over which the fire had run some time before and had killed the standing trees. The branches and small stuff were broken down and piled around the larger trunks, and, where necessary, dry material was collected and carried in to assist the combustion. The small roots were dug up and thrown on the fires, and, where possible, the large stumps were undermined and prised out with a kind of gigantic spade worked as a lever by the united strength of several men.^* This may seem rather a tedious way of clearing land, but a number of hands intelligently employed made light work, and on a dry, windy day the business proceeded merrily; and if some of the heavier masses of timber still proved refractory they were left to be dealt with at a future season, and so by degrees all obstacles to cultivation were removed.

In the case of clay lands, especially those on the river-flats, drainage was necessary, and, where possible, surface channels were made before the winter rams set in, as the prolonged exposure to water not only retarded the spring operations, but had the effect of “souring” the soil and making the work of cultivation more difficult. On the old cultivations the cleaning-out of these drains was the first thing to be attended to as the planting-time approached.

In breaking up new land the principal implement used was the ko, a kind of long-handled spade consisting of a pole of hard wood sharpened to a wedge-shaped point and furnished with a foot-rest or tread (hamaruru) lashed to one side with flax sinnets from about 12in. to 18in. from the bottom, according to the depth the land was to be dug. Both the foot-rest and the handle on the top of the shaft were often elaborately carved, as may be seen in the case of some excellent specimens in the Auckland Museum. Armed with this implement, a number of men formed in line a few feet apart across the plot that was to be operated on, and, keeping time to a song by their leader invoking a blessing on their labour, drove the ko into the ground so as to make a continuous cut about 1 ft. or 18 in. back from the face, according to the nature of the soil. This done, they used the implement as a lever and hove the whole sod over together, with a loud shout of Huaia ! when they started afresh on another piece. Meanwhile the women and children followed up, breaking the clods with small wooden instruments of various patterns and clawing out the fern-root and rubbish with their fingers. The best of the fern-root was reserved for food and stacked up to dry, while the refuse, together with other useless fibrous matter, was thrown on to one of the heaps of burning timber.

It is not to be supposed that these processes were comp-

leted in regular sequence—i.e., that the entire patch was cleared before the digging commenced, as would have to be done in preparing a piece of land for the plough. As a matter of fact, the several processes would often be going on simultaneously on different parts of the field, the smaller stumps and roots being taken out in the action of digging, while special gangs were dealing with the larger pieces, and the general crowd keeping the fires going all over the place. Allowing for the difference in the implements, practically the same system is pursued on a Maori waerenga at the present time.

The only object for the deep digging was to get rid of the roots and clear the land from the fern, which would otherwise shoot up and injure the growing crop. On a patch that had been previously cultivated it was sufficient to clean off the weeds and stir the surface for a couple of inches. In fact, it was an advantage to have a hard bottom, as where the tillage was too loose the roots of the kumara were inclined to run and the tubers to be small and of poor quality.

When the soil was worked up fine and made perfectly clean it was formed up into little round hills, called “tupuke,” about 9 in. high and 20 in. to 24 in. in diameter, set quite close together. The party who undertook this operation commenced in one corner and worked back diagonally across the patch, each man having a row to himself; and as every hill was made to touch the two hills in the next row the whole plantation presented a fairly accurate quincunx pattern. Mr. Colenso, apparently, though perhaps unconsciously, quoting from Captain Cook's Journal, states that a line or cord was used to insure regularity.^* No one, however, seems to have actually seen the line employed, and any old Maoris I have consulted are positive that it was never the custom to do so. The appearance of regularity arose from the uniformity of the size and shape of the hillocks and from the orderly manner in which the work was carried on, as well as from the neatness and finish which characterized it. This neat appearance is borne witness to by many old writers. Mr. J. L. Nicholas, who visited the country in 1814, describing a plantation in the Bay of Islands, says, “The nice precision that was observed in setting the plants and the careful exactness in clearing out the weeds, the neatness of the fences, with the convenience of the stiles and pathways, might all have done credit to the most careful cultivator in England.”^†

No manure, in the sense in which we understand the term,