THE RAINS CAME

New Zealand Listener, Volume 34, Issue 873, 27 April 1956, Page 22

THE RAINS CAME

by

SUNDOWNER

MARCH 22

HE sensation of the last ten days has been the rain, and the changes that have come since the first shower. Though the fall here was less than two inches-163 points on the most exposed place in my garden-it was distributed over three days with no drying winds between the showers or for some days afterwards. Ten davs later

the ground is_ still moist-dug ground still dark-and grass is be-

ginning to grow where none has been seen for 40 days, and very little for 100 days, If I were a dairy farmer I would still be worried; but Elsie has always been able to live on water and rubbish-not only live but, when she is dry, keep fat-and Betty, though I blush to see her bones, somehow or other extracts three or four gallons of milk from every bale of Jim’s hay, Part of the somehow is apples and potatoes, cauliflower leaves, summer prunings, bolted parsley, and other odds and ends thrown over his fence by Will. But the miracle remains-50 pounds of rich milk every week from less than 100 pounds of dry hay. I find myself wondering when I look at her how far down the nutrition scale a cow has to fall before it dies of starvation, as thousands do every year in Australia. Or would the cattle in Australia survive drought if there were enough bores to give them all a drink every day? In Canterbury this seems to have been the worst drought so far recorded, It has lowered wells, dried up creeks and springs, reduced the flow of rivers, eaten up the autumm@ eed, ruined some crops, and emptied many milk buckets, But it has not been a drought marked by ruin and death. No farmer, as far as I know, has walked off his land. No one has lost his sheep or his cows or all his potatoes or all his hay.-It has not lasted long enough or come late enough to make it useless to sow autumn" wheat. Sheep worth three pounds have sold for two, some worth thirty shillings have heen sacrificed for ten. On Banks Peninsula it has been difficult to get rid of cows at any price at all. In some cases farmers have had to go short of baths in case their stock went short of drinks. Drought has worried them, reduced their incomes, knocked holes in their reserves. Here

and there a man just starting or one just emerging into solvency, has been forced to drop everything and _ start again. I have heard some sad stories, but no tragedies. And already, after eight or ten weeks, it is over, Australia, in only a little more time, has had three devastating floods, and may still, before autumn comes again, have deserts where there are now mud-holes and bogs.

MARCH 24

CAN never quite make up my mind when I dip into Tutira-something I do quite often-whether it is a tribute to Guthrie-Smith’s courage and good sense that he was able to burn off his fern and manuka or a sign that, like the rest of us, he could compromise with his principles when his pocket was involved. It is the same question

as i found myself asking B nae Edgar Stead. spent so

much of his time and money preserving and watching birds, became president of a gun club. Because I can’t get my own life straight in those ways I suppose I clutch at signs of crookedness in my betters. I am not sure that Edgar Stead was ever aware of the conflict, but Guthrie-Smith saw it with increasing pain as his sins mounted. He was 58 when he wrote Tutira, 65 when he prepared the second edition, and almost at the end of his life when the third edition was finished, and in all three issues he presents himself sadly as a burner, slasher, poisoner, and ruthless destroyer of cover when he had to decide between birds and_ solvency. Even if I had clean hands myself I could not criticise him, He had to conquer or be conquered, and if he had allowed himself to be driven off Tutira no bird would have been safe, But it was a pitiful dilemma for a man whose instinct was "to devastate a shire to save a species"; animal or vegetable. |

HEN I was about to go to bed last night I saw a light moving along one of my hedges. A little later I saw it from another window moving in another direction, and this time I could see that it was a torch. I then went to bed and forgot it till half an (continued on next page)

MARCH 26

(continued from previous . page) hour ago, when Helen came in and asked me if she had disturbed: me. She had promised to take a hedgehog to

school for a Natural History lesson, and had searched .for a

long time-first along the roads by car, and then in the paddocks-before she found one. Then she came on two near her own back door, one a very big and seedy old male, and the other a baby not long weaned. It interests me that she found a baby so late in the season. Though I have only once, as far as I can remember now, seen a nursing hedgehog with a litter, it was in the spring, and I am sure that most litters are born in New Zealand well before Christmas, In Britain, according to the _remarkable book on British mammals written by L. H. Matthews, hedgehogs sometimes produce two litters in a year, one in spring and the other in autumn, but the second depends a good deal on the season. Here the same rule no doubt applies; but since every hedgehog I have seen for weeks has seemed to be hungry, thirsty, and uncertain on its legs, I am surprised that breeding should still be going on. So small a specimen as Helen found last night can only be a month or six weeks old, and since the gestation period is only a month, mating must have taken place about the middle of January. Matthews, by the way, gives. three methods of cooking hedgehogs: The classic way of cooking a hedgehog is to gut and stuff it with sage and onion, sew it up, and plaster it over with clay; then suspend it over the fire with a length | of twisted worsted as a roasting jack, and when the clay cracks it is done. But this is not the best way, because although the . spines come away with the clay when it is broken open, the smaller hairs are not completely removed. It is better to singe off the prickles and hairs in the fire after gutting the animal, and then to scrape it with a very sharp knife and roast it without clay. Another method is to gut and skin the animal, wash it well, and simmer it with seasoning in a little water for several hours. When cold the whole sets to a jelly, and the "pudding" can be cut into slices like pressed meat. This is very good. Since I am a conservative meat eater myself, one who has not yet learnt to eat pork and has only recently been persuaded to try poultry, my juices do not flow for Matthews. I give his recipes for the benefit of those who hanker after new delights. (To be continued)