FROM EARLY TIMES

Sun (Auckland), Volume 1, Issue 32, 30 April 1927, Page 18 (Supplement)

FROM EARLY TIMES

Aucklander’s Meat Market

THE SPIRiT OF PROGRESS A dug-out laden with pork and fish drawn up on the waterfront—a settler cutting down a beast suspended from the overhanging b<jugh of a convenient tree. Imagine both these serenes and you have before you a picture of the avenues through which early Auckland satisfied its meat requirements. Cruss, certainly, but sufficient for the needi of the day.

From the earliest times pork always constituted a large item of trade between the Maori and pakeha trading on these coasts, and, in later days, the principal settlements proved an attractive market for the native seller of live pigs, and regular consignments were sent in on the small trading s'hooners from the pas along the coast. THE FIRST SALEYARDS Although butchers’ shops were opened in Auckland as soon as settlement warranted them, for many years there was no central market where the settler could dispose of his stock or the butcher satisfy his requirements. Until the originators of the present firm of Alfred Buckland and Sons established a fat stock yard adjoining what is now the busiest part of Newmarket, and a year or so later Hunter and Nolan, the firm which eventually sold to the New Zealand Loan and Mercantile Agency Co., opened a yard at the junction of the Great South and Manukau roads, all fat stock was bought and sold by private treaty. Buckland’s ultimately moved to a site cn the Great South Road adjoining the present Remuera railway station. In those times sale day was the feature of the week. Buyer and seller made a picnic of it. An hotel adjoined Hunter and Nolan’s yard, while liuckland’s made up for a deficiency in this direction by holding a conditional licence. At one of the yards, too, buyers were saved the labour of walking round the beef pens. They sat in a roofed-in cattle ring while the stock was paraded in the centre, much after the same style that pedigree saies aro conducted in the main centres today. Larg> holding paddocks extended on both sides of the Great Road almost into Newmarket. .Such a condition of affairs prevailed until about 1910. Fat and store stock values for the Auckland district were net at the weekly sales held at these two yards. A CHANGE OF VENUE From that year onward, however, n ' spirit of progress took a hand. As If by a wave of a wand the scene iiiungrd; the yards at Newmarket and l*« mimtji, wltii their adjoining wide .f<> . of bolding paddocks, gave way to shops and residences. Auckland's j

elite came to live at Remuera, while the fat stock market shifted to the present site at Westfield. These yards were, and still are, conducted conjointly by the three auctioneering firms operating in the district. Progress is still evident, however, and there is now a growing population of nearly 2000,000 to be fed. Now little store stock is sold at Westfield, * 2 main markets for this section having gradually moved into the back country of the province. It takes two

auctioneers for each firm, selling in different parts of the yards at the one time, to deal with the large offering of cattle, sheep and pigs, which come forward each Wednesday. Even Westfield, however, cannot supply the wants of the 100 odd butchers’ establishments operating in the district, and there is a large quantity of stock purchased directly from the farmers. One thing farmers have to thank Westfield j for, however. At no time do prices | for "rime stock fall below export | values, which are the only alternative ; of sellers in most other parts of the ]

Dominion. With Auckland’s growin population, a continuation of thj satisfactory state of affairs from tli farmers’ point of view is practical! assured. At the last meeting of the Christ church Poultry, Pigeon and Canar Club the secretary, Mr. R. Pearce, in ■ formed the members that the pigeo i club has made application for the re ij servation of 1,000 pens at the Diamon : I Jubilee ghow. The above will be record in the number of pigeon entrie at any show ever held in New Zealanc