AGRICULTURE.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 31, 26 August 1871, Page 11

AGRICULTURE.

Tins art, owing to a variety of causes, has not attracted, at present, the attention it deserves ; nor do we think that it has received that encouragement to which so useful and indispensible an industry is fairly entitled. One reason for this is that our legislators have been nearly all connected with the pastoral interest; and, at the present moment, there is scarcely a member of the Upper House who is not directly or indirectly interested in pastoral pursuits. Independently of the truth, now universally recognised, that no body of men ever yet enjoyed power without abusing it, and which power our representation acts, electoral laws, and land regulations have been cunningly designed to promote and foster, there are other reasons why this industry has occupied so prominent and favored a position in New Zealand, to which we shall not now refer. The fact is patent, and does not therefore require to be insisted upon, that the interests of colonisation, and those of mere pastoral occupants, are not common but conflicting. It is different with agriculture. To whatever degree it is extended it increases the public wealth, multiplies the means of subsistence, reduces the cost of living, supports a hardy population, and more than all it attaches man to tbe soil. This is a paramount consideration in all countries, but more especially so in one in the course of being colonised. To a grazier, a neighbor is a nuisance ; to an agriculturist, an advantage. The one wishes him farther afield ; the other says “ the more the merrier.” The greater the distance two stockowners can put between them the better for each; the nearer two farmers are to each other the better for both. The difference is not in the character of the two parties, but in the nature of the two occupations. The first is probably more intelligent, liberal, and hospitable than the last; but the pursuits of tbe one repel, and those of the other attract, the new comer. The Canadian backwoodsman, who assists to build the latter’s log cabin, is by nature no more generous, and perhaps in the act more selfish than the New Zealand squatter, who wishes him elsewhere—anywhere, probably, except in his vicinity. Grazing must, on an extensive scale, naturally precede tillage, which latter at first cannot succeed except on a limited scale; because there are greater facilities and fewer natural obstacles to the profitable prosecution of the one than the other, But for that very reason

the former requires no artificial encouragement. After a time the two pursuits succeed best when they go hand in hand together. The question heretofore has not been farming v. grazing, but the large v. the small stockowner, and in the decision of a question thus narrowed the public are not specially interested. Still it is not fair to confine the term “ agriculture” strictly and exclusively to crop- cultivation, foi agriculturists are precluded from the necessities of the case from the adoption of so limited a definition in practice. “ Without forage,” says the Flemish proverb, “no cattle ; without cattle, no manure ; without manure, no crops.” This will eventually prove to be the case in New Zealand. The farmer must have forage, cattle, and manure, to secure crops; and to become an agriculturist, in the sense we use the term. But Rome was not built in a day;” and the farmers of this colony have had more than ordinary difficulties to contend with. And, strange to say, those that have not been found by nature have been supplied by art. There are several ways by which the legislature can promote agriculture; and we know of none better to start with than those proposed by the Government, viz The introduction of population, opening up the country, attracting and facilitating settlement, and securing means for bringing agricultural products within easy and cheap access to a market. it might also promote agricultural education, award honors and premiums at agricultural exhibitions, and render assistance in such agricultural improvements as are too vast for individual effort, and private capital, to accomplish. We are glad to find that this latter subject will be brought before the attention of Parliament, in the terms of a resolution recently passed by the Otago Provincial Council. The resolution states that it is desirable to encourage the improvement of agricultural lands throughout the colony, and with that view it recommends that £IOO,OOO of the proposed loan should be made available for that purpose; such sum to be advanced on loan to persons who may be desirous of effecting improvements of a permanent character, upon terms, and under conditions, similar to thos.* contained in the English and Scotch Drainage and Improvement Acts; the principal and interest to be made a first charge on the properties upon which the money is expended, and made re-payable by annual instalments until both are repaid. When £50,000 can be absolutely given away, out of the colonial revenue, for the purpose of making roads to, and improving, private property, and not, as was probably intended, for opening up wild lands for settlement, we cannot see how the House can well object to the diversion, by way of loan, of the sum asked for to the above object. If the territorial receipts constituted a portion of the colonial re venue, as in Victoria, New South Wales, and under our own Constitution Act ; or if that revenue was derived in part from a land or property tax, the grant in question could be legitimately handed over to road boards in aid of local rates ; but we cannot see how such a grant, under existing circumstances, cun be justified. In any case, the application of any surplus funds the Government has at its disposal could be more wisely directed to the promotion of agricultural improvements, on the terms and conditions named, than in granting so large a sum as £50,000 to be annually scrambled for by road boards, and to which none of them have any moral or equitable title. However the House may decide with reference to future road grants, we trust it will favorably consider the Otago proposal.