Work schedules on lowland farms in southern New Zealand from the late colonial period to the 1930s

Abstract

Details of two-way flows of primary products, implements, labour, information and finance drawn from runs of farm diaries, stock and station agents' records, and newspaper articles were used to analyse work schedules on three comparable properties between 1874 and 1930, and to track the development of mixed cropping and livestock farming in southern New Zealand when draught horses were giving way to either steam or internal combustion engines as the prime source of motive power. The earliest records are for two farms in the late 19th century, and the most recent are for a third property in the 1920s. K E Y W O R D S farms as systems, information flow, resilience, work domains, work schedules

Appetite for grass: Re‐engineering landscapes of Otago and Southland 1864–1914

“…The two farms operated at about the same scale and produced much the same mix of products. By 1880, Davidson owned 500 acres and leased 800 more for grazing sheep, still viable in the 1890s, while Blackie's property, divided among several heirs in 1887, became vulnerable to any trough of low prices or run of bad weather (Holland, Olson, & Garden, 2019, 17). Day after day these farmers, like many others, registered the time they spent on various tasks, amounts of seed and fertiliser applied, bushels of oats or tons of potatoes harvested, animals purchased or sold, as well as observations of weather, accidents, and social events 3 .…”

Peter Holland, 1939–2019

“…He later published a monograph, Home in the Howling Wilderness, the culmination of his research on how colonial settlers came to terms with the environment in southern New Zealand (Holland, 2014). He continued to work most days in the Hocken Library, latterly using stock and station agents' records to assess rural landscape change from late colonial times, the basis of an ongoing set of publications with Sherry Olson (Holland & Olson, 2017;Holland, Olson, & Garden, 2019). His last public presentation was on this theme, when he spoke at a symposium to mark the retirement of Professor Tom Brooking, the co-leader of "Empires of Grass," at the Hocken in November 2018.…”