AUSTRALASIAN GRAIN STATISTICS.

Patea Mail, Volume VIII, Issue 976, 27 December 1882, Page 2

AUSTRALASIAN GRAIN STATISTICS.

♦ (Timaru Herald.) Those who are disposed to take a gloomy view of the prospects of this Colony, and who imagine that, relatively to other countries, New Zealand is not making satisfactory progress, would do well to inquire how things really stand. The true test of a country’s welfare is its production, and the safest arid least precarious source of production, in new countries at all events, is the cultivation of the soil. It is therefore very encouraging that New Zealand already stands at the head of all the Australasian Colonies as a farming country, The statistics of the year 18811882 show that while the grain product of Victoria was 13,969,372 bushels, and of Souilt Australia 8,314*033 bushels, that of New Zealand . was 15,886,831. Victoria grew 8,714,377 bushels of wheat against 8.297,890 bushels grown in Zealand ; but N-w Zeahm 1 grew 6,924.848 bushels of oats against 3,612,111 bushels grown in Victoria. New Zealand beat both New South Wales and South Australia in both wheat and oats. The most gratifying feature of these returns, however, is the high average of production to the acre in New Zealand. Victoria grew 9 bushels of wheat to the acre, New South Wales 15 bushels, Queensland 8 bushels, South Australia 4 bushels, Western Australia 7 bushels, Tasmania 18 bushels, and New Zealand no less than 22 bushels. In oats again we head the list hy. a over all the continental Colonies, though only by a fraction over Tasmania. In barley, Tasmania alone heats us by an infinitesimal fraction. Of potatoes we grow 5 tons to the acre against 3' tons, the highest average in any other of these Colonies.