Another Depression

 In the course of a dipping season between 3000 and 4000 sheep went through our dip.  Water for the dipping was pumped from the stream which ran past the dip.  Later a good solid cattle yard and race made our farming operations as complete as we could make them at that time.  We were all improving the standard of our sheep, also raising the lambing percentage.  Days passed and days came.  The railway crept nearer to us, roads improved with hard surface; we purchased a car in 1928 when we were able to get out summer or winter.

 We were gradually reducing our dept.  Another year or so we would have been in the clear but it was not to be.  Another depression hit the country in 1931, wool prices went down to five pence a pound, meat prices to an unprofitable figure, consequently knocking the selling prices of sheep and cattle lower.

 The government of the day had learnt very little from the previous measures to assist the farmers on the verge of bankruptcy through clever financiers playing around with the money system.  Luckily for us we had made provision against a second set back, enabling us to battle through until prices improved and I was able to get rid of my stock mortgage.  Many farmers again were obliged to leave their farms, and others allowed to walk in and take advantage of depressed prices for stock.

Fortunately prices improved gradually and with our debts paid off we were able to concentrate on improving our flock of sheep and our polled Hereford cattle.  Top dressing became a boon now, with supplies by rail the country generally showing the benefit of greater application.  With more time on our hands a cricket club was formed and we managed to gather some cricketers with experience, enabling our team to have matches with Ohura, Niho Niho, Matiere and teams in Taranaki.  After playing in the Team for about three years, I took up bowling, these games I have recorded in my record of sports.

So, actually during my period in Tokirima a Hall was built, rugby football was initiated, a Sport Club was formed, Dog Trails became and annual event and a Cricket Club started.  The Domain was the centre for all these activities.  This meant clearing, stumping and ploughing a substantial area to accommodate the Hall, Tennis Courts and a sports ground used also for football and cricket.  Most of this work was built by willing voluntary labour except that a carpenter was engaged as the architect and guiding hand in building the Hall.  A firm sent a man from Auckland to supervise the laying down of the Tennis Courts.  Another settler and I were the labourers.

 The Second World War started in 1939.  Maude and I were leaving our useful years behind, our hard work was starting to take its toll, and therefore we decided to seek pastures new before conditions might tie us down for life.  We put the property on the market, packed our camping gear into the car and made a bee line for the seaside at Ohope.  We had been to this splendid surfing beach before, considered it to be the best of the East Coast beaches.  We arrived at the camp, settled in with the intention of making it a fortnight’s stay but it was not to be.  We received a telegram from the Land Agent advising us that a buyer from Marton was in Taumarunui waiting to look over the farm.  We packed our camping equipment, fuelled the car and made a non stop journey back to Taumarunui.  Here we met our Land Agent, he introduced us to the buyer (Mr Dawbin).  We arranged for them to meet us at our farm the following day.  Dawbin and Brinkman (the Land Agent) arrived.  All stock on the farm had been mustered with the help of neighbours.  Dawbin had previously seen the farm, he viewed the stock and finally agreed to buy as a going concern.  He agreed to take over the stock at my price, except he made a verbal agreement about taking over the cattle.

 All this was subject to the Government valuation of the property, there was still a reduced mortgage on the farm.  Maude and I then decided to look for a farmlet in the Auckland district, preferably one we could run a few cows, supplemented by poultry.  We drove as far as Papatoetoe and made the motor camp there our head quarters.  From here we were able to view property in an area around Papatoetoe and South as far as Drury.  In two days we visited quite a few farmlets, but finally decided on nine and a half acres with a good house but poor outbuildings on the outskirts on the Western side and about a mile from the shopping area of Papatoetoe.  This property to my mind, lent itself to improvement and increasing value. 

 We went back to our farm quite happy with the prospect of an easier and a more congenial way of life.  But fate had another knock out in view for us.  During January and part of February we had a very drying period, the ground on the hill sides opening up with cracks.  Then came a break in the weather, a week of soaking rains followed by a deluge which shifted acres of the saturated hillsides.  When the storm had abated I went over the property to view the damage, sadly to relate the land on many parts of the farms showed chains of large land slides, easy slopes which one would never contemplate a land slide, had come tumbling down.  The road from my house to the woolshed was one huge slip, completely blocking all traffic.  The gully from my wool shed paddock to the top of the ridge had completely scoured out, carrying with it my cattle yards and the dividing and road fence, depositing the tangled mass of fencing, timber and pasture across the road to finish in an unholy mess in the swamp.  This, with many chains of fencing was common to the whole farm.

 The problem now was what to do.  I was obliged to let Dawbin know, which I did, and told him in my letter that I would endeavour to do my best to repair the damage.  I, of course, knew that after he had signed the agreement to purchase, the damage was his responsibility.  My worry was that the sale of the property had to be approved by the Land Board, their valuer had not yet been out to examine the farm.  To curtail a long story I must mention briefly that I set to work on the restoration.  First of all I was obliged to help for a week to make a track to let the cream lorry through the massive slip on the road.  My next job was to repair road and boundary fences.  I managed to dig and drag fencing material buried in the swamp and repaired the road fence. Then there were two extensive gaps to fill in the fences right at the back of the farm.  Here again I was able to rescuer sufficient posts, wire and battens to repair these breaks.  In one case I abandoned the old fence line which went up and down over small spurs, by bringing the fence down to the bottom of the ridge I skirted the swamp at the foot saving material and much work there.  The final big job was the boundary fence between McKenzie my neighbour on the western side.  Here roughly ten chains of fence had been completely taken out and buried by a big wash out.  Nothing of this was available for replacement, therefore I ordered new wire and stables.  Fortunately in the gully was a stack of previously cut totara posts which had been buried by a slip some years before I took over the property.  These posts were as sound as when they were split.  Therefore my timber problem was solved.  This fence completed my main repair work, except some small lengths in dividing fences.  Now I had to concentrate on repairing all our sledge tracks about the farm, the main one had suffered the most damage.   In some places I had to deviate and put in new culverts before it was usable.  The place was then valued, but with large gashes in the hill sides and gullies heaped with churned up earth the land was anything but a pretty sight.  It would be different when the grass seed which I had sown earlier (after levelling off most of the rough lumps) was showing a green sword. 

 The valuation was made much lower than it would have been had the disastrous storms not occurred.  We had quite some trouble before the Lands Department would sanction the sale.  After this final kick in the pants I developed appendicitis, this landing me in the Taumarunui Hospital.  It was from my bed there that I finalised the sale of the farm and the buying of the property in Papatoetoe.  Eleven days was my period in hospital, I was extremely weak due to the long and hard days spent trying to get the farm back into order.  But Maude and I were contented with the knowledge that we were leaving our 21 strenuous years of climbing and working on steep country behind.  We therefore started to pack our goods and chattels we required to take to Papatoetoe.  I had concluded my purchase for the farm, but it was then we received a telegram from Dawbin with another blow below the belt, he advised me that he did not want to include the cattle in the stock sale (as I have mentioned earlier the inclusion of the cattle was a verbal agreement.)  Had I know earlier when he agreed to buy the farm and the sheep, this was before the damage to the property, I could have entered the cattle in the last Tokirima sale, but now the roads out were blocked with slips, which left me at the mercy of local buyers.  My condition was such that I was unable to climb the hills to muster the cattle thus forcing me to employ help.  I rang the stock agents in Taumarunui enquiring about buyers they answered by saying they had no enquires on their books.  Finally Abraham and Williams brought out a buyer, but I was at their mercy and after a lot of bargaining I sold my 45 pure bred young Hereford cows for four pounds, ten shillings a head, the Hereford heifers and steers about the same price.  On the 80 head of cattle I dropped four hundred pounds.  Evidently we had been batting on a very sticky wicket for 21 years, if the amount of capital we had invested at the start was deducted from our final settlement we had not made boy’s wages.