e of the
reasons why we prefer bush-land to open-land for pioneer farming.

There is a standing controversy waged among settlers, as to whether it
is better to take up such land as ours or to go in for a tract of open
fern-land. On open lands you can easily clear the ground, and, though it
will not, as a rule, yield grass for mere surface-sowing, yet the plough
can be put into it within a year or two. But the cost of fencing it is
much higher; and the open-land farmer must wait longer for returns such
as will keep him. He has no bush-feed for cattle as we have, and it is
cattle that the pioneer relies on for his support at first. It is eight
or twelve years before the bush-farmer gets a chance of ploughing; but
then his cattle keep him going from the outset. Also, our burnt
clearings will yield us good grass for surface-sowing, which will feed
sheep until the stumps have rotted and the plough can be used. The sum
of it is that open-lands will pay a man with good capital quicker, while
bush-lands are the only possible thing for such poorer folk as
ourselves.

We send steers to Auckland market two or three times a year. Once or
twice we have driven them overland, a distance of eighty miles or so by
the map. This is not so far, certainly; but then there are no proper
roads, and most of the way lies through thick bush. There is a faint
apology for a bridle-track through the forest, not very easy to find,
which strikes the Great North Road about twenty miles from here. And
this same Great North Road, in spite of a pretentious title, and also in
spite of being marked in the maps with a heavy black line, as though it
were a highway of the Watling Street description, is just a mere
bridle-track, too, hardly discoverable at all for the greater portion of
its length.

Two or three of us ride along these tracks with the cattle. One or two
have to be most of the time on foot, while the third leads their horses.
They are plunging through the otherwise impenetrable scrub after dogs
and cattle, which last will not keep the line. The whole journey takes
about a week. We camp down at night, and half the next day is taken up
with hunting for some of the beasts that have strayed. Usually one or
two are lost altogether before Auckland is reached.

This sort of thing hardly pays, unless a considerable number of beasts
have to be sent at once; and then the steers have lost condition before
they can be got to market. I have had some exper