Chapter 5 - Seeking
Fred spent a fortnight at home, painting his father’s cottage, cutting firewood and checking and re-checking that there were no nearby farms that he could afford. His mother and sisters were disappointed but not surprised. Ever since Fred had decided to go farming, they had been studying the prices of farms.
“What about Tauranga?” suggested his oldest sister Amy. With a slight shudder Fred remembered the little coastal steamer that had bucketed its way all night. Not even the glorious sunrise that gilded the houses of the little township as they entered the beautiful harbour could compensate for the discomfort of the trip. “Tauranga land’s good, and I actually saw an orange tree with ripe fruit on it,” he thought, “but access is too difficult.”
“Taranaki isn’t too far away,” said another sister. They knew Fred had looked at several farms in that area. “Taranaki’s fine, but oh, you should see the mud.”
“The papers are all talking about Waikato peat lands and the great development there,” remarked his father. “Yes. Peat doesn’t have big trees to cut; only manuka; and there aren’t stumps to deal with. There’s drainage of course, and they say you need to put on that fertilizer that comes from the German Island of Nauru,” Fred answered. He was inclined to favour land around Hamilton but thought he would go as far as Auckland anyway.
New Zealand had recovered very slowly from the great depression of the 1880’s which had reduced much of the population to actual starvation. Richard Seddon with his “Land for settlement Act” of 1894 and his “Assets Realization Bill” had sent the surveyors scurrying to divide up lands that had been held by big syndicates. Especially in the Waikato and Bay of Plenty, the old survey lines were being discovered and farms made available where the soldiers settled after the New Zealand Wars had walked off in despair. The 50 acres allotted to a private was still too small to be an economic unit, but a man could make a comfortable living if he could milk 30 or so cows. It was usually done by hand with the help of wife and children, of course, and pigs and poultry were an essential part of the farm. In the years before the First World War a spirit of optimism was building up in the farming communities. Perhaps it wouldn’t be as easy to become rich as some of the first settlers had done, but there seemed a limitless market for their produce, and who could be afraid of hard work when it looked as if the rewards would be so bountiful?
At last he was on the train in search of a farm. First stop Marton. No luck. A place to see in Ohakune. The bush was beautiful and the countryside spectacular; for sight-seeing not for farming. The bumping, smoking train had been almost empty when it left Ohakune at 6:27, but as it approached Te Kuiti it jolted to a stop every few miles to pick up burly farmers and noisy dogs till it was almost impossible to move.
“I’ll stop and see the sale,” Fred thought. Te Kuiti on Sale day, 1913! As they pushed off the train onto the wooden platform, there was a loud yell. A red and white steer, tail flying, eyes wild, bellowing loudly, broke from his mob and went careening madly down the main street of the town beside the railway line. Such a scattering of those on foot. With noisy enthusiasm, all joined in the chase. Horses with yelling riders and cracking whips, dogs with barks that ranged from deep base to high falsetto. Noise and excitement and dust!
The cattle sold in the ring were wild and unruly, not a bit like the gentle dairy cows Fred had visualized for the farm he was seeking, and the country side looked untamed too.
A train left Te Kuiti at 3:30. Not to be hurried, it chugged along taking 3 hours to travel the 26 miles to Te Awamutu. By 9:30 next morning he had hired a buggy and pair of horses from the stables and was off to inspect a farm at Te Raumoa. “If only agents would describe a place more accurately, it would save a lot of trouble, “Fred wrote to his fiancée, ‘He said that 200 acres were ploughable. I don’t think you could cultivate more than half that even with the most dependable horses.
Besides, it seemed so far from town. It had taken nearly five hours to reach the property, so they stayed the night. In the morning the horses knew they were headed for their own stables and the journey was accomplished in three hours.
Sixteen miles from Te Awamutu was another “desirable farm’. 1,400 acres acres at £2/10 an acre. It carried 500 ewes and 90 cattle. About two miles from the property the road dipped into a deep ford; the big wheels of the gig crossed it easily on this pleasant Autumn day, but the agent had to admit that sometimes it couldn’t at all.
“A bridge will be built soon,” But no one had any idea when “soon” would be.
Then by train to Hamilton. Saturday morning was spent at different agents arranging to inspect several properties later in the week.
On to Auckland. It was Sunday morning, so Fred set out to go to church. He had difficulty finding a church, and then the service was a Sunday School Anniversary led by a children’s choir accompanied by a string band. A string Band!
Conservative Wellingtonian still more prejudiced against the northern city.
Monday was spent in reading descriptions of farms in land agents offices, and in inspecting one or two. He took the train to Papakura where he hired a gig to drive another eight miles. It was hot, it was dusty, and the agent’s idea of land that was ploughable had to be taken with even more than the usual grain salt.
The steamer that left Auckland wharf at 3:30 that afternoon landed him at Warkworth at 8:00pm. After breakfast at 6:30 and an early morning drive in a gig dragged by a tired old horse, Fred looked at the farm and thought about the difficulty of getting his stock to market and caught the train back to Auckland and on to Hamilton.
“You’ve no idea how fat I am getting staying at 7/- a-day-hotels,” he wrote to Esther, but he worried about the money it was costing and the fact that the farms he was offered were too rough or too far out. “If only I could lay my hands on an extra two or three hundred pounds,” he sighed as he read of one desirable farm after another.
Then he saw it. It was love at first sight though really only the enthusiastic eyes of youth could visualize a gracious homestead and sleek cows on that wind-swept hill overlooking a tangle of twisted manuka, rushes and raupo. There were 215 acres at about £2 an acre, eight miles from Hamilton. It was running 27 cows but the agent was sure it could support 100! That had to be taken with a grain of salt too. But Fred went out to the Ruakura State Farm to see for himself how the Waikato peat country should be handled. The manager was most enthusiastic. “Good drainage is important, of course,” he said, “and you must use fertilizer.
It is hard work, but look at the results.” Certainly the grass growing at Ruakura was as good as in the established pastures in the Hutt Valley. Other farms had to be seen, but one afternoon he hired a bicycle and rode (and pushed) his way out to this farm and on Friday, he drove again taking a friend who had come to Hamilton to give advice.
On 19th April 1913, eight days after he had first seen it, Fred Williamson settled for the farm, £50 deposit and the rest to be paid when he took possession on 19th May 1913.