Joseph Liggins’ Thirteenth Letter

JOSEPH LIGGINS’ THIRTEENTH LETTER

Longburn Cheese Factory

Palmerston North

Manawatu, N.Z. 10 July, 1887

Dear Will,

It is some time since you heard from me. I have not hitherto been able to sit down quietly and write anything like a letter but now it is our winter and I have more time at my disposal although our store business has increased so much that even now both my time and that of the storekeeper and helper is pretty well filled up. We buy butter from the settlers in lieu of cash and make it up and send it to Wellington and are disposing of cheese and bacon made this season. We reckon that we are, this season, the stock (stores) to the good, so that should reap the reward of our labours in a good dividend. We started 2 years ago with the bare factory land etc., value £450, now we have assets of about £3,500; in fact the business has grown so much that we are going to increase the capital so as to satisfy the bank. We have hitherto worked on monies borrowed from the bank but hope to do less with them from now and save interest. The interest we have to pay will startle you - 9% is the price of our overdraft out here and up to 8% for mortgaged money. So you see what we have to bear so that all is not exactly gold that glitters.

We are now selling in our store an average of £230 worth of goods per month with profits from 15 to 25 %. We have this month purchased milk to the amount of £1750 but the milk and cheese receipts this season show a loss in consequence of over production and the Australians having had a wet season. Also, they handicap us with import duty of 2d per lb on cheese and bacon and 1d on butter, other factories this season have made a dead loss. We have made a small profit on the whole affair in the face of bad markets, a fearfully hot season and a heavy percentage etc. Our freight, wages and expense account is £450 on factory alone. Taking things all round we are well satisfied and are assured that we shall in future seasons make a good profit because the price of milk will be lowered and we shall secure long terms of payment so as to induce the settlers, as much as possible, to purchase stores in payment of milk accounts. We in turn getting orders from merchants for cheese, etc and in the general scramble picking up a little by the wayside. Absence of money makes this kind of business inevitable. It is one great system of barter. This will be remedied shortly as outside markets are found from time to time, money, e.g. hard cash, will come in.

We have slaughtered 120 pigs and have 100 running around ready for next year. We have a smoke house and smoke all the bacon and hams. In spite of this, flies attack the bacon and lay skippers so that you have to push off the bacon at the earliest opportunity. We have a lot now and in the Summer shall be quite out, declining to take the risk of the flies. It is more difficult to cure shoulders and hams here than at home. Unless you are very careful it does not get cured at the bone, as the thick parts do not get properly cold. I find my Mother's teaching in bacon curing comes in handy now and tell her there is no better way; no one can cure better bacon than us. We only differ in curing by the help of sugar which concoction mollifies the action of the saltpetre and in smoking, of course, only smoked bacon will sell here. We, this season, have turned a good deal of butter, at the latter end of the season, as cheese was a glut. Our butter is a favourite brand in Wellington and commands the pinnacle of prices, thanks to hints picked up at Sudbury. Mother cant make butter like the Sudbury people, but that does not hinder her bacon from being good. The English farmer has been all wrong for making good butter to keep, i.e. look at the foreign butter commanding the best price in the English mans own markets. So much for the factory.

You will perceive I am a landholder and will be surprised at the price, but before you go into an ecstasy over this matter recollect it is covered with dense bush which is costly to clear and to grass and to fence. It takes years to make a farm. Years do the most for it. Money cannot clear it alone, the wood has to rot after being burnt and although some stumps are rotted in three years others are as hard as ever in ten. The stock riders have to chase bullocks over logs that an English hunter would refuse and that at full gallop; hopping this log, twisting after an unruly bullock here or using his heels at some fightable bullock there. Seldom coming a cropper, while his rider, on a saddle with short stirrups and a cushioned protuberance on each side for the knees to fit in so as to lessen the rider's chances of coming off, while he uses his short handled, long lashed stock whip without mercy. A whip with which he can draw blood at every blow and is a cruel instrument in his hands. I cant crack one and should take off a bit of an ear if I tried hard but they swing it round once and then with a crack like a pistol shot it falls full on the sides or flanks of some unruly or loitering bullock.

I was pretty well advised in the land and have secured one excellent and one fair section. I went over it the other day and had a rough time. The bush is very thick or rather the undergrowth and saplings. Supplejacks, which are like lines in all directions, and as fast as you clear your face, your legs get entangled and so you go twisting, bending and creeping any way but the orthodox way of travelling. I expressed my regret at my ancestors dispensing with the use of caudal appendages as I could have got on better and being encumbered with a gun I did not get on well at all, especially as my three colonial friends tried to run me off my legs. They succeeded in tiring themselves well and said I behaved well for a "new chum" but I did not let on how tired my legs were.

There are also bush lawyers, not briars but they have like hooks on them on thin sprays which whip you well when trying to disentangle yourself from their embraces. The New Zealand nettle too, a shrub whose sting you feel for days after shaking hands with him. The first I saw I thought the leaf an old countryman of mine and felt his leaf with my hand, my friendly greeting was rudely rejected and after that time I set him down as an aquaintance whom I could not on any terms become familiar. Gigantic tree ferns, nikau palms, cabbage trees and ferns of many varieties are there in abundance and are flourishing but for a brief time. Beauty must retire in the presence of utility. Soon it will be the home of the sheep who grow fat on the grasses growing in the ashes of the burnt bush and whose profit is 33 % each year. There is a small stream flowing right through the sections. A few miles away this stream forms a beautiful waterfall which apparently falls right from the summit of the mountains at the back and falls clear, hundreds of feet. I have not yet penetrated to the fall but we intend a trip to it some day and shall explore over the range if we can get there.

Regarding our noble selves, I believe we are all right and happy, the children are growing well, tear their clothes, fight and madden unhappy parents somewhat as we used to do or worse for we never had the scope for our abilities in this direction as they have. They are at present indulging in dreams of riches by gathering fungus from fallen bush. An article of New Zealand export consumed by the Chinese and is one of the mysteries in the production of soups and on a par with the delectable swallow's nest soup, worms, puppies and so much thought of by the heathen Chinese. It grows like large ears in great profusion on rotting Taura tree logs. Children and women and Maoris gather it, dry it and obtain 3d per lb. for it from stores such as ours who again sell it to Wellington receiving 4 or 4 1/2 d or more as the market is.

Charley and Sam have been to the bush with a man cutting lines for fallers and came home tired but with enough to talk about for weeks. Sarah and I are getting a little older I believe but have the best of health. By the bye, one of these sections is Sarah's own property and I shall clear it and stock it well so that she will have a homestead as long as she wants one. I, of course, if we build a house on it shall only be living in on sufferance and with the sword of ejectment hanging over my head. This is near the railway and is 25 acres of really good land for a homestead. The other land is 2 1/2 miles back in the bush and inaccessible to women, children, traps and even horses (to ride) for some time but this is a matter for borrowing on the security of the rates.

We have no more children than you know of and not likely to I think .... Praise be to Allah. We were surprised to see Katie's boy so big, just think of that, never seen the little fellow and he so big. We regret Ellen's trouble in regard to her sister. That is a trouble we have not known and hope we shall not for many years yet.

We could almost see George dressed in the robes of brief authority at the feast of Whitsuntide. The poor maid would again be made a countess I expect and the good Ale of Basses dispensed by host Reid would wash down; the good cheer banishing brief care and making their faces rose as the blushing rose of June.

Very sorry to hear of Price's illness. After your account of his symptoms I expect the worst news of him. Glad John is getting on well. What in the world is Luke after to be out of work? Why, in the name of fortune, does he not try New Zealand? He might get some land in time and I believe by my help could get some work suitable for him in Wellington. This is a new country and the chances are many and just contain the elements of risk sufficient to make it exciting. Will send order for money for Robert's interest, tell the lawyers, as soon as I can square up for the season, i.e. within three months.

Give love to Ellen and aunt Osborne, children, to Mother and Philip, uncle and aunt Dobson. By the way, Tom ought to stand up, tell Robert I do not like his evident idea to screen Tom in a just debt. To George and Annie, John and wife Katie, John L., to all children too numerous to catalogue and to all enquiring friends. Thank Mr. Carter for his sympathy.

With our best love to yourself,

We are your brother and sister,

Joseph and Sarah Liggins