Chapter 3 - Experience Account
“I have made a promise. The arrangement stands,” wrote Fred to his Esther rather sadly. He has been accepted as a cadet on a farm at Meremere about 12 miles out of Hawera, but now he had been offered a position on a jersey breeder’s farm at Carterton at 25 shillings a week. It was quite near where Esther was teaching. There would be opportunities to meet during the long school term. But; his word had been given. “The arrangement stands”.
On the 19th August, 1912 a train journey took Fred to Hawera where he spent the night with Aunt Rose and her family in Princess Street and early next afternoon the buggy, driven by one of the girls of the family where he was to work, picked up the young cadet.
“I’ll tie my bike on the back,” Fred suggested, “Then I’ll be able to come in and see Aunt Rose when I have a Sunday off.”
It was a pleasant drive though not a fast one. There were steep slopes and every now and then Olive had to pull the horses to a walk to negotiate a mud hole that stretched right across the road.
“Dad’s not doing much on the farm now,” Olive told him. “My brother Griff will be your real boss. We have two herds of milking cows. Mr. Taylor and his wife milk one herd of 50 cows by hand. Sharemilkers will take over the other herd at the end of the month. They’ll use milking machines, but we’ll do it by hand till then.”
Olive was somewhat dismayed to learn that the new cadet had never milked a cow, but told him he’d learn soon enough when he had to.
“Griff has a government section about 15 miles from the homestead,” she said. “There’s mostly sheep on it and you’ll be mustering there when we start sheep work.” In answer to his question about church, he was told that there were three services a month, Methodist, Presbyterians and Anglicans taking turns to use the Meremere school room. Olive played the piano for all services. “The buggy usually goes,” she said, “but you can always ride if there isn’t work to be done on the farm.” The new cadet wasn’t sure he liked the sound of that. Surely there was no need to work on the Lord’s Day?
By the time they had reached the farm house, Fred had learned quite a lot about his duties. There were four young people at home, Amy and the 19 year old Olive who had come to meet him; Griff, a few years older than Fred himself, and young Alf who was supposed to go to school but often seemed to be needed on the farm.
Two married daughters lived near by. As he helped to unharness the horses in the semi-darkness, he felt that every item in his “experience account” would be fully earned.
There were 16 cows in on that 21st August and Fred was somewhat dismayed to find how his wrists and fingers ached. Without a word Olive milked most of them herself. Even feeding calves and pigs wasn’t as easy as it looked and it was seven o’clock before the young people were ready to go home for their tea. Fred had ridden his bicycle the mile or so down to the shed, but the hill back to the house was so steep he had to push it home. And it is difficult to push a bicycle up a slippery track carrying a billy of milk. Most of the time after that his much-loved bike stayed down in the shed.
Tomorrow when you go to bring in the cows that have calved, take that yellow dog,” said Mr. Williams that night. We’ll see if it can work.”
Fred knew that the stray had turned up at the farm a few days before and they had been unable to find an owner. Straying dogs are not welcome in sheep country in the spring time and they had tied it up with their own dogs. As Fred and Griff caught their horses Fred was glad he could ride, but he did hope that his mount would not do anything stupid.
Quietly they cut the cows and calves from the herd, when an old brindle cow saw the yellow dog. With a thundering bellow she lowered her head and went straight for it. In an instant, all the herd took up the cry and bucking, bellowing cows came hurrying from every corner of the field. “They’re mustering us”, thought Fred in dismay as the noisy mob surrounded the horses. The yellow dog ducked under his horse which stumbled but fortunately didn’t fall. Using whips and voices, the men kept the cows at a distance till eventually they lost interest and went off to graze. Then Fred and Griff were able to go back to the task of bringing home the cows that had calved. “Experience Account”, Fred wrote as he told Esther of the incident, but he did not tell her how dangerous the situation could have been.
By 1st September there were 32 cows in and he took 995 lbs of milk to the factory for the two days. That night they started the machines. “The machines do no harm to the cows, in fact they learn to like it”, Griff assured his cadet, though that first night nearly all of the cows held their milk and most of the milk they got was in the “strippings” (milked by hand after the machines had been on.) “This shed with four machines is capable of turning out 30 cows an hour with only three men working in the shed,” Griff said proudly. But at first it didn’t quite work out that way. A fortnight later there were 60 cows in and the sharemilkers were carting 1,200 lbs. of milk to the factory but they had already been locked out twice for arriving too late. The machine wouldn’t seem to go properly and often Fred and the other men and girls were called out to milk the herd by hand. One day an expert came out from Hawera to fix the machines, but it was so late before he got them started that he stayed to help. By the time they had finished the milking and helped feed the calves and pigs it was 7:15 before he and Fred were able to go up to the house for tea (where the machinery expert stayed the night before riding back to Hawera). A couple of mornings later the machines refused to work and the milkers got in for breakfast at 12:30. Fred found that he could milk a dozen cows now, before his fingers stiffened and it became difficult. That afternoon he and Griff were working at the back of the farm and didn’t go near the shed, but Alf was sent to help and it was midnight before he stumbled home for tea. Early next morning Fred was sent to Hawera to get a new part. “I’ll take my bike,” he said, “It will be quicker than the buggy.” But the mud was deep and some of the slopes were very slippery, so there was more push than bike and it took over two hours to reach Hawera. There was a three hour wait. He slipped round to see Aunt Rose.
“How’s the new life?” she asked.
“Fine, but,” he added with a rather shamed face, “I will like a bath”.
“Why shouldn’t farm houses have the amenities we take for granted in town,” he wondered, and he made up his mind that his house would have a bath and running water. Hot, too. Though even in the towns most women boiled up the copper to do the washing.
It had taken seven hours to get the part, and because he had a flair for machinery, he was able to get the machines to keep going. By the end of October they were carting the milk to the factory in two wagon loads, 3,300 lbs. of milk, worth 4/- per 100 lbs. The December cheque was £189 but the machine milked shed had averaged 10/- per cow less then the hand milked one. “It’s the way these men treat the cows,” growled Mr Williams.
“Sharemilkers aren’t all profit.”
One afternoon Fred was sent over to the neighbours with a message. It was a good opportunity to inspect a different machine, a “Reid.” It had 3 machines driven by a 2 ½ horsepower engine which cost 6/- per week to milk 60 cows.
Another shed which roused great interest in the district was a “race” shed where the cows came in one behind the other. There was less mud because the cows were kept off the part where the men worked.
As they were having breakfast on Fred’s first Sunday on the farm, Amy said, “There’s church this afternoon.” No one said anything.
After a while she said, “Where are Bob and Violet?” (the horses used in the buggy). Griff said nothing and both girls looked at the young cadet. He spent the morning chasing horses through the mud, but at last they were caught and harnessed ready for the trip to church. Both Amy and Olive were quite capable of driving the team, though they probably enjoyed being driven by a good looking young man. Most Sundays he willingly drove the “church party”. Except on Sunday when there were visitors. The buggy was full; the three young men were riding beside it. Something startled Fred’s mount (a stupid beast at the best times, which he didn’t ride if he could help it), Fred’s boots were slippery with working in the wool press and when the horse bolted, his feet slipped out of the stirrups and he reached church in an undignified bundle round its neck. Fortunately, when it stopped suddenly at the gate, the horse threw up its head and flung him back into the saddle, not onto the grass.
The first attempt at handling the four horse team in the double furrowed plough was one of the most exciting of those early days on the farm. Like all the other new experiences, it was not as easy as it looked, but this was a good team used to working together, and it was a weary but rather proud young man who was able to announce at the end of the second day that the field of nearly four acres was “black side up”. And most of the furrows were pretty straight, too.
“We’ll sow that field in rye grass for seed,” said Griff, but he wanted the team so Fred was told to borrow a horse from the neighbour, take one of the pair that had been used to cart the milk to the factory and catch any two of the riding buggy horses he could. A scratch team indeed. They were not used to working together either, and the young driver found it even more difficult to maintain a steady rhythm. Even when the others were ready, the factory horse wasn’t available till nearly mid-day and a late start meant that he didn’t get in for tea till after 7 o’clock. There were about a dozen young horses on the back farm, but he was told there just wasn’t time to break them in yet. The crops had to go in at the right time.
As he opened the gate and turned onto the road, Mr Williams said, “Make sure you get up in time in the morning to bring them in, that new pound keeper’s too officious.” And he reminded the boys again that the ranger had recently taken one of their horses to the pound in Hawera. “It cost 17/- to get it out, and it took Alf nearly all day to go and bring it home,” added the old man angrily. “Why put them on the road at all?” asked the cadet. “It sometimes takes us over an hour to find them since we are never quite sure which way they have gone.”
“Oh, we always have,” said the old man vaguely. “There’s plenty of grass on the ‘Long Acre’, but that ranger’s a menace.”
Pay day came at the end of the first six weeks, £1/5/- a week. As he didn’t expect more than £1 he took this as an indication that “he wasn’t doing too badly.” He paid 16/6d for a heavy pair of dreadnaught boots and £6/13/0d went into his Post Office account to buy his new farm. “Newton King, the cattleman of Taranaki goes in for Holsteins. Last year he asked £50 for his yearlings, but this year he put them up for auction and averaged £120 per head. Pedigree prices and beginners purses don’t work in well together,” he wrote.
A fortnight later he was given his first day off. When he walked the mile to the shed to pick up his neglected bike, he found that someone had removed the screw that kept the valve in place. A piece of string held for the first six miles, but after that he had to stop every little while to pump up the tyre. It took a long time to get to Aunt Rose’s.