A few minutes later, our eccentric chum was quietly sitting on the prostrate and helpless carcase of his late antagonist. With his usual dainty care he was ridding himself of the dust and dirt that had soiled him when he fell. The Wairoa man was regarding him in blank astonishment. Clearly, Dandy Jack was an entirely new species of the genus homo to him. Thus spake the bull-fighter, with elaborate affectation of languor and softness—
"Look here, old fellow! You don't understand what a bull is. I'll tell you. It's a thing that some people look at from the safe side of the fence, and that other people take by the horns."
This was hardly fair upon the giant, perhaps. But after his doughty deed, Dandy Jack was to be excused if he improved the occasion, and revenged himself for the sneer that had previously been cast upon him.
Oh! we are getting on fast and famously now, with our farm. The stumps on the first clearing are now completely rotten; so we have pulled them out, piled them in heaps, and burnt them. This clearing is ready for the plough. Besides, there is a piece of flat, marshy ground below our shanty on the left, and this was only covered originally with flax, swamp-grass, and small shrubs. In the dry season we have burnt this off as it stood. The soil is not deep, but it is good, and we shall plough this in with the other. There will be about fifty acres of plough land altogether, and twice as much more next year, or the year after.
We have borrowed a plough and harrows from a neighbour, and are going to work. Ploughing is quite a new industry up here. There are some of the settlers round who have got lands under plough before this; but not to any great extent. To us it seems to open up a boundless vista of opulence, and there is no end to our speculations, and to the general excitement in our shanty.
Wheat! We must grow it, of course; and a flour-mill at the township is an imperative necessity. Somebody must start one, and that quickly. Why should we go on eating Adelaide flour, when we are growing wheat ourselves? They have reaped sixty and eighty bushels to an acre, in the South Island, and their average is thirty! So Old Colonial tells us. Well, our land is richer than theirs, and our climate is better too, so much cannot be gainsaid. Ergo, we shall have better crops. South Island corn has been sold in London at a profit; and has been judged first-class in quality. Ergo, again, ours must infallibly top the markets of the world. That is, what we are going to grow, you understand.
Then there is the great sugar question. Government is always offering divers incentives to new industries. It has offered a bonus of £500 to whomsoever produces the first fifty tons of beet-root sugar in New Zealand. That is, over and above what the sugar may fetch in the market. We say, why should not we go in for it? So many acres of beet, a crushing mill, a few coppers and some tubs, and there you are! Wealth, my boy! Wealth!
But O'Gaygun has misgivings. "This is not a whate-growin' counthry," he declares. It is far too rough and hilly. There are too many difficulties in the way. You can grow wheat to a certain extent, of course. The North can produce enough for its own consumption, and more. It will pay as one among other operations and productions. But we must not think of it as our principal or staple industry.
And then as to sugar. You must have a couple of hundred acres of beet at least, to begin with. A mill and appliances that are to be of real use would cost £2000 or so. Your bonus would be but a small thing if you got it. If all the farmers in the district were to combine to grow beet-root on every acre they could plough, and nothing else, even then it would hardly pay the sugar-mills, or possibly the farmers either. Stick to cattle and sheep, to pigs and potatoes, "Ontil ye're able to give ye're attintion to fruit. Fruit! Whativver ye can do wid it, that's what this counthry's made for! Wine! an' ile! an' raisins! an'——"
"Oh, shut up, O'Gaygun! Get out, you miserable misanthrope!"