Working on Uncle Vern’s farm had convinced me once and for all that my future lay in farming. Before going home to take over Lanark, however, I felt I needed to widen my farming experience. I wanted to see if there were other, better ways of running a sheep property, and the best place to do that, I decided, was New Zealand. I cannot now remember exactly why New Zealand farming methods interested me. Perhaps it was simply because I knew that they did things a little differently there and that they also did them successfully.
I consulted my uncle, Bob Strachan, about it. Uncle Bob was married to my mother’s older sister, Norma, and was a prominent businessman in Hamilton. He thought the idea of my going to New Zealand was a good one, and he gave me a letter of introduction to the pastoral company Goldsborough Mort, which had offices in New Zealand. So I flew to Christchurch and walked into the Goldsborough Mort office there on a Friday afternoon. This was early November 1957. The man I spoke to read Uncle Bob’s letter, looked me over and said he could fix me up with a job on the best farm in Canterbury by Monday.
He was as good as his word. By Monday morning I had started working there. The farm, called Erskine, was near Kirwee, a town west of Christchurch. It was owned by Ian Young, whose family had come from Erskine in Scotland. Ian’s father had been a potato farmer near Invercargill, but after his father died Ian decided to sell up and buy land in Canterbury. The country he settled on was fairly light and tussocky, and it would probably have been considered rather ordinary by Canterbury’s high standards. Yet by applying his expert farming knowledge Ian was able, over time, to work it up into a wonderfully productive property. It was so productive, in fact, that although he had no more than 1500 acres (600 hectares) of land he managed to turn off around 8000 prime fat lambs a year, plus large quantities of lucerne hay and small-grass and clover seed.
The first thing I learned about New Zealand is that its farmers were miles ahead of us in just about every area of farming. For all I know, this may still be true. I found New Zealand farmers to be models of efficiency. It seemed to me they had just about perfected every facet of rural production. Their attention to detail was one of the things that impressed me. The last job I did for Ian Young was to work a paddock over and over, sitting in an old Lanz Bulldog tractor. By the end (I know this because I kept count) I had worked the paddock fourteen times. Ian Young was producing high-value Italian rye grass seed in this paddock. Working a paddock fourteen times seemed to me then a waste of time and money, but I realise now that Ian knew what he was doing. The paddock was like a bowling green, and he made a lot of money from the seed he produced there.
Why were New Zealand’s farmers better than ours? One reason, I think, was that New Zealand’s agricultural college system was in some ways more advanced than ours. The main reason, though, was simply that the country’s superior soil and more reliable rainfall allowed farmers to operate in much smaller areas, which in turn meant they could afford to devote far more time and attention to each acre they farmed.
I spent only six months at the Youngs’ property, although I learned so much there and did so much it felt like a couple of years. Ian had a Dutch immigrant working on the place, who lived with his Dutch wife in a separate cottage, and I slept there, too. In the evenings, though, I always had dinner with the Youngs and was made to feel part of the family. I became very fond of them. If nothing else, I owe them a debt of gratitude for the knowledge I acquired in my six months there. The things I learned on the Youngs’ farm had a lasting influence on my own approach to farming.
One of those things was how farmers could improve their properties by planting trees. Ian had begun to plant rows of trees as windbreaks and shelter belts. As I recall, he was planting Mexican cypresses (Cupressus lusitanica). Typically, he prepared the ground well and planted the trees with a high degree of professional skill. Most of them survived and grew successfully. We planted a couple of long rows of Mexican cypresses while I was there. The rows were two or three trees wide plus, I think, some shrubby plants on the windward side.
The trees were planted not only for shade and shelter. Already, a few farmers in New Zealand were starting to realise that the trees they planted today could eventually be a valuable source of timber. Ian Young was certainly thinking along those lines, which is why he planted the trees in configurations that would enhance their value as timber. It was a new idea to me, but I found it interesting. I filed it away in my memory for future reference.