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The New Zealand Railways Magazine, Volume 3, Issue 6 (October 1, 1928)

[section]

In an article entitled “Forty Thousand Hills and a Grass Carpet,” which appeared in “The Country Gentleman” (one of the leading journals published in the United States), Mr. E. V. Wilcox gives his impressions of a recent visit to New Zealand. The following are some interesting extracts from his article.

It's the green grass carpet (writes Mr. Wilcox) that will linger in my mind as the chief memory of New Zealand. No other country has 90 per cent. of its cultivated land in permanent pasture. Try to picture to yourself 16,000,000 acres of lawn. Then remember that it's a veritable established religion to keep this lawn bright green and closely cropped by sheep and cows 365 days of the year.

Think of New Zealand farms, not as a series of cultivated fields planted in various crops, but as perfect lawns or golf courses dotted with sheep and dairy cows. Don't forget either that this continuous green-felted grass carpet extends over hill and dale, through level valleys, by roadsides, along stream banks, across the landscape in all directions, on volcanic slopes so steep that I fully expected the live stock to slip off. Bear in mind, too, that New Zealand as a white man's country is only 85 years old. But I get no impression of newness in the farming districts. On the contrary, I find myself labouring under the feeling that it must have taken ages of effort to produce such marvellous pastures. Some of the grass carpet is 60 years old, most of it is over 20 years old. Such ideal pasture land gives the appearance of age.