PIONEERING THE PUMICE

New Zealand Listener, Volume 2, Issue 35, 23 February 1940, Page 10

PIONEERING THE PUMICE

The Editor, "The Listener," Sir, -- I was interested to read your review of "Pioneering the Pumice." In fact, it was the cause of my reading the book, for, though I had access to it, the book’s title was not encouraging, even to one interested in farming. However, I was pleasantly surprised, as apparently your reviewer was, to discover not just a mass of Statistics and a treatise on farming under difficuit conditions, but quite a fascinating literary broth of farming, politics, botany, anthropology, history, local body intrigues, humorous and serious reminiscences galore, and, above all, a host of strong opinions about almost everything under the sun. Indeed, Mr. Vaile’s tendency to swoop off from the subject into a discourse on some entirely irrelevant matter provides, for me, one of the most piquant features of the book. Like eating an excellent Irish stew, you are never quite sure what you will swallow next (not that J swallowed everything). At some of the things Mr. Vaile considers outstanding, I must admit to being puzzled. Space will allow but one example (and that may seem like pinpricking). I recall his supreme example of long hours on the job — 1 a.m. until 8 p.m. once while mustering. My experience of farming is paltry beside that of Mr. Vaile, yet, while dairying at the height of the season, I have worked from 3.30 a.m. till 8.30 p.m. as the regular thing. Yes, we stopped to eat, but-not for long, and I think Mr. Vaile did too. Such hours as those are certainly horrible, but they are not so very amazing. However, outstanding above all is the fact that Mr. Vaile is a versatile and conscientious hard worker who has carried out a great piece of pioneering. That he could have lived an easier life had he chosen tefiects to his credit. And, he has succeeded in the difficult task of making the story of a New Zealand farm interesting, amusing and human. Which brings us to a point. Despite your reviewer's admitted self-abasement, I think he is just a little hard on Mr. Vaile in parts. He hates everything the author says? Everything? I wonder — is it just possible he comes from the south? Certainly, I found many of Mr. Vaile’s opinions distasteful — even including the unkind comparisons *twixt north and south; many of his opinions I liked none the better for their air of complete finality. But, in the pioneering sphere, Mr, Vaile has done a

man’s job in the full sense of the phrase, and, as a wise physician who knows about these things said to me recently, " Very, very few of us are fully grown up in all respects."

Yours, etc.,

EFFIGY

Wellington, February 8, 1940.