The Southland Times. FRIDAY, JUNE 14, 1867.

Southland Times, Issue 683, 14 June 1867, Page 2

The Southland Times. FRIDAY, JUNE 14, 1867.

Agbiculttjb-J- progress is the corner stone of a country's prosperity — the foundation upon which mechanical and all other industrial superstructures must be reared. Anything calculated to retard its progress, to damp or cripple the energies of the tiller of the soil is an obstacle to advancement injurious to the best interests of all classes. Acknowledging that such is the fact, everyone should strive to promote to the fullest extent the facilities for agricultural expansion. We, as a people, are too prone to allow our attention to be absorbed by one idea, which not -infrequently takes the form* in a new country, of internal communication. That this is the chief power to develop a country, is beyond all doubt ; but there are other aids of scarcely less importance. The commercial community should endeavor to assist the farmer to find a profitable market for his produce ; the journalist to point out the description of cereals most likely to be productive of success, and all to foster that interest as far as can be legitimately done. The time has come when the Australian farmers require all these helps to secure for them success. In past years the grain crop was deplorably insufficient for home consumption, and until very recently hundreds of thousands of pounds were sent from Victoria, New South Wales, and New Zealand for theimportation of breadstuff's. All the colonies, it would appear, have reached, or are on the verge of reaching i the turning point, and, instead of import- j ing, will be shortly compelled to seek a | distant market to which to export. South Australia has long since become a large exporting country ; "Victoria, it is now affirmed on authority, will, during this year need no foreign imports of; grain — barley excepted— and that, should the agricultural bounds of that colony expand with the rapidity, that characterised 1866, will have next harvest- con. siderable quantities for exportation. In fact the Argus, 20fch April, in an elaborate agricultural statistical article, goes much beyond this. After enumerating the increase of freehold land, and other similar marks of progress during the past year, it makes the following startling statement : — "The increase of acreage ; under the plough has been nearly double what it was in the year before. But when we come to the produce of this tilled land, we find that the increase has been very much greater in proportion , This, or more correctly speaking last year, we obtained 5,216,336 bushels of wheat from 229,862 acres, while the year before we had only 3,514227 bushels from 178,628 acres. Thus there was an, increase last year of 1,702,109 bushels, and the "fear before of 1,604,061, ou ill

much more than half the total quantity. The production of oats has also increased largely, from 2,279,468 to. 4,200,303 bushels; but there was ;a decrease the year before. Barley is not. a favorite crop here; still tliere. was a fair increase in the quantity." After showing also a large increase in the crops of hay, potatoes, vines, and other produce. It sums up the whole with:-^' ■'•* Allowing then, the four hundred and odd thousands bushels of seed this year, there will remain 4,800,000 for consumption ; and as six bushels a head has been proved to be ample to allow for this, we can during the current twelvemonth supply with bread from wheat of our own | growth 800,000 people ; but the number will not reach this by a long way, so that there will be an actual surplus of not far short of a million bushels." It is also known that New South Wales will also be independent; of foreign importations during the year ; while in South Australia there is a surplus stock of 3,600,000 bushels'of wheat, or 80,000 tons of flour. How is New Zealand positioned at this time as respects its agricultural progress ? She has fully kept pace with her neighbors as far as production goes, but, not as to rendering that produce of the greatest possible value to the grower. With land the most fertile of all the colonies; with crops that surpass in weight all others ; and land easy of cultivation, the farming classes in Now Zealand, ' as a whole, are not so prosperous as those of Victoria. In Canterbury this is particucularly conspicuous. The farmers in that province after a bounteous harvest are in tribulation — notthat they have no success, but that they have no market for what they have grown. Why is this ? The chief cause is most unmistakably the want of enterprise or the neglect of the Agricultural interest by the commercial classes. The cultivation of the land has been steadily increasing for years on a scale that should have long since led to the conviction that the time was coming when other than a local market would be required, Still, until now, when the grain stocks have become so large that only prices ruinous to the \ producer can be obtained, has the subject i been seriously considered. We learn from a report of a large meeting of settlers and others, held at Kaiapoi, published in the Lyttelton Times, 23rd! May, that an effort is being made to j i establish a company for the exportation ' of grain to the home market. Erom the j tenor of the speeches of His Honor the Superintendent (Mr Moobehotjse) and others, the agriculturists of that province are in the very depth of depression, andnot sanguine of speedily emerging from it. The export company project was ably advocated and supported. It was deeply regretted that a foreign market had not been sooner sought, and a general belief expressed that if rthe English market had been sooner cultivated, the existing crisis would have been averted. Although the agricultural depression may not be felt as acutely in other provinces as in Canter- , bury, it must be more or less participated in by all, and it is to be hoped, as Mr Moobehotise remarked, that " out of present evil, may come future good," by inducing more attention than had yet been given to the importance of fostering the export trade, upon which future prosperity mainly depended — agricultural produce. Southland is deeply interested in this matter. Possessing a large tract of country, superior to most other Provinces, and unsurpassed by none, the annual expansion of farming operations will necessarily be, great, and something more than simply sowing and reaping is required to insure for it the prosperous future that from its natural advantages may be anticipated. The agricultural statistics we recently^ published, upon comparison with others, show a higher average of crop than has been obtained in other provinces, or the Australian colonies. Still there was a deficiency that was most marked. We allude to the article of barley. This is tbe only grain that can always command 7a fair market in Australia, and yet its growth is comparatively neglected. Again, ham and bacon-curing is but "very slightly carried on, and this ia another article that would coiiitaatly meet

not be greatly to the advantage of the agricultural interest if the course adopted in' Canterbury was followed in Southland, and a company formed having, for its object the purchase, or making advances on grain or other fai^pproduce intended for exporfation ? " : W^ihiiik it would. We have seen returns of >wheat exported from A_iftra_ia f ands/|6ld- *in London, that give th|>|pri^ obtained, deducting all charges, %o' be fromijos 9d to 5s Tldper bushel. merits the serious consideration of both the commercial and the agricultural classes.