Story: Beef farming

Part of page 2 – 19th-century beef farming

Cattle on a North Island bush farm (2nd of 2)

The North Island bush was cleared for farming in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Removing and burning the stumps and logs took many years, and cattle coped much better than sheep in the rough country. This is a dairy farm, but a beef farm would have undergone the same process – felling and burning the bush, then oversowing with clovers and grasses.