The Time My Father Bought a Farm

New Zealand Listener, Volume 18, Issue 462, 30 April 1948, Page 18

The Time My Father Bought a Farm

] Written for "The ier’

by.

L. M.

N.

LL always remember the time | my old man bought a farm | down Waiomu way. For a while we lived surrounded by 480 ‘acres of our own land. It did not matter on what part of the hill you stood the surrounding countryside looked like the Garden of Eden after the creation. My brother Bobbie once described it in fancier words than I could find: "The encircling hills, the great dome of the sky, star-lit at night and blue or cloud filled during the day, the dark green of the bush-clad slopes, the light green of the pasture land, the scattered tree-shaded farmhouses perched on hills like ours or tucked away in hollows, and dominating all incomparable Mt. Karioi-it was something to take the breath away. And as if this were not enough in front of the house there was an upper arm of the Whangaroa harbour, the mood of which changed With every hour." If I had ever thought about such things in those days the laws of economics would have seemed very strange to me. Some of our land was in bush, most of it was in gorse, blackberry and noxious weeds, and a part was in grass. It' looked pretty much like the grass in any. other place, but when consumed and digested by our cows that mysterious process that turns grass into butterfat failed to take place. Here we were happily situated in this excellent, spot, but due to this odd deficiency in the grass, or it may have been in the animals themselves, we had no money, none of those paper notes and silver discs which were apparently so necessary to existence. We had every good thing-health, and a beautiful place to live in, and a

boundless capacity for enjoyment, and a love of our fellowmen- but no hard cash. When Dad first saw this view he just naturally fell in love. with it. Another man might have been just as enthusiastic until he had had ‘time to do a little mature reflection, but that was not Dad’s style. Hearing that the place was for sale he went right in and bought it. It was just as if he had gone into a picture shop, and had asked for a pleasing landscape to be wrapped up = and handed to him. Dad did not stamp around looking for defects, he did not test the fertility of the soil, he _ hardly noticed the deplorable condition of the fences and outbuildings. It was as if he had said: "J like this place, and henceforth I will make my abode here." Dad just naturally took for granted that life in such a setting would be uncomplicated and full of simple pleasures.

E moved in a week after Dad first saw this place, and Dad was so proud of our view that right from the start he got into the habit of standing around and saying: "Just look at that view, will you? Just look at it!" One day he said something of this sort to Auntie Ella, but he picked an unfortunate moment .because Auntie was standing in six inches of cold mud with leaking gumboots on and she had just tried to leg-rope mean vixenish little Rosy who never permitted any mere human to impose this indignity upon her. My Auntie looked at the view slowly and deliberately, and she thought it was about time she gave her brother some advice. She said that when she looked at a view she liked to be sitting in a comfortable chair on a hotel verandah with her best clothes on and a few lamb chops tucked safely inside her. She advised Dad to leave this starvation place and go on relief, and she said that an unvaried diet of dried peas and boiled rice was almost sure to have a deleterious effect on the human system. My old man took no notice of this advice, and just for, the record he did not go to school long enough to find out what deleterious meant. Dad. was not by ‘any means a lazy man, and sometimes he would almost work himself to death, but he had two favourite hobby-horses and he rode them for all he was worth. One was "looking over the place," and the other was "planning for the future." His favourite dreams were (1) that one morning he would go into the shed and find that by some miracle the old rusty junk had been replaced by a big yellow tractor and (2) that one day by another miracle

he would acquire some capital in the form of a thousand-pound note. Dad had a wonderful faith in the fertility of our soil, and he said that with the help of this tractor and the capital he would be able to turn our property into a paradise that would support a dozen families. He was always crossing and recrossing the farm to "see how things were getting on," and before we had been there very long he got to know the whole 480 acres like the back of his own hand. He said that it was 480 acres of the most. beautiful country in the world.. When Dad got that big yellow tractor he was going to start right in using it in a furious burst of energy, but he said over and over again that he was never geing to put "her" in the bush. The bush he loved best of all, and it was his intention to preserve it for posterity. My old man looked on tractors with almost the same reverence with which some people regard pianos, and I guess he would have gone plumb crazy with joy if he had ever got one. Somehow it did you good to see him standing in the bush, and looking down at the Shag Pool, through the brown tree trunks, thinking about the day when people would drive up to look at our bush standing in the middle of the valley like a living memorial to the past. In more prosaic moments Dad would stroll over to the Top Paddock to ruminate about the best situation for the new cowshed and pig pens, and as he lovingly examined the willow-lined creek (continued on next page) "a4 ax ~

(continued from previous page) that formed our western boundary he would think, about the pumping system he planned to install. When Dad talked about these things you felt that they might happen at any time, perhaps tomorrow or the day after. Dad had the land and the ideas and the will, and he lacked only the money with which to buy the tools. I often think my father must have belonged to the race of men who inhabited the earth before "money was invented because he just did not seem to understand it. Sometimes you meet a human being like that. * * * NE day two men called at our farm, and tried to interest Dad in machinery. Dad was willing to be very interested in everything they had, but when he talked about paying later in the year they changed the subject. One of the men mentioned that he was just out from England, and Dad and he started yarning about the pioneers and the many curious features of our old farmhouse, which was 80 years old. The Englishman tho.ght the depression ‘would soon lift, and he said he felt sure we would have better luck when better prices came. This encouragement sort of lifted Dad up, and he told the man about one day hoping to get the tractor. The Englishman recommended a certain make which he said would be ideal for our type of country. Dad had always dreamed of a yellow tractor, and the picture which the man showed Dad in the machinery catalogue and which we children saw when we. peeped over his shoulder was of a big yellow tractor, just like the one we had always visualised when Dad described it. The Englishman was fascinated by everything about our farm, and he asked Dad if he and his friend could look at the bush. When they came back the ginger man was pleased because he had shot a hawk, and the Englishman was trailing a piece of clematis behind him which he said he would like to show to his wife, only he was afraid it would die before he got it home. The nice friendly Englishman sort of faded out of the picture now because the other man wanted to talk business with Dad. He said that he had noticed that we had cords and cords of manuka in our bush which was very easy of access, and that the dairy factory was on the market for it. Dad seemed to be rather dazed by this man’s rush of words, which were

punctuated every now and then by | "cords" and "royalties" and "terms." = = AT last the two men got in their car, ' ~~ @nd drove ‘off. Before he left the Englishman gave my brother Bobbie a pocket knife, and when the ginger man saw this he gave me and my brother a shilling each. Then he looked very significantly at our ragged garments and thin legs and dug in his pockets again, and this time he gave us two shillings. When Dad saw the way the ginger man looked at us a deep red flush came up under his skin. The last thing the ginger man said was that he would speak to Mr. Spencer of the dairy factory about our manuka, but I doubt whether Dad heard him, Dad stubbornly stuck out that our bush was one day going to be a park, perhaps a national one, and he refused to make any move about Mr. Spencer, although my mother begged him to for the sake of his children. As time went by things got much worse for us, and my brother Bobbie got a cold which left him with a nasty cough. My father loved Bobbie better than he loved himself, and one day he went to Waiomu, where he saw Mr. Spencer, and acquired a shiny new axe. Next day he went into the bush and started cutting it down. I think that night. Dad felt like a man who had accidentally thrown a stone through a stained glass window. The clearing in the bush where the trees had stood grew biggers and bigger, and after a while all kinds of noxious weeds grew amongst the stumps. If you cut them down they grew again. It was like a scar that would not heal. This kind of work was far too hard for Dad, and eventually he became ill, and we had to leave the farm. The last thing we saw of it as the lorry pulled out on to the road was the enamelled sign, "Hilltop Farm," which Dad had somehow or other acquired. This sign on our rickety old gate used to make some people laugh. Another man acquired "Hilltop Farm," and to*this man the miracle of the big yellow tractor and the thousandpound note had happened. To-day the farm that Dad bought down Waiomu way is almost as neat and efficient as a well-run. office. Where Dad’s "park" once stood there is a grassy sward on which sheep and. cattle contentedly graze. Dad’s sign still hangs on the gate, but it is neatly nailed to a nice new gate, and looking at it you don’t laugh or feel sad any more. \