AGE-OLD COVENANT

New Zealand Listener, Volume 30, Issue 777, 11 June 1954, Page 9

AGE-OLD COVENANT

by

SUNDOWNER

MAY 15

NEVER call on Tip to help me to yard my sheep without remembering a remark made by someone somewhere that the ageold covenant between man‘ and dog was signed voluntarily and remains free of commitments on both sides. I don’t know whether dogs are

descended from wolves or from jackals or from both, but their first association

with man must have been brought about by self-interest. It must have paid dogs to follow human hunters and helped human hunters to have dogs chasing beside them. Hundreds of years no doubt passed before dogs had the wit to see that it was always worth while to follow men and before men realised that trailing dogs were a good defence against surprise at night. and their best chance against fast animals by day. How long it took for that mutual helpfulness to lead to a constant association it is of course impossible to say, but when it did happen it was something quite different from the association between men and_ other domestic animals. A horse begins as a

captive, passes through a period of slavery, and may, if it is lucky, approach but not quite reach the status of a man who has to report twice a day to the police. It is the same with elephants, camels, donkeys, mules and all other transport "animals that I can at present call to mind. Not one of them attached himself voluntarily to a man to begin, or stayed with him longer than man made him. Dogs chose men as deliberately as men chose dogs. Later, when they refused to work they often died, but men have often died for the same reason, and not often suffered no penalty at all. x. & =

MAY 20

! a MY father, who was over 40 before barbed wire was invented, spent his last 40 years cursing it at fairly regular intervals. I can’t remember a world without barbed wire, but living with it has not reconciled me to it or made me laugh at my father’s outbursts. As often as I rip my clothes on it or tear my

hands, I wish with the Texan quoted in Walter Prescott Webb’s book The

Great Plains, that "the man who invented barbed wire had it all wound around him in a ball and the ball rolled into hell." But clothes can be patched and skin left to grow again. It is the incurable injuries and irretrievable losses that make me properly mad-torn teats in cows, severed tendons:in horses, perforated flanks in dogs. When I saw Elsie from a distance today refusing a drink to her calf I thought it was just her way of teaching her baby that life is more than mother’s milk. When Will told me an hour or two later that she had a badly torn teat I remembered with sudden shame that I had removed a chain of fence when a similar accident happened two years ago and neglected to remove a second chain because that involved grubbing out some gorse. Now there is a very real risk that Elsie will remain a threequarters cow whatever I do to heal her. Although she is the victim of my negligence, it was an Illinois farmer who made that negligence so destructive. I don't know whether it is significant or not that he lived to be 93 and his rival inventor to be a hundred. It could mean, and I am ready to think that it does, that in those two cases the Devil looked after his own.

MAY 24

READ today in «an interview with a visitor from South America that two of the important dates in the history of Argentina are 1840 and 1848: 1840 because it was the year in which the first Lincoln sheep arrived, and 1848 because it brought the first Shorthorn bull. In New Zealand we remember, now and

again, the first dead sheep, we sent overseas in ice, but I have never heard of

any celebration of the arrival of living animals. There is no doubt a record somewhere of the first pedigree ram imported, and perhaps of the first pedigree bull, but it would ‘cause mild surprise if someone suggested that the dates should be public holidays, Sheep and cattle feed most of us and clothe most of us, build

our houses, bridge our rivers, and make our roads, but it does not occur to us that they deserve a day of our time occasionally, and our thoughts for what they are worth. They are more realistic in South’ America. The pioneers they celebrate there walked in on four legs and gave each State its character. In a few years there were more sheep and cattle than men (including the gauchos). In 50 years there were 20 times as many, and far more than half of them were English in origin. Here, too, our animals outnumber us now by 20 to one, but we are a little afraid to make a fuss about it. We would sooner have the mark of a sheep on our minds than carry a ram on our watch chains. Bg * Ba

MAY 28

‘| HERE must often have been as good years as this for autumn colours, but I can’t remember anything better. I have always supposed that what robs us of the colour northern countries enjoy in autumn is our autumn wind, but my pines, and even my macrocarpas, still bear the marks of a salt gale from the

sea that raged for three days and nights a few

weeks ago. Yet most of the deciduous trees have been showing warm colour for a fortnight. The poplars, I confess, are disappointing; but fruit trees (especially pears), chestnuts, elms, and silver birch, glow in the morning mist till the mist itself looks warm. Some of the fruit trees, unfortunately, have forgotten what season it is. I have seen blossom on apples, pears, and plums, and have been told that in the frost-free areas round Lyttelton Harbour the pear trees were recently white. No trees here have been as skittish as that, but one of our lilacs is in bloom. Inevitably, too, the prophets are busy. We are going to have a hard winter, they assure us. I never hear a gardener using the post hoc argument. It is never "This is happening because of that," but always "That will happen because of this." Prophecy, in spite of its risks, can never be disproved at the time. Afterwards no One remembers. (To be continued)