises Australasia — the mark, per--haps, of a geological era earlier than our own, of a country still unfinished by the hand of nature — is a drawback to irs beauty not easily to be compensated. The bush is beautiful, but is composed chiefly of evergreens, and affords little timber; in many localities there is even a want of fuel.- ''.The. herbage is much inferior to our own, two acres being, on a run, the allowance of each sheep, while land laid down in English grass is said to support five or, six sheep to the acre. Th° life of the settlers is like the country — hard, practical, and unpicturesque. One of Mr Butler's earliest visits was paid to four gentlemen — one of them a Cambridge man who had taken honors — living at a little farm of their own, with neither boarded floors nor chairs, and with a" very lii-nited supply of household goods of any sort, having no seivant, and taking it in turns to cook and wash. There lie enjoyed a hearty meal of potatoes and pCas fried together. la another place he found the ordinary fare to consist of cold boiled meat and cold tea poured out of the kettle: Here and there was to be. found a station belonging to some rich settlor, to which European comforts had made their way ; but, for the most part,' it is clear that for the first few years, of his" life in Canterbury a man must makeup bis mind to very bard work and harder' fare. The colony is no place for men who are dependent on luxuries, or even ou ordinary comforts ; nor does it seem to u>, even from the somewhat rosecolored statements of Mr Butter, that it is a place well suited to any one who has civilised tastes and a chance of getting on at home. For men, bowever, who can bear hard work/and who detest confinement within doors, while blessed with a robust constitution, a love of fresh air, and a talent for turning their hands to anything, there are probably few better abodes. Canterbury seems to have given refuge to many men of good family and high education ; and a gentleman who goes out thither may have a fair chanca of finding eniplbym-nt with settlers who have not lost in the roughness of colonial life the refinement and good manners of their youth. For men with a small capital the settlement certainly has great temptations; the regular interest of money being from ten to fifteen per cent, and the investments, if not very nnmeious, extremely, profitable. Mr Butler does not speak encouragingly of farming, in the English sense of the word. It may be carried on profitably by men who, having begun as laborers, have acquired a3 much jiroiind as they and their family can manage, and who cultivate it themselves ; but capitalist-farmers, in a country where there is so little demand for farm produce, and where wages are enormously high, can hardly find their business a paying one. A. man too poor to stock a run, which would cost about £5000 or £6000, will do best to invest his money in buying sheep, and letting them to a "squatter" whose run may not be fuljy stocked. He will receive some 10 per cent, on his capi a! in the shape of wooj-money, and his capital itself will increase by 40 per cent, every year, that being his share of the increase of the flock ; so that, at the end of seven years, he will have received in wool-money 160 per cent, ou his original stock, and will have, besides rhe original number of sheep of eight years old, which are worth very little, thrice that number of animals, in the very prime of life — all the risks and losses fa!. ing upon the squatter, excepting always the chance of a fall ;in the value of sheep. Still higher I profits are to be made by taking a run. The laud available for this purpose i* I all occupied ; and the leases will expire [by law in 1870. But as. the land is not required for cultivation, the leases are pretty sure to be renewed when their term expires, though probably afc an increased rental ; and Our author's advice to all who have the means is to buy the goodwill of a run, stock it with sheep enough to produce in a few years as many as it will ' feed, and devote themselves to sheep farming, in the confidence of being worth, in a few years, 30 per cent, per annum on their original capital. To lay down a lar^e area in English grass may ho more satisfactory, but it involves a greater original outlay, and slower, if larger, returns. But the life of a New Zealand sheep-farmer is by no means an easy one. Independently of all minor troubles, of the incessant.vigilance required, and the tremendous labor of shearing a " mob' 1 of several thousand sheep where hands are so scarce,' : he lives in ccntinual terror of that horrible scourge — *■ the scab." In Canterbury, the strictest rules are in .forces to prevent the spread of this cvil -•■; but in the neighboring " ; Province of Nelson less care is shown, and sheep on their passage thence are constantly diffusing ihe dreaded infection. On the appearance of this scourge, the whole " ■mob,'' •of perhaps 10,000 sheep must be ••'dipped" in a preventive mixture of tobaccowater and sulphur— -a most troublesome ; process, for Hie mi xture m us it be heated, and fuel is very scarce. If a single sheep ; escape j he may have the disease, and may infect his fellows,: so that the whole work must be done ;over again. Then, if your sheep, while liable % to suspicion, trespass on another run, you must dip your neighbor's mob as well as your owu. This disease is the terror of the squatter, on whom

it is certairTtd' inflict severe injury, and roayv,encail- absolute ■ ruin';. . b'tit, as yet, 'no, precautions 'seethed to- have proved effectual"' to * .prevent "'^its "diffusi«jn. '"Another, but much • loss serious, torriaent is the tulu, a herb which grows abundantly, on ' New' 'Zealand pastures, ,and which, when eaten on. an empty stomach, is poisouods both to sheep and cattle, though harmless if. taken while the stomach-is full of. more wholesomefood. Afterbein^penned forany purpose in the yards, the sheep on their release are furiously hungry, and- if let -loose" where the -tutu abounds, they feed greedily, on it, and are immediately attacked with apoplexy. We have seldom heard of a more curious peculiarity in the action of any poisonous plant ; but Mr Butler gives this account of the properties of the tutu as a matter yrell-kno^vn to all New Zealand squatters., Fortunately, the plant dies ■ away in the winter, and on that account, when possible, it is preferred to brinjj; the cattle into the yards, Only in that season. It is -worth notice that the most effectual method of improving a New Zealand pasture is that adopted by nature on the American prairies — to burn the dry herbage in early spring, making room for a tender and juicy crop in its place. When a run is fully stocked this is nob necessary, as the sheep then keep the grass cropped close; bat at first it see us to be the only mode of insuring them an ample supply of fresh grass during the summer. The burning destroys, moreover, a great quantity of very troublesome plants — o[ which the most notorious bear the names of Irishman and Spaniard, whose sharp thorns and spikes are lar^e and frequent enough to be a terror to iiorses, and even to their riders, when forced to pass through them. ( Sensible and readible as .this Tittle volume is, we ha;.dly think that Mr. Butler's friends acted wisely in advising him to publish, at so early a period, his impressions of New Zealand life. Twelve months is, a very short time to learn the character and judge the prospects of a colony '; and it is no fault of the author's if his work is slight -and imperfect. But we shall have more satisfaction in reading, two or three years hence, the records of his more mature experience, -if he shall Lhink i hem worth giving to the public ; and, we believe that they would find more general favor than the presenc graceful but somewhat trifling little book.