Fescue to the rescue: Chewings fescue, paspalum, and the application of non-British experience to pastoral practice in New Zealand, 1880-1920

Agricultural History

Volumn 80, Issue 3, 2006, Pages 312-335

  Star, Paul ^a   Brooking, Tom ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF OTAGO   (New Zealand)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

AGRICULTURAL HISTORY; GRASSLAND; PASTORALISM; PASTURE;

AUSTRALASIA; NEW ZEALAND;

BOS TAURUS; DACTYLIS GLOMERATA; FESTUCA RUBRA; LOLIUM; OVIS ARIES; PASPALUM; PASPALUM DILATATUM;

EID: 33745410718     PISSN: 00021482     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1525/ah.2006.80.3.312     Document Type: Article

References (105)

1. Agricultural journals and newspapers are the best, and often the only, available source of detail on pasture development and farming practice in general in New Zealand in the years to 1920. Of particular importance are the North New Zealand Settler (Auckland, 1882-84)
2. and its successor, the New Zealand Farmer (Auckland, from 1885),
3. the New Zealand Country Journal (Christchurch, 1877-98),
4. the New Zealand Journal of Agriculture (Wellington, from 1910, especially articles by A. H. Cockayne),
5. and the farming pages of the Otago Witness (Dunedin, from 1851). The general observations in this article are grounded in a reading of these primary sources.
6. Scholarly works on New Zealand's agricultural history are few and are often old. For overall perspectives, see, H. Belshaw, et al., Agricultural Organization in New Zealand: Survey of Land Utilization, Farm Organization, Finance and Marketing (Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 1936)
7. and B. L. Evans, A History of Agricultural Production and Marketing in New Zealand (Palmerston North, NZ: Keeling and Mundy, 1969).
8. For the role of dairy farming, see, Eric Warr, From Bush-Burn to Butter: A Journey in Words and Pictures (Wellington: Butterworths, 1988).
9. For the role of pasture, see, I D. Gould, The Grass Roots of New Zealand History: Pasture Formation and Improvement, 1871-1911 (Palmerston North, NZ: Massey University, 1974).
10. For an influential, though controversial, analysis of the properties of grasses for New Zealand pasture, see, E. Bruce Levy, Grasslands of New Zealand, 3rd ed. (Wellington: Government Printer, 1970), 108-48.
11. The context for early experimentation with these grasses may be understood from P.W. Smallfield, The Grasslands Revolution in New Zealand (Auckland: Hodder and Stoughton, 1970).
12. For the increasing role of government and science in New Zealand agriculture, see, Tony Nightingale, White Collars and Gumboots: A History of the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries, 1892-1992 (Palmerston North, NZ: Dunmore Press, 1992)
13. and Ross Galbreath, DSIR: Making Science Work for New Zealand: Themes from the History of the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research, 1926-1992 (Wellington: Victoria University Press, 1998).
14. Galbreath's first chapter also describes the imperial context. For background to the use of artificial fertilizers, see, Barrie Macdonald, Massey's Imperialism and the Politics of Phosphate (Palmerston North, NZ: Massey University, 1982).
15. Derived from figures for export earnings and population in the New Zealand Official Handbook (Wellington: Government Printer, 1892)
16. and the New Zealand Official Year-Book, 1923: Thirty-First Issue (Wellington: Government Printer, 1923).
17. Herbert Guthrie-Smith, "The Grasses of Tutira," Transactions of the New Zealand Institute 40 (1907): 507, 509.
18. For an appreciation of Guthrie-Smith's significance, see, Graeme Wynn, "Remapping Tutira: Contours in the Environmental History of New Zealand," Journal of Historical Geography 23 (1997): 418-46.
19. P.W. Smallfield, "Presidential Address," in New Zealand Grassland Association: Proceedings of the Twelfth Conference, New Zealand Grassland Association, held at Invercargill, November 1 to November 3, 1950 (Christchurch: Simpson and Williams, n.d.), 21.
20. For a recent perspective, see, Tom Brooking, Robin Hodge, and Vaughan Wood, "The Grasslands Revolution Reconsidered," in Environmental Histories of New Zealand, ed. Eric Pawson and Tom Brooking (Melbourne: Oxford University Press, 2002), 169-82.
21. The sequence of events is reconstructed from interviews with George Chewings and a radio talk by his son, Guy P. Chewings. New Zealand Farmer (hereafter NZF) (1914): 181
22. NZF (1915): 805
23. Guy P. Chewings radio talk, 1937, 0326/1/3, Fletcher Challenge Archive, Auckland, New Zealand (hereafter FCA)
24. N. R. Foy, "Chewings Fescue: History, Seed-Production, and Seed-Export Problems," New Zealand Journal of Agriculture (hereafter NZJAg) 31 (1925): 356-70
25. N. R. Foy, "History of Chewings Fescue: Additional Information," NZJAg 33 (1926): 52.
26. NZF (1914): 181
27. NZF (1915): 805
28. Chewings radio talk, FCA
29. Foy, "Chewings Fescue," NZJAg 31 (1925): 356-70
30. Foy, "History of Chewings Fescue," NZJAg 33 (1926): 52.
31. NZF (1914): 181
32. NZF (1915): 805
33. Chewings radio talk, FCA
34. Foy, "Chewings Fescue," NZJAg 31 (1925): 356-70
35. Foy, "History of Chewings Fescue," NZJAg 33 (1926): 52.
36. Chewings radio talk, FCA.
37. NZF (1892): 168.
38. NZF (1899): 267
39. NZF (1892): 168.
40. NZF (1901): 147.
41. New Zealand Department of Agriculture (hereafter NZDA), Fifth Report of the Department of Agriculture (Wellington: Government Printer, 1897), iii, appendix p. 5
42. NZDA, Sixth Report of the Department of Agriculture (Wellington: Government Printer, 1898), 6-7
43. NZF (1899): 334.
44. NZF (1900): 121, 431-32
45. NZF (1899): 35, 407
46. NZF (1905): 397.
47. NZDA, Seventh Report of the Department of Agriculture (Wellington: Government Printer, 1899), 9, 209-14
48. NZF (1900): 87.
49. NZDA, Eighth Report of the Department of Agriculture (Wellington: Government Printer, 1900), 68-69
50. NZDA, Eleventh Report of the Department of Agriculture (Wellington: Government Printer, 1903), xxv.
51. Foy, "Chewings Fescue," 356
52. E. Edgar and H. E. Connor, Flora of New Zealand: Volume 5: Gramineae (Lincoln, NZ: Manaaki Whenua Press, 2000), 122.
53. NZF (1907): 207, 721, 346-47.
54. NZF (1907): 721
55. NZF (1911): 122-23
56. NZF (1913): 137-38.
57. NZF (1913): 146-47.
58. A. H. Cockayne, "Seed Mixtures for Bush Burns," NZJAg 8 (1914): 233-61
59. A. H. Cockayne, "Surface-Sown Grass-Mixtures: Some Recent Changes," NZJAg 14 (1917): 169-77.
60. For this later history, see, Anon., "A Southland Chewings Fescue Farm," in Studies in Farm Management, 2nd Series, NZDA (Wellington: Government Printer, 1948), 151-59.
61. N. C. Lambrechtsen, What Grass Is That? A Guide to Identification of Some Introduced Grasses in New Zealand by Vegetative Characters (Wellington: Government Printer, 1972), 83, 105
62. NZF (1916): 160-61.
63. NZF (1901): 417.
64. NZF (1911): 2.
65. NZF (1899): 175-76
66. NZF (1900): 122
67. NZDA, Ninth Report of the Department of Agriculture (Wellington: Government Printer, 1901), 308-45.
68. NZF (1901): 363-64
69. NZF (1903): 377-78, 357
70. Guthrie-Smith, "The Grasses of Tutira," 514.
71. NZF (1904): 189.
72. Ibid., 753, 903.
73. NZF (1905): 500, 429
74. NZF (1906): 320
75. NZF (1909): 30
76. NZF (1911): 1219.
77. NZF (1905): 805, 752
78. NZF (1906): 290
79. NZF (1907): 332.
80. NZF (1906): 954
81. NZF (1907): 142, 152
82. NZF (1913): 4.
83. NZF (1907): 534.
84. Garth Cant and Russell Kirkpatrick, eds., Rural Canterbury: Celebrating its History (Wellington: Daphne Brasell Associates and Lincoln University Press, 2001), 61-99.
85. NZDA, Twelfth Report of the Department of Agriculture (Wellington: Government Printer, 1904), 84, 70
86. NZDA, Thirteenth Report of the Department of Agriculture (Wellington: Government Printer, 1905), 96.
87. NZDA, Fifteenth Report of Department of Agriculture (Wellington: Government Printer, 1907), xxxviii, 261
88. NZDA, Twenty-First Report of the Department of Agriculture (Wellington: Government Printer, 1913), 69.
89. NZF (1910): 399
90. NZF (1911): 477, 944.
91. NZF (1914): 222-24, 262
92. NZF (1910): 310-12
93. J. G. Wilson, "Improvement of Grass Lands," in Report on the Eighth Biennial New Zealand Agricultural Conference, Wellington, 3 to 5 Aug., 1909, Supplement to NZF (Sept. 1909): Vii-viii.
94. Experimental Farms Division, NZDA, "Response to Letter from C. M. Hansen Fields," NZJAg 6 (1913): 560
95. NZF (1914): 333, 335.
96. R. W. Gunson, "Auckland Exhibition Grass-Plots: Review of the Results Obtained," NZJAg 10 (1915): 12-19.
97. Cockayne, "Surface-Sown Grass-Mixtures," 169-77
98. A. H. Cockayne, "Paspalum in New Zealand," NZJAg 16 (1918): 87-92
99. Cockayne, "Seed Mixtures," 233-61.
100. Nightingale, White Collars and Gumboots, 41, 62, 64.
101. For forestry, see, A. H. Cockayne, "The Monterey Pine: The Great Timber-Tree of the Future," NZJAg 8 (1914): 1-26.
102. A. G. Elliott, "Kikuyu Grass in Auckland Province: Comparison with Paspalum," NZJAg 30 (1925): 28-34.
103. Vaughan Wood, "'What Are You Reading, Farmer Brown?': Gauging the Development of Agricultural Knowledge in Late-Nineteenth Century New Zealand through a Reconnaissance of the New Zealand Country Journal," unpublished paper presented at the New Zealand Historical Association Biennial Conference, University of Auckland, Nov. 24-27, 2005.
104. For correspondence between Wilson and his father in Scotland from 1886 to 1897, see, Leonard J. Wild, The Life and Times of Sir James Wilson of Bulls (Christchurch: Whitcombe and Tombs, 1953), 227-330.
105. P. J. Cain and A. J. Hopkins, British Imperialism: Innovation and Expansion, 1688-1914 (London: Longman Group, 1993), 3-52.