JOSEPH LIGGINS’ SECOND LETTER

Karere, a Butter Manufactory, Palmerston North, Wellington, N.Z.

June 18th, 1884

Dear Friends,

The day I posted my last I had a telegram from here to come up and interview the directors of a butter factory here which is now being set up. After waiting about some few days and knocking about among the settlers I was appointed manager as I had produced satisfactory testimonials and passed a rigid enquiry as to my efficiency. I was engaged for 12 months, at a certain salary up to September, then at and after September another salary, as we shall not be able to do anything till September, our Spring. I have too a very nice house, wooden of course, with veranda at back and front, also a large garden, larger than the one I had at Measham with many young fruit trees: also butter and milk for own use.

I believe there is every prospect of making a long stay here for if things are satisfactory at the end of the 12 months I shall according to agreement have a suitable rise. As to my wage here I am well satisfied and that is saying much.

None of the directors know much of the business and it is the first butter factory, the only butter , in New Zealand. We cannot yet say what will be our success as the markets are untried and the shipping arrangements are anything but satisfactory. It is proposed to try first the Sydney then the London markets. You perhaps do not know that a great part of Australia is unable, from heat and drought, to manufacture dairy products and are dependant on outsiders. New Zealand, from its climate and rich soil, is eminently suitable to supply what they want.

I shall doubtless be able to please my employers and retain my situation. Even if this factory closed through no fault of mine, I should be able to obtain another billet because cheese and butter factories are springing up all over the country. There is such a glut in the wool market that the settlers have no other resource but to turn their attention to the dairy.

Cattle are cheap, a good cow and calf at heel may be bought at from £5 to £6. Grass is plentiful. Now it is mid-winter and in the pastures that have not been overstocked there is a good pulling up, half way to the knees. Cattle are never stabled here, they feed out all winter, there being very little frost to hurt.

This settlement is 13 years old and till last year there was no haystack in the district. The cows run out unmilked, except for what the family requires, and in many cases with a great calf at their heels. This makes them very wild and they have to be fastened up, one at a time, by the neck, with a wooden lever pegged up when the cow’s head is in and the rear leg tied to the wall on the other side. Philip will tell you this arrangement. Wheelwright Whitworth used to fasten cows, that came there, the same way and were of an unsociable temperament.

The floors are a quagmire. Dirt everywhere, never cleaned out I think, a veritable Augean Stable. This is hardly the fault of the settlers, they have so much work to do that such matters as these have to pass and many other things too or if anything wants doing they will do it in the most ready fashion and they will scheme for two days to do some little matter in a colonial manner (that is the term) where it might normally be done better in one.

They do not make good spenders. They will for instance, instead of buying hinges for a gate, sink a bottle shank downwards in the ground and let the bottom of the gate back upright revolve in the hollow. The top is sharpened off and put through a hole in a board and nailed on the top of the stump. A lantern is made by knocking off the bottom of a white glass bottle, the neck held upright in the hand and a candle stuck in the neck. They make Colonial bedsteads, tables and sofas much the same. The best dodge they have is that of obtaining water, all use the Abyssinian pump and get water in a day. We are trying to obtain the Artesian supply. Their ways are much different to our and here they might be copied with advantage.

Everybody are equal, all speak to everybody and shake hands with everybody. You never trip along the road but "good morning" of the settlers and "Tenarqua Pakelia" of the Maori greets you. False pride is utterly at a discount. Profane language is nearly unknown, the foul oaths of the home people would soon make them outsiders here. They are, in the country, industrious, godfearing and sober. In the town, often they are loafers, sceptics and drunkards. Drink here, as at home, is the curse of the country. Although licences are exorbitant, hotel keepers (they are all hotels here and very large) get rich and they may well. Nasty, abominable compounds are sold for ale and spirits and all at 6d per glass. It drives men mad. New Zealand has the unenviable reputation of having to care for more lunatics in proportion to the population than any other civilised country.

Places of worship are plentiful and of many various creeds from Church of England to Plymouth Brethren and Spiritualists. All clergy are equal here, except the bishops take precedence in their own flock, as at home.

A country farmer is often a M.H.R. (Member of the House of Representatives) and they are shrewd enough I can tell you. The people here are shrewder than the home people. They can detect a "new chum" in a moment and if they get the chance will learn him something. All are on the look out for one thing and one person. Money and the notorious No. 1.

People here are on the whole better off than the home people. Wages are good, when they are in work, and food is cheap. I bought 16lbs of mutton last Saturday for 3/4d. All nearly are possessed of a horse. Children ride to school on them and carpenters and bricklayers ride to their work. I was speaking to a railway overseer and he said that there were often as many as ten horses at a time tethered along the line, belonging to the natives, and if he wanted to send of them somewhere, he looked out who the nearest horses belonged to. Horses can be kept for little and often nothing and can be bought for £4 to £30. Light weeds can be got at any price. Maories breed most of them. They will breed horses and pigs but cattle or sheep they will not. They grow potatoes and Indian corn. Indian corn is eaten after being steeped in water till soft and nearly decayed, when they consider it palatable. They also eat the bottom of rushes and wood maggots are a delectable treat eaten alive. They have a decidedly nutty flavour. I have reserved the pleasure of trying the dish as I wish to make a grand treat of it and expect to take half a days holiday for the purpose.

They dislike work as a rule and are really children of the Sun. Some are very rich as they hold very much land and are living on the sales. They are sociable, friendly and good tempered and are as much a subject of the New Zealand Government as settlers are. They have to abide by the same laws and are alike protected. Maories have no cause to grumble if the English Government will make a shoemaker’s shop of the rear of Tawhiao and send him back there, they will be sensible. The men are fine men. The women, as a rule, have repulsive, hideous features. Grease and tobacco are the inseparable characteristics of the elderly women. A few of the young girls are as fine looking as any you have seen but they age prematurely and then live for ever, I think.

The Maories, male and female, ride well and are possessed of the finest horses in the country. We have the settlement of Maliwa Junna here close to us. Some of them sleep and live in their wooden churches or meeting houses on weekdays and worship there on Sundays. Others build little rush houses. They live all together with their own people. They are very lax in morals. They are blessed with few children, so few that their race from this cause is gradually disappearing. In time no doubt the Maori will have merged with the settlers into one race, just as with the Saxons and Normans. They are honest as a rule and will beg anything in creation sooner than work for it. They are never hungry as they will eat anything and dare not come out at night for fear of Typo, as they style his sable majesty.

This country here is a level one between large mountains and formed by alluvial deposit from the Manawatu river. Not a stone is to be met with except in the river. The soil is from 3 to 15 feet deep. The land is not yet all cleared, and on all farms black stumps from 3ft high to 40ft are sticking up all around and undergoing the slow process of natural decay after being partly felled and burnt. Among the ashes, after a burning, grass seeds are sown and there is a good bottom in six months. Amongst graze the cattle and sheep. Then comes the settlers eternal logging up and burning and fencing with wire or stab fences. Very few posts and rails as there is no suitable timber. Gradually, on good farms, thorn fences replace wood and as a specimen of the character of the soil and climate, thorn fences may be made by inserting slips of the thorn hedge. You cannot do it at home, try how you may. These slips are trees in three years.

Peaches are abundant and cheap. Pigs sometimes have them when there is a good season. Apples are dear but not scarce. They have a fictitious value and it will have to come down. Potatoes, shall you believe me when I say, from oft repeated assertions of the settlers, they can produce 20 tons to the acre. They are of a purple colour, very large and good eaters. They require the most careful cooking or they fall to pieces as they are so mealy. Indian corn is grown here to feed fowls and pigs.

I should like to describe to you a New Zealand bush but I cannot. Fancy a forest of evergreens choked up with enormous creepers, parasitical plants and giant ferns as tall as plum trees at home. No man can get in without an axe and once in, if he doesn’t mind, never comes out again. Many people are here lost in the bush or drowned in the swollen ferries. There is a kind of tree called a Mata (as Martah); all a’s are r in Maori except a in rates, no kind friend to alter that. A seed is dropped by the birds at the top of the tree and it grows there like a large root of enormous rushes and sends down a fibre to the ground. As soon as it touches there it gets thicker and gradually enclosing the Mata, it slowly but surely squeezes out the life of the old tree which ultimately rots leaving the new Mata master of the field with the curious phenomenon of two barks, one inside and one outside.

Then in more open spaces there are the enormous native grasses and flax higher than a man on horseback. The flax is so strong that hay is banded by one leaf instead of twisted bands and if a bit of string is wanted a shred of flax is the official substitute. I have seen Maori women ride with one for a stirrup. At present, this production has no commercial value but surely it will be a source of wealth some day. The woods are peopled by queer birds, beautiful bronze pigeons, Tui-Ball, Bellbird and giant hawks. At night, owls and Mawhawks (so called from its discordant note) make the night hideous. Larks are plentiful here and sparrows. Blackbirds and thrushes up Auckland way. Rabbits are unknown here. A penalty of £20 is enforced if it can be proved that anyone allows this pest to escape from captivity. In other districts they are a menace.

There are two things that we never expected. Mosquitoes in the Summer are a scourge and the frequent recurrence of earthquakes give the people a little excitement. All houses are wood with the chimneys outside. A few years ago all the chimneys here but one were levelled in a night. Crockery and chimney ornaments became dissatisfied and leapt from their shelves to the floor. Milk leaves the milk pans or parts with its cream. But little notice is taken of it as the people get used to it and they are not dangerous.

I have nearly expended my paper. We are all well and getting nicely settled in a home again after months of travelling. It is hard you know to have no place for the sole of your foot but shifting it here and there is terrible. I could not conscientiously council a man with a family to do as we have done. I cannot describe the discomforts, they must be experienced to be known. Young men can rough it here and have to often. I have been extraordinarily lucky in dropping in here. Many have to resort to the bush and fell trees for an existence at first. Many sons of gentlemen are here swinging the axe but they get settled eventually; it is the start that is all. People here will not employ "New Chums" if they can help it. All the ways are different. A home butcher is no use here. What man amongst them can shear and kill and dress a sheep in 4 1/2 minutes? It has been done here. Carpenters the same, they have to go at lower wages than a Colonial. Agricultural labourers are all out of it here. A good labourer would break his heart here. Shepherds are different too. The sheep all worked by dog and very seldom handled. All these new things have to be learnt and increase the difficulties of a newcomer. My case is an exceptional one, there is a demand for butter and cheese makers and I am thankful and lucky.

In all my communications I shall tell you of the existing and true state of the country so that you may judge for yourselves. The difficulties are not slight and the inconveniences are so great that I shall never recommend others to follow me. Don’t let this give you to understand that it is a bad country. It is far better than England and I like it very much better and shall earn more money with God’s help and health. If any come out, they come of their own free will and after serious deliberations but I cannot advise them to do so and then I cannot bear any blame as to misrepresentation. Of course, I should rejoice to see any of us here and should do all I could for them but they shall not say that I allured them out.

Now as to the people most suitable. Farmers with money just drop on their feet. Agricultural workers are wanted and blacksmiths are an expensive luxury. Bricklayers are hard to get. Carpenters, there are many but all seem to get good work. Labourers get 8/-, blacksmiths 12/- and bricklayers 10/- to 12/- a day when they work 9 hours. The trouble is, as soon as the job is done, the men are not wanted and go for work at the next job. A carpenter, for example, may be working as man one month and the next is employer, having taken some contract. Good workmen stand the same chance as bad ones as all the wood is sawn and planed at the mills and only wants sticking together. Buildings are run up quick. Last Saturday there was not a batten up at the factory, today they are putting the roof on. When a man is once here and settled and got a circle of acquaintances, he has a hundred chances here to one than he would have at home. There is no poverty, no poor rate, no union. A person out of work in this district can exist by fungus collection (the fungus is exported to China for soup) or Auckland way by collecting Kauri gum for export to make varnish or ornaments. Fungus sells at 2 1/2d per pound and gum from £20 to £40 a ton. Maories chiefly do this, as it suits their rooting nature. Few white people do it, for if they do, they often become lower in the social scale than their savage neighbours.

I hope that you are all well. I do so want a letter. As soon as you know my address, write me all the news.

Dear Will, please send me a detailed account of how you are getting on with my insurance, etc. Tell me when you want some more money and how much. How does Mr. Wright seem? Is Peck alright and Orgills insurance, do they accept the money? Get the travelling password from Geo. A.O.F. Send me any book on butter and cheese manufacturies, large scale; also Bee Journal, please forward me. For which, take out of the funds, stamps and all; do not spend your money on these things, let mine do it. I hope Ellen and children and Aunt and yourself are well. Also, Mother, George and Annie and children, Luke, Katie and John, Philip and Aunt and Uncle Dobson (tell the old lady she would be in her element here - not far to get a few sticks to make the kettle boil), Tom and Annie etc., etc. ad lib. Nevertheless, notwithstanding the garden, will write as son as we get settled. I will write further and individuals as soon as I can turn round, but, you may know, my time is well filled up. My employment in the day and after that Sarah wants a nail up or one pulled out, a picture made or pulled to pieces in the evening and my ribs are sore with new work. I am, pro tem, cutting wood and clearing etc., etc. I do not know if I have forgotten anything but tell Mother and the girls and boys that the letters that I send you are to them also and they must all write. Accept our well wishes and love to you all.

I am yours affectionately,

Joseph Liggins