South Canterbury Times. SATURDAY, DECEMBER 3, 1881.

South Canterbury Times, Issue 2717, 3 December 1881, Page 2

South Canterbury Times. SATURDAY, DECEMBER 3, 1881.

Some of the wealthy stockowners of Canterbury seem at last to have made up their minds to do something towards opening up a market for the surplus meat and dairy produce of the country. They are somewhat late in the day compared with the Australian colonies and other districts of New Zealand, but as Mr Grigg remarked at the meeting of stockowners held recently in Christchurch, Canterbury will have the benefit of her neighbors’ experience. This is not entirely creditable te the enterprise of Canterbury

men, but it perhaps shows their sagacity. The New Zealand and the Albion Shipping Companies have taken steps towards providing the necessary accommodation for the transport of frozen meat, and in Otago a company has been formed with a large capital, and good progress has been made in the necessary preliminary operations, for establishing a frozen meat trade in good earnest. Although Canterbury reckons as the first agricultural district of the colony at present, yet we think this must he attributed chiefly to the available nature of the country, for in agricultural enterprise Otago is decidedly ahead. The frozen meat trade is not yet, however, a really established fact, and it can scarcely be doubted that the promoters will at first meet with a good deal to discourage them, and it will take a long pull and a pull together before the producer can reckon upon the freezing process as a certain means of relieving his over-stocked pastnres. Kecent news to hand in regard to meat shipped from Australia is not so satisfactory in respect to certain shipments. It' is only natural that the majority of consumers at Home should be disposed to look with a certain degree of suspicion on fresh meat which has been brought so many thousand miles. They are not scientifically acquainted with the effect of the process of freezing upon fresh meat, and are not likely to trouble themselves much about the theory of the thing. If the people of the colonies can send Home meat in good fresh condition, and can depend on every cargo that is sent turning out well, it will only require time and energy to overcome the strongest British prejudice. It is seldom that any great industry is established at a bound. Exporters must be prepared to exercise patience and to spend money, feeling assured, under any discouragement, that the prize is worth struggling for. The fact of the number of sheep in Canterbury alone having increased by 370,000 during last season is very conclusive proof that an outlet for surplus stock is absolutely essential to the prospering of our agriculture. The annual increase of consumers within the country is a mere handful compared with the enormous growth of our flocks. It is not a matter which concerns only our squatters and large landholders, for our farmers of all grades are going in more every year for grazing. It cannot indeed be otherwise, unless our farmers are to degenerate into a poverty-stricken race of croppers, as is the case in some other new counties, and the land gradually given over to sorrel and barrenness. After the land has yielded up the cream of its natural supply of fertility root crops and grazing, in the present undeveloped state of our agriculture, are the only safeguards against exhaustion. The grain production of the country, after the first two or three crops are taken out of the land, must depend chiefly upon the production of meat. “ The more stock, the more corn ” was one of Mr Mechi’s maxims, and this applies, though in a modified degree, as well in the colonies as at Home, for the essential laws of production are much the same all over the world. Nature works by a system of compensation and always insists on having her own, or she exacts the inevitable penalty.

The success or otherwise of the freezing process involves the welfare of an important section of agricultural industry besides the production of meat and its dependent branches of farming. All along the coast of Canterbury, and in other parts of the colony there are large tracts of land admirably adapted for dairy purposes. Dairying is, we believe,one of the least profitable branches of farming at present, simply for the want of consumers. The freezing process promises to supply this want, and the obstacles in the way of opening a successful trade in dairy products are probably not so great as in the case of mutton and beef. There is not so much room for suspicion on the part of consumers, and the natural conditions of the country are altogether in favor of producing first-class articles. But an enlarged trade in dairy proproducts implies additional enterprise in other directions. Everyone who has watched the progress of the dairying industry of late years, particulary in America, cannot but be impressed with the fact that the tendency is altogether in the direction of wholesale manufacture. Small producers working independent of each other cannot compete with the large factories either in quality or economy. For export purposes it is of the greatest importance that the products should be of uniformly good quality, and the only way to secure this is by means of butter and cheese factories. It is only by united action that our dairy farmers can expect to compete successfully with the English, American, and Continental dairies.