AGRICULTURAL AND DAIRYING INDUSTRY.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXX, Issue 8446, 23 May 1907, Page 5

AGRICULTURAL AND DAIRYING INDUSTRY.

SPEECH Bif THE HON. R. McN.AB. By Telegraph—Press Association. AUCKLAND, May 22. In opening the Winter Show, today, the Hon. R. McNab, said he hoped that the Show would form the nucleus of an Agricultural Hall, which would be the centre 'of the great agricultural and dairying industries in the North. Too long the public had been accustomed to think' the agricultural centre of the colony was in the South, because it got the first start there. He was confirmed in the idea during his recent trip north and south of Auckland that the future of the colony was greatly bound up with the progress of the North. He had been particularly struck with the great development in the butter, cheese, and hemp industries. To show the growth of exports from the port cf Auckland, he some figures which gave the exact position. In 1902 the butter exported totalled 27,775cwt and the value, was £124,459, and it had steadily increased till in 1907 it reached 63,632cwt of the value of £320,426. Over the same, period, cheese exports had shown a decrease from s,o6Qcwt, worth £11,426, to 3,484cwt, worth, £9,248, while hemp had increased from 2,034 tons, valued at £48,549, to 9,013 tons, of the value of £255,708, the gross increase of values on the three products mentioned being from £220,343 to £585,382. These figures showed a rate of development which must be very satisfactory to the people of Auckland. He believed the public would appreciate, year by year, the advantages resulting from such exhibitions as this one, and that Auckland's experience would be the experience of southern cities.