Maori and Settler A Story of The New Zealand War

Excerpt: ... but to appoint me your grocer." Wilfrid laughed. "It will be a great advantage to us to be able to get our things so close at hand. I was wondering how people did in the back settlements." "They generally send their drays every two or three months down to the nearest store, which may, of course, be fifty miles off, or even more. Here, fortunately, you will not be obliged at first to have a dray, but can send any produce you have to sell down by water, which is a far cheaper and more convenient mode of carriage. You will not have much to send for some time, so that will not trouble you at present." "Oh, no. We shall be quite content if we can live Pg 183 on the produce of our farm for the next year or two," Wilfrid laughed. "It is," Mr. Mitford said, "an immense advantage to settlers when they have sufficient funds to carry them on for the first two or three years, because in that case they gain the natural increase of their animals instead of having to sell them off to pay their way. It is wonderful how a flock of sheep or a herd of cattle will increase if there is no selling. You may take it that under favourable circumstances a herd of cattle will nearly double itself every two years, allowing, of course, a large proportion of the bull calves to be sold off as soon as they arrive at maturity. Sheep will increase even faster. If you can do without selling, you will be surprised, if you start with say fifty sheep or ten cows, in how short a time you will have as many animals as your land will carry." "But what are we to do then, sir?" "Well, you will then, providing the country has not in the meantime become too thickly settled, pay some small sum to the natives for the right of grazing your cattle on their unoccupied ground. They cultivate a mere fraction of the land. In this way you can keep vastly larger herds than your own ground could carry. However, it is time to be turning in for the night. To-morrow we will start the first thing after...