AGRICULTURAL PROGRESS.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 48, 23 December 1871, Page 11

AGRICULTURAL PROGRESS.

Though the principal results of the last census were published from time to time as they were received, they have only recently been printed in a corrected, { collected, and classified form, and this is more especially the case with the returns relative to the extent of land in cultivation, and under crop, on the 27th February last. The tables relating to land and crops are now before us, and from them may be .collected a large amount of information relative to the agricultural progress of the colony, which cannot fail to prove interesting not only to the statist and economist, but to the public at large, as they show that in four years the increase of land under cultivation and cropped with grain has been no less than 70 percent. The first of these tables shows the extent of the freehold, leasehold, and pastoral holdings in the colony, and the number of acres fenced, and under crop, in the several provinces, at the date of the last census. From these tables we gather that the largest quantity of land belonging to Europeans, both freehold and leasehold, lies in the province of Auckland. It is, therefore, well worth while to enquire what are the causes which have rendered that large and long-settled province more backward in agriculture than most of the other provinces in the colony. It is not our present intention to enter upon any such enquiry ; but we think it is possible that the free importation of grain and flour from Australia, California, and South America, may have had more to do with this circumstance than free traders would feel disposed to admit 5 and if this is the case, so far as the imposition of duty on cereals will check such importation, so far will it have a tendency to promote agriculture in that province. The provinces of Hawke’s Bay and Wellington stand next to Auckland in the extent of their freehold and leasehold land ; but the greater portion of such land, in both provinces, has been bought or leased specially for pastoral purposes. In each there are more than 800,000 acres of freehold land, which was more than was held by the settlers of any of the provinces of the Middle Island before Southland was united to Otago. Wellington has a larger quantity of fenced land than any other province in the North Island, having under occupation, in round numbers, 1,200.000, and outof this quantity upwards of 4 10,000 acres are fenced, or more than one-third of the whole. But in Auckland not more than one-sixth of the land in European occupation is fenced. So with regard to land under crop, which in both provinces consists chiefly of sown grasses, Wellington makes a better figure than Auckland. The quantity in this province amounts to 192,914 acres, whereas in the Auckland province it only amounts ter 186,920 acres, notwithstanding the much greater extent of land there which is either owned or leased by Europeans. Indeed, Wellington in the extent of her improved land is scarcely inferior to Otago, though that province has a much larger quantity of land under wheat and oats than any other in the colony, with the single exception of

Canterbury. This last-named province has more than double the acreage under wheat than even Otago, the returns giving 46,000 and 20,000 for each respectively. In oats, however, Otago takes precedence, having 54,000 acres, against 44,000 acres in Canterbury. The, total extent of land in European occupation in the whole colony is stated 10 exceed twenty-two million acres. Out of this quantity about five and a-half million-acres are freehold, and two and a-quarter million leasehold, the remainder consisting of land held under depasturing licenses from the Crown. But the greater portion of even the freehold land is used exclusively for grazing purposes, as only 364,000 acres in the whole colony are devoted to cereal crops and garden produce. But it is the table showing the extent of land fenced and cropped this year, compared with its extent in preceding years, which affords the mostinteresting information, not only as regards the present state of agriculture in tlie colony, but as regards also the progress which has been made in this most important of all industries. To exhibit this progress in the most clear and convincing manner, and to avoid as much as possible overloading the subject with figures, we shall take only the returns for the years 1861 and 1871, and express, as far as we are able, the results in words, without pretending to such strict accuracy as would be necessary in the compilation of an official document, lu the year ’6l there was not in the whole colony half a million of acres fenced; but in 1871 the quantity had increased to upwards of six and a half million acres ! The quantity of land under wheat had increased from 29,000 to more than 77,000 acres ;!*arley and oats, from 19,000 to 146,000 ; potatoes, from seven to near 13,000 ; sown grasses, from 158,000 to 776,000; and other crops, from 12 to 29,000 acres. The total number of acres under crop has increased, during the last decade, from a little more than a quarter of a million to upwards of a million acres. In other words, the extent of cropped land lias increased four-fold within the brief period of ten years. As will be anticipated, the most astonishing progress in agriculture has been made in Otago and Canterbury. In Otago the quantity of land fenced is now forty times more than it was in 1861; while in Canterbury it has increased from 75,000 to more than 1,875,000 acres. But it is only fair to add that by far the larger portion of this consists of wire fencing on runs. The acreage under wheat in Otago has increased from about 5,000 to upwards of 20,000 acres; and in Canterbury from 12,000 to 46,000 acres. The land under barley and oats in Otago has increased - from some 4,000 to upwards of 58,000 acres ; and in Canterbury from 6000 to 58,000 acres. The other provinces in the Middle Island exhibit no such agricultural progress. In the case of Nelson, little more than half the wheat was grown this year as was grown ten years ago ; and there was also a less quantity of all other crops, except oats and potatoes. Turning to the provinces in the North Island, we find no marked progress, so far as tillage is concerned, in any of them ; though, as we have seen, in fencing and sown grasses they exhibit a gratifying increase. In Auckland the fenced land is more than double what it was ten years ago ; hut in no other respect has she made any agricultural progress. As at Nelson, there has been a serious falling off in the extent of acreage under wheat during the last decade ; and compared with 1867, when the preceding census was taken, there has been a great falling off in the cultivation of all crops in Auckland, and more especially in oats, barley, and potatoes. In fact, considering the extent -of her population, the length of time she has been colonized, and the large commissariat expenditure she has enjoyed, a more wretched exhibition than she makes, in an agricultural point of view, can scarcely be imagined. "Were it not for her goldfields and grazing produce, by far the larger portion of her population would have no alternative but to emigrate or die of starvation. Nor has the Province of Wellington, as regards cereal cultivation and * progress, much to boast of. She now grows less wheat than she did ten years ago, and exhibits but few signs of improvement in any other crops except oats and barley. The

reason for this is obvious. It costs less to send Canterbury wheat to the port of Wellington, than it does to send it here from other parts of the province. But when the amount of the population of the two Provinces of Auckland and Wellington is considered, and the large home market for agricultural produce which the presence of troops formerly, and a large goldfields population more recently created in the Province of Auckland, the comparison between the two is so much in favor of Wellington as to prompt the exclamation, or suggest the enquiry whatever have the people of of Auckland been doing? Moreover, several of the electoral districts of this province will not only compare favorably, as regards agriculture, with those of Auckland, but with any of those in the Middle Island also. There is a greater extent of freehold land in the Wairarapa than in any other electoral district of the colony ; and that district also in the extent of improved land bears off the palm from all others. Rangitikei and Wanganui compare also favorably with any of the electoral districts in the Middle Island, and each has more land in cultivation than any district there, Selwyn and Waitaki alone excepted. The chief obstacle to the agricultural progress of the Wairarapa, as well as other parts of the province, has been the want of cheap and easy means of transport. If, with such obstacles to overcome, so much progress has been made, how much more rapid will that progress he when those obstacles have been got rid of altogether?