AGRICULTURAL PROSPECTS OF NEW ZEALAND. (From the Maori Messenger.)

New Zealander, Volume 8, Issue 661, 14 August 1852, Page 3

AGRICULTURAL PROSPECTS OF NEW ZEALAND. (From the Maori Messenger.)

The intelligence from the various ports of Australia, which have reached us by the Moa, recently arrived from Sydney, are of a kind which should exercise a beneficial influence upon the agricultural interests of New Zealand. • Gold continues, to be found in great abundance : — and so general is the pursuit that the culture of the soil aud the means of providing- sustenance for ihe hundreds that are daily arriving from every quarter of the globe is becoming more and. more neglected. The people of Australia will not till the ground. The farmers of Van" Dicmcn's Land arc every day getting more deficient of the labour that has hitherto enabled them to do so. Australia in a great many places has been laid waste by frightful floods which have not only drowned numbers of her unfortunate inhabitants, but have swept away granaries, store houses, and much of the fruits of the last year's harvest. Now then is the hour of New Zealand's opportunity. Now is the auspicious moment

to turn up c^ery available acre, and plant it with those fruitsVliich will be so greatly wanted and which will be so liberally paid for— Wheat, Oats, Barley, Maize, Potatoes, Carrots, Turnips, Onions, Butter, Cheese, Bacon, Pork,— all will be in demand;— and if a good and continuous supply be only kept up, a constant and lucrative trade may be confidently relied on, inasmuch as the mouths to be "fed will fully keep pace with the increase of culture on our part: — and for this sufficient reason, thai every month additional and larger ships are departing from every port of Great Britain, so that they who arc the most qualified to offer an opinion on the subject confidently assert that within a year there is neU to a certainty that the present population of Australia will be fully, ifnot more than, doubled . j Now, the New Zealand (aimers will do well to bear in mind that by far the greatest portion of this a ast population are leading England for Australia, not to cultivate her soil, but to rush like madmen to her gold diggings. If then, wheat, oats, and other grain and vegetables be scarce and high priced at present, when the number of the consumers is fewer, and when the surplus of former harvests is not entirely exhausted, what is not the price likely to be when lands as yet in tilth are left to fallow, when no new ground shall be prepared, when no surplus harvests remain to fall back upon, when the recent producers of food have become but diggers of gold, and when two mouths shall be craving for the wherewithal to cat, instead of one mouth that now looks to the industry of others to be fed? Will not the ease, the security, the healthful means by which the New Zealand farmer will be able to exchange the fruits of his toil, for the gold wrung with pain, privation, sickness, destitution, ahd death,— will not the industry of the ploughman be quite as productive and much more salutary, both to body and soul, than that of the gold miner ? We wish most sincerely that the native landholders would turn their attention to dairy husbandry. Nothing would tend more largely to enrich them. Their cattle would rapidly increase, whilst their butter and cheese would find a ready and remunerative market in every port of Australia. Add to this that with skim milk and other dairy refuse their young pigs would be brought rapidly forward, and their pork acquire a much superior character to that which it has ever yet attained. Let these things be seriously considered. Let our readers ponder our words. We have received much and interesting information from Australia- Every letter encourages us to urge our argicullurists to increased cultivation. *Grow — grow,' — grow, is the advice contianed in every letter. If our yeomanry only follow that advice they cannot fail to prosper,