Brighter Britain! (Volume 2 of 2) / or Settler and Maori in Northern New Zealand

by W. Delisle Hay

There are tracts of country, known as gum-fields, in which the kauri-gum is to be dug up most plentifully. These places are stretches of bleak moorland for the most part, though not invariably. The soil in them consists very much of a heavy yellow clay, loose and friable near the surface. It is impregnated with fragments and particles of gum, which may be found in numerous spots to occur in layers and collections of larger pieces, varying in size up to blocks the size of a man's body. It is not usual to collect pieces smaller than the closed fist—minuter fragments not being considered remunerative to the digger.

The gum is found just below the surface of the ground, and sometimes down to the depth of six or eight feet. The finding of it, collecting and bringing to market, affords a sufficiently profitable occupation to have constituted a distinct class of men, who go by the name of gum-diggers.

Gum-fields are poor lands usually, though some are adapted for settlement. The country lying between Riverhead, Helensville, and Ararimu, which I described when relating our journey up-country, is a fair example of a gum-field. But gum is also found in the kauri forests, round the roots of the trees, especially of old, partly decayed, or wholly dead specimens. It is also to be found pretty generally throughout all the land of the kauri. Of course it cannot be discovered everywhere, or in all soils, but traces of it will be apparent somewhere in any single square mile; and in every sort of land throughout the limit of the kauri's growth, gum will be found here and there. Thus, on our farm and in the surrounding bush, although these are distinctly not gum-lands, there are little patches of ground, of a few acres in extent, whence we have got a ton or two of gum at times.

It is worthy of remark that the fresh resin of the living trees is not of any commercial value. Great masses of gum are often found in forks and clefts of the trees, and about the roots; but of this, only a little of the latter is generally worth anything, the rest being soft and in a condition that renders it valueless. It seems that the gum must be buried underground for a considerable time, an unknown term of years, before it attains the degree of hardness and other qualities that merchants require.

I have been told that the Maoris collect the soft, fresh gum and bury it, so that they or their descendants may dig it up again after sufficient time has elapsed for it to undergo the requisite changes. Whether this is so or not I am unable to say of my personal knowledge. I have never met with any instance of the kind, and have strong doubts as to the forecasting care with which such a tale credits the Maoris. They are certainly not given to providing for a distant future in a general way.

It would seem that the deposits of gum in the soil are all that remains of ancient kauri forests. These must once have covered the open fern-lands, where no trace of them now remains, except rich gum-holes here and there. It would seem that the kauri had, in the course of ages, exhausted the soil on which they grew, of constituents necessary to their growth, and had then naturally died out in such localities. The existing forests are, of course, making new deposits, which will some day be available. Felling the trees necessarily causes a diminution of this, but possibly some means may yet be discovered of rendering the fresh, soft gum equally useful with the semi-fossil kind.

Kauri-gum is very like amber in general appearance, and is similar to it in chemical characteristics; but it is much more brittle, and hence is not of such value for ornaments. Many colonists amuse themselves with carving and polishing trinkets of gum, but they chip too readily to permit of their ever being of value. Kauri-gum has sometimes been fraudulently substituted for amber, but the better specimens of the latter have a yellow tint which is seldom seen in the New Zealand product. Our gum exists of various shades of brown and sherry-colour, both clear and clouded. The most highly-prized variety is colourless like glass, or nearly so, and some is found almost black, not unlike jet. Flies, fragments of moss, and so on, are occasionally seen embedded in it.

Kauri-gum was first brought into notice at the time of the first colonization, in 1840 and 1841. It was then collected chiefly by Maoris, and was sold by them to the store-keepers. Its value at that time was only £5 or £6 per ton; and about a hundred tons was all the annual export for some years.

Since then, however, an increasing demand for it arose in the United States. New York and Boston now take two-thirds of all the gum exported; and of what is sent home to England the greater part is re-shipped thence to American ports. The number of gum-diggers regularly employed is supposed to have exceeded four thousand at times; now they average some two thousand altogether. The amount of the export steadily increased from the first, until, in 1870-71-72, it reached to some fifteen thousand tons for the three years, valued at half a million sterling.