When all the kauri gum lying on top of the ground had been collected, Maoris and Europeans began to dig up the big lumps near the surface. Spades were the first implements of the gum-diggers; then the spear and hook were devised. The “gum-spear” was a long steel rod, tapering from one quarter of an inch thickness to a sharp point – the rod attached to a spade handle. An improved model, which went into the ground more easily, had a coil of fine wire fixed above the point. The “hook” – also fitted with a spade handle – was a length of inch piping with a steel hook welded on to the bottom of it. It was used to hook up the lumps of gum located by the spear. The spear and hook were particularly useful in swamps. A pikau, or sack, for carrying gum, completed the “tools of trade” of the early gumdigger. In 1885 about 2,000 diggers were at work, mainly in areas north of Auckland, although the best gum came from the Coromandel Peninsula. British subjects were able to procure licences (5s. a year) to dig on kauri gum reserves; private land owners charged £1 or more. Storekeepers who owned gumland insisted that gum dug from their land be sold to them or bartered for stores. The diggers scraped and sorted the gum. The highest export for any year was reached in 1899, with 11,116 tons.

By 1900, hundreds of Dalmatians – immigrants from Europe – were on the gumfields. They camped together in groups, digging the swamps in summer and the hills in winter. An increasing demand for poorer grades of gum, used in making linoleum, made it profitable to search for smaller gum: “nuts”, “chips”, “seeds”, and “dust”.