FARMS ON THE PLAINS

New Zealand Listener, Volume 3, Issue 65, 20 September 1940, Page 20

FARMS ON THE PLAINS

A Book For Ashburton

ASHBURTON, Its Pioneers and Its History, 1853-1939. By John Brown. Published by A. H. & A. W. Reed, for the Ashburton County’ and Borough Councils, as a Centennial Memorial. 755 p.p., with an index, Illustrated. 15/-. OHN BROWN, a farmer, of Ashburton, began some three years ago to write about his County for the "Ashburton Guardian." He wrote about farms and farmers, and the animals on the farms. About pioneers and those who came after. About local scenic resorts. About local bodies. Encouraged by the "Guardian," he developed his early articles on stud stock breeders into a series which became in its scope and detail a history of the Ashburton County. Its value as such was recognised in the County and outside it. As he explains in the preface, he was selected to compile the official Centennial history. By collecting all his newspaper articles, adding official records, and finishing off his researches where this was necessary, he has served the Ashburton County and Borough Councils, and the Wellington Centennial Committee, as well as any public body could expect to be served when it turns from grading roads to publishing books. ; Let us be frank. There is not much in the book for the literary connoisseur. There is, however, something for historians, and there is a great deal for

the people of the country about which the book is written. In this respect it is excellent material, likely to be as successful as those legendary newspapers, which make it a rule, issue by issue, that no day shall pass without the inclusion in their columns, of at least 50 per cent. of the names of their subscribers. Mr. Brown has been thorough in the same fashion. But he is by no means as dull as the local paper’s report of those who attended last night’s dance. His book is more than a record of facts; it is a personal record. It comes close to being an intimate personal record. He has made himself so engrossingly familiar with his material, his facts are so complete, that the reader will find himself reading about T. Dove, "who was appointed head stockman in 1869," as if Mr. Brown were Thomas Hardy and Mr. Dove some Hardy-wise yokel about to utter words of wisdom, "redolent of the soil." As it happens, Mr. Dove died at Longbeach, "and his son took his place in the store." "Ashburton," by reason of this atmos-phere-there is no other word for itis for the discerning reader more than a mere chronicle of events. The facts are all there, the names, the dates, the acreage, the length of the breeding line, the lists of local body officers, the statistics. Behind them Mr. Brown has put the Canterbury Plains. His "Stud Breeders," his "Pioneers," his "Beauty Spots of the Country," his road board, county council, borough council, are all part of the plains. John Grigg and Longbeach (to continue with Mr. Brown’s headings), Raymond Oakley, William J. Taylor, G. H. B. Lill, C. G. C. Harper, Alexander Marr, Alfred O. Silcock, John Fleming, Samuel Crosson, Arthur Grigg, Herbert Butterick, James Stewart, and a dozen others, all bred their stock on grass that grew from the Plains. His pioneers tilled the same land before them. His local bodies drove to their meeting through the same countryside. It is still the same changeless, flat, endlessly flat countryside now as it was then; a few more roads; telegraph lines now, headers and tractors; but still the Canterbury Plains, still wet and dismal under the sou’-wester, still hot and dusty when the wind blows through the funnel of the Rakaia Gorge. All through the book it is possible to see the lines of type in the 13-em column of the "Guardian." Mr. Brown and his editor believed in the personal touch: "For the time (he) has been going he has put up a magnificent record — a worthy son of worthy parents"; and "his is an absolutely fearless spirit, and there is no truer gentleman in the land .. ." But here again the book deserves better than a scrutiny of the lines and the words. Read between the lines and you will see families establishing themselves, growing up; crops taking hold and coming richly into ear; trees defying the rabbits and rising up to break the wind; ditches tapping streams; great trenches tapping rivers; double-rut tracks widening into roads that drive endlessly

straight over the horizons; shacks and shanties becoming cottages and homesteads and mansions. Mr. Brown may not have known it would happen, and his publishers might not have expected a market beyond the circulation limits first set by the "Guardian" for Mr. Brown’s material; but, intentionally, or unwittingly-it is easier to believe that the cunning was lacking -they have found at least one reader who devoured the book in delight that such simple tales should rouse such many-sided visions. Like the Canterbury Plains themselves, the book is flat. As with the plains, its flatness conceals its detail. If the traveller will stop his car by the roadside and look over the hedge, he will see the good earth and what is growing.