Nevertheless, I think our Irish chum was about right in what he said, after all, especially in the last part of his remarks.
Dandy Jack had been training horses, and Old Colonial had been gentling bullocks; so we had a choice of draggers for the plough. We ploughed in those fifty acres, fenced them round, and put in potatoes for a cleaning crop, to thoroughly break up the old turf. We hope to get two crops in the year. The second will be maize and pumpkins. Then, next year, wheat.
The new-ploughed land is surveyed with rapture by us; but it is something different from an English field, after all. The ground was so irregular and rough; our beasts were not too easy to manage; and then—but this is unimportant—it was our first essay at ploughing. The furrows are not exactly straight, and there is a queer, shaggy look about them. But the potatoes are in, and a crop we shall have, no doubt about it. What more can possibly be needed?
I have mentioned that we have several enclosures that may be termed gardens. So we have, and what they produce fully bears out O'Gaygun's opinion, as to this being essentially a fruit country. Of course our spade industry gives us all the vegetables we require, when we lay ourselves out for it. The worst of growing anything except roots is the immense amount of weeding required; the weeds spring in no time; and they are of such a savage sort in this fertile land.
We grow large quantities of melons—water-melons, musk-melons, rock-melons, Spanish melons, pie-melons, and so on. Also, we grow marrows and pumpkins in profusion, as the pigs are fed on them as well as ourselves. These plants do not want much weeding. They may be grown, too, among the maize. Kumera, or sweet potatoes, we grow a good deal of; also many other vegetables, when we think we have time to plant them.
But in fruit we excel. There is a neighbour of ours who goes in for tree-culture exclusively, and who has a nursery from which he supplies Auckland. To him we owe a greater variety than we should otherwise have, perhaps.
First, there are peaches. We have a great number of trees, as they will grow from the stone. We eat them in quantities; pickling, preserving, and drying them sometimes. But the principal use to which we put them is to fatten our pigs. We have several kinds of peaches, coming on at different seasons. The earliest kind are ripe about Christmas, and other sorts keep on ripening to March or April. Then we have some few apricots, nectarines, plums, cherries, loquats, etc., all yielding bounteously.
The last are a very delicious fruit, ripening about October or November. Figs we have till late into the winter, and they begin again early; we are very fond of them. Oranges, lemons, and shaddocks grow fairly well, and are fruiting all the year round. Apples do badly, being subject to blight, though the young trees grow rapidly, and, if freely pruned, will yield enormous crops. To obviate the blight we keep a constant succession of young trees to replace those that are killed. Pears are not subject to the blight, and do well. Grapes are very luxuriant; and, no doubt, this will be a wine-country in the future. Already, some people at Mangawai have made good wine, and have started a little trade in it. Of strawberries, guavas, Cape gooseberries, and other small fruit we have a little. The former fruit so plenteously here, that the leaves are entirely hidden by the clusters of berries and blossom. The second is a bush; and the last a plant like a nettle, which sows itself all over. The fruit is nice.
Both the gardens and the clearings are subject to a horrible plague of crickets. They are everywhere, and eat everything. But turkeys and ducks fatten splendidly on them, acquiring a capital gamey flavour. Cricket-fed turkey would shame any stubble-fed bird altogether, both as to fatness and meatiness and flavour. We have hundreds of turkeys wild about the place, which keep down the crickets a good deal. Although we eat them freely, they increase very rapidly, like everything else here. The worst of it is they will not leave the grapes alone, and if they would the crickets won't, which is a difficulty in the way of vine-growing. But notwithstanding that, some of us are convinced that wine-making is the coming industry of the Kaipara. Then there is the olive, and the mulberry for serici-culture. Both these things are to come. Experiment has been made in growing them, but that is all as yet. Tobacco, too, will have its place. It grows well; and the Maoris sometimes smoke their own growth. We prefer the Virginian article. A man at Papakura has done well with tobacco, we hear. Government has bonused him, so it is said; and his manufactured product is to be had in all the Auckland shops—strong, full-flavoured stuff; wants a little more care in manufacture, perhaps.
Tobacco, like some other things we have tried—hops, castor-oil, spices, drugs, and so on—needs cheap labour for picking. That is the sine quâ non to success in these things. And for cheap labour we must wait, I suppose, till we are able to marry, and to rear those very extensive families of children, which are one of the special products of this fruitful country, and which are also such aids to the pioneer in getting on.