The farm passed into Ciskeian hands in the early 1980s when the homelands were established. To better understand the legacy of Tukulu’s grasslands,  Mike Burgess visited Edgar’s son, Ted, and Vaughn Fetting, who still applies Edgar’s rotational-grazing methods on his own farm.

“We must be under no delusions; if we continue to ill-use the soil, the land will die, and the people will die with it.” This was Edgar Matthews’ warning to farmers way back in the 1950s. He had learned the lesson the hard way when, during the drought of 1927/1928, he had faced disaster. Left with just a few pigs and chickens, his worst nightmare had become a reality – he had been broken financially, and had instructed his workers to look for work elsewhere.
Facing his failure, he realised that, if he wanted to continue farming and survive similar droughts in the future, he would have to focus on conserving – and producing – more grass on his farm, Tukulu. By the time the 1945 and 1949 droughts swept across the Eastern Cape, he was not only able to survive, but could continue to refine a system of rotational grazing and bush clearing that would transform the barren Tukulu into a sea of grass. He documented the process in his book, Tukulu – The Rebirth of a South African Farm.

Tukulu’s transformation
Edgar began his conservation process by dividing a camp adjacent to his farmhouse in two, grazing one half and saving the other for an entire growing season.
His aim was simple: to re-establish the valuable indigenous grasses – especially Themeda triandra, or rooigras. He noticed how the more palatable grasses returned to his veld because they could seed effectively during rest periods. They could therefore compete more efficiently with other, unpalatable, grasses such as turpentine grass (Cymbopogon) grass, of which there are three varieties, and scrub including mimosa species and intsinde bush (Caddia ruddis) which were all competing for the same water and nutrients.
He continued to divide more camps, clear scrub and rest veld. By the mid-1950s, Tukulu had been divided into 22 camps with no fewer than 35 watering points – the backbone of a rotational-grazing system.
“It’s simple and spares a third of the farm every year for the full growing season, while the rest is managed by regular inspection of resources,” recalls Edgar’s son Ted, who farmed with his dad until his passing in 1976. “He’d close the camps that were to be rested from 30 June until the end of March.”

Preventing overgrazing
Edgar had also noted that giving these valuable grasses a chance to re-establish themselves depended on the heavy grazing of veld – as practised using high-density grazing techniques today.
Ted explains how his father saw that, when a camp was understocked, cattle would select only palatable grasses like rooigras and graze them into extinction, while unpalatable grasses were left to thrive. Rooigras was particularly vulnerable to overgrazing, as it was the first to become green in the spring and stayed green longest into winter.
Conversely, if a camp were grazed heavily, animals were not able to be selective. Because of the finite resources available, they grazed and trampled most grasses, including turpentine varieties, and fertilising the soil with urine and dung. When rains triggered germination, the more palatable grasses had a chance to compete. “Camps need to be grazed into the ground before being closed,” insists Ted. By the end of the 1960s, rooigrass made up 65% to 70% of the grass cover on Tukulu, and it was decided that rest periods could be shortened. The number of camps was also increased to 34, thanks to the advent of plastic piping and the ability to provide water more efficiently.
With rooigras now dominating the farm, weaners were brought in to graze surplus grass while cows calved on the veld. By 1980 – with no cultivated lands – Tukulu supported 386 shorthorn cattle (including calves) and six horses.
“He [Edgar] maintained that if you looked after your grass, the grass would look after the cattle,” recalls Ted. No doubt he was, and still is, correct.

Rotational sparing is no more
Yet today, the formerly prized farm is just part of a vast communal farming region in the former Ciskei – a region that, for the most part, is not being managed at all.
Tukulu’s grasslands have today been seriously compromised by almost 30 years of uncontrolled communal grazing. Edgar would no doubt be horrified to know that his beloved farm is beset by mismanagement, unravelling his life’s work.
“He did it in bits and pieces. It took years; his entire life. I am always grateful that he died before they took it away from him,” mourns Ted. There is now an alarmingly large cluster of small homes near the derelict former farmhouse and sheds of once-commercial Tukulu. Each family here runs its own stock, but shares communal grazing, with large herds of goats, donkeys and cattle on the fenceless farmland. Stock from many miles away come to graze Tukulu, perhaps because the grazing here is still superior to that in the surrounding areas of dense bush.
But in terms of production, Tukulu is a shadow of its former self. The absence of fencing, combined with the communal grazing, means that the extremely short grass cover is never really spared. Furthermore, an invasion of shrub and mimosa is clearly advancing into the spaces that Edgar had, at great expense, begun clearing way back in the 1930s.

Other areas have no grass cover at all, and effective water supply on the farm seems to be in dire straits, according to a former worker, John Tsomo. John had told Ted that the eye of the strongest spring on Tukulu had run dry. The water crisis on the farm is clear to see, exacerbated no doubt by a severe drought in the region. Well-worn footpaths lead to a dam near the old homestead, and there is exceptionally short grass around it. This is the result of exactly the kind of mass grazing around isolated water points that Edgar had tried to prevent by supplying water to multiple camps.
Nevertheless, the impact of Edgar’s vision has made its mark well beyond today’s Tukulu, influencing conservation farming and techniques across the country.
The Tukulu method in the Smaldeel
On the 1 650ha farm Sipton Manor, in the Fort Beaufort area, businessperson/farmer Vaughn Fetting has applied the Tukulu rotational-grazing method for the past decade or so.
His farm is home to significant quantities of game, including impala, and shared by 150 Bonsmara breeding cows and associated weaners and older oxen, along with occasional stock that is brought in for speculation purposes through his trading store in Middledrift.
Currently, Sipton Manor is divided into 20 camps – the largest of which is 120ha – of rolling plains and heavily bushed slope that have just experienced a severe drought. This scenario forced Vaughn to sell between 70 and 80 weaners prematurely last year; usually he raises oxen to sell at between 22 and 26 months.

Thankfully, some rain has fallen recently on Sipton Manor, and grass is sprouting profusely. Vaughn attributes this directly to his application of the Tukulu rotational-grazing system. He also saves a third of his farm each year, and focuses on grazing veld very short, before it’s saved for the entire growing season. Again, the aim is to give rooigras a better chance at competing with, specifically, the more-unpalatable turpentine grass varieties.
“You can improve your veld by grazing it correctly,” he contends. “Instead of putting 20 cattle in, why not put in 150, so that the hooves trample the grass and open it up? At the same time, the urine and dung provide fertiliser.
“I’d rather keep cattle in a camp for an extra two weeks and let them battle, but know I have grass for them in other camps.”
Although he hasn’t actively seeded areas on the farm with rooigras, as Edgar did, Vaughn has also focused on clearing unpalatable bush by stumping and using foliage spray. This, plus the use of  Browse Plus, ensures his Bonsmaras – which receive only bonemeal and salt as a supplement, make more use of the browsing potential of his farm.
He has also investigated ways of preventing the cattle concentrating their grazing in one area. First, he makes sure that he has as many troughs as possible. With more watering points in the camps, cattle don’t have to crowd at isolated drinking areas.

On Ted’s insistence, he fenced off one southern slope, which was significantly grassy but wasn’t being grazed efficiently. “Cattle normally graze the northern and eastern slopes first, and leave the western and southern slopes for last. You need to fence the slopes off and force the cattle in,” explains Ted.
Although Sipton Manor is half a century behind Tukulu’s progress in 1980, there are clear signs of rehabilitation. Increasing amounts of rooigras are returning to the farm between turpentine grass outcrops, while also replacing areas that were once predominantly unpalatable bush.
Here on Sipton Manor, just as it was on Tukulu, it’s clear that a very keen interest is shown in the obvious value of conserving grass, and its relationship to effective livestock production.
Contact Vaughn Fetting on 083 264 6126,
or Ted Matthews on 046 648 3277.     |fw