TWO BREEDS OF GOATS?

New Zealand Listener, Volume 16, Issue 404, 21 March 1947, Page 18

TWO BREEDS OF GOATS?

BLACKBERRY AT THE BAY

HEN I asked a roadman to tell me the story of the goats between Bay View and Morere he thought I was being smart. But when he asked me which goats I meant I thought he was being smart and refused to be drawn. But he was serious.

"*You think ['m just. trying to be funny; but I’m not. Why did you'ask me

about the goats?" "Because I’ve seen more goats than sheep. I want to know, why." "Exactly. So do I. This country’s lousy with them. Do you. know why?" "That is what I’m asking you." "And I’m telling you it’s because we have two breeds of goats on this coastgoats with four legs that are supposed to eat blackberry, and goats with two legs who believe that they do." "But don't they?" "Of course they do when they can’t get anything else. But did you see that mob in the clover back there by the homestead? Were they’ eating blackberry?"

"No, they were eating clover. That is one reason why I stopped to talk to you." "Wouldn't you think it would be a reason for using a gun? But it isn’t. I’ve seen them there every day this week. If you go too close to them they run down into the gully, but they're all back again in half-an-hour." "Right there by the homestead?" "Right there. They worship goats here. They think that if they had no goats the blackberry would push them into the sea. But every goat pushes a sheep into the sea and that doesn’t worry them." I drove on, thinking that he was right. But a few miles farther on I came to another roadman, and he was for goats and plenty of them. "You must have goats," he told me. "If you don’t the blackberry will beat you. Three years ago you could hardly walk up that face. Then a new man bought it and put on goats." "Did he fence them on?" "No, they come and go as they like." "But they must eat a lot of gress too?" "They don’t eat as Senubk grass as the blackberries do."

"You mean that with goats you can run some sheep and without them none?" "It comes to that in the end." x a * HE farmers I spoke to supported the second roadman and scoffed at the first. Goats, they told me, don’t eat blackberry and nothing else. There are, in fact, times when they don't eat blackberry at all. I had probably noticed that they were not eating much blackberry now. But if I came back in a month or two I would see them hanging about the blackberry patches all day, and if some runs had as many goats as sheep they would have fewer sheep still if they had no goats. "So goats," I said to one man, "are just cheap labour. They keep your country open at a lower price than scrubcutters?" "No, they do better than that. They clear country that scrub-cutters won't leok at. Anyhow, the more you cut blackberry the better it grows." "You can’t burn it?" "Yes, you can burn it. You can burn anything if you choose your time. But you burn everything else too, and the blackberry comes back. first. Fires have

come nearer to ruining New Zealand than anything else I know." "Well," I asked finally, "could you not breed more profitable goats?" "You mean Angoras?" Yes, goats that would grow a fleece while they were clearing your ground for you." "Perhaps we could, but I don’t think so. If they grew fleeces they would lose them on the blackberry. In any case, I

suspect that the nearer they are to sheep the smore they like grass. But I don’t know. I’ve not ‘thought about that. The goats we have bring us nothing and cost us nothing. It would be a big job to replace them by another breed and keep the breed pure." Two houts later I was looking down at Gisborne from the top of Wharerata Hill, and the goats had disappeared. I saw no more all the way to East Cape, and no blackberry.

LOCAL PRIDE

% By *% \/HEN I artived at Tolaga Bay I was ‘ told that the best place to camp was at the wharf. I had never heard of the wharf, could not see it, and had no idea where t6 look for it, and horrified an old resident by saying so. "Where do you come from?" he asked uneasily. "Wellington,"

"But you must have heard of our wharf in Wellington,

its the best coastal wharf in New Zealand. No matter how high the waves are they pass underneath. Everybody knows about it." | I should have said, "Of course. Now I remember. The wharf that everybody was talking about after the gale that wrecked Gisborne." But I said like a fool that Tolaga Bay when I left Wellington was not much more than a name to meé. However there is a Providence that looks after fools. When I reached thewharf I saw another man, nearly buts not quite as old, putting down a basket for crayfish. Knowing all about the wharf

by this time, and determined not to blunder again, I got in first. "This is a wonderful wharf you have here." "Yes it is. It cost a hundred thousand pounds and is completely useless." "What do you mean?" | "Just what I say. It cost all that. money and nobody uses it." "I thought all your wool «went out. this way and all your stores catne in." _ "Well you thought wrong. We get a little boat now and again from Gisborne and nothing else at all." "But you could send your wool this way. Your wharf is good enough, for anything." "It is good for nothing, I told you. No one uses it. The men who wanted it are all dead and their descendants use the road," (to be continued)