AGRICULTURE IN NEW ZEALAND.

Te Aroha News, Volume XXVII, Issue 43341, 23 June 1908, Page 2

AGRICULTURE IN NEW ZEALAND.

New Zealand is essentially an agricultural country, with peculiar advantages for the raising of stock. The yields of grain are the highest in the world, with the sole exception of .those of Great Britain, but so successfully are sown grasses and forage-plants grown, and so excellent is the pasturage of the native grasses, that the production of wool, meat, and dairy-produce has proved more profitable than grain-growing, and the Dominion’s chief products and exports consist of (1) wool, (2) frozen meat, and (3) dairy-produce; while the cultivation of wheat and oats has been reduced to the limits of domestic requirements. The total value of exports for the year ending 30 th September, 1907, was £19,687,573, of which agricultural products figured to to the amount of £17,000,475, or 86.35 per cent, of the total exports. The agricultural produce of the Dominion for the same year was of an estimated value of nearly £25,000,000 sterliug, not taking into consideration the increase of live stock. The area of the Dominion is 104,751 square miles, or 67,040,640 acres, of which 28,000,000 acres are agricultural land, and 27,200,000 acres pastoral land. The area in occupation in October, 1907, was 37,564,278 acres, of which 15,330,189 acres were in cultivation or in sown grasses, The area actually in cultivation was 6,831,798 acres, of which 944,250 acres were in corn and pulse crops, 765,342 acres in green crops 4,958,233 acres in grasses on ploughed land, 114,701 acres in orchards, plantations, gardens, etc., and, 49,272 acres in fallow. The area in sown grasses on unploughed land was 8,498,391 acres, and native grasses were estimated at 22,234,029 acres. The wide area of country still unoccupied consists to a very considerable extent of land in native grasses or bush, capable of carrying large flocks of sheep and herds of cattle.

There were in the Dominion on the 31st October, 1907, 73,367 holdings of 1 acre or over in extent. There is an increasing trend towards small or moderate-sized holdings and more intense cultivation.

The forests of New Zealand are under the charge of the Forestry Branch of the Lands and Survey Department, in whose report particulars regarding them are given.