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Department op Agriculture, New Zealand, Ruakura Experimental farm, Mr Dibble, in Waikato. Record Beets." Yields, 21 tons per acre, 5 Ib. roots and under, yielding 161 per cent sugar 1907 , , ru % s> "• Clearing scrub, fern, &c. 10 0 Breaking up (ploughing) 0 8 0 Discing .. 0 2 0 Harrowing 0 10 Ploughing and subsoiling to depth of 18 in .. 015 0 Harrowing ~ 0 10 Rolling 0 1 6 Ridging .. 0 5 0 Manure, 10 cwt. at 7s. per hundredweight 3 10 0 Seed, 4 lb. at 2s. per pound 0 8 0 Scarifying, singling, and cleaning . ... 2 10 0 Lifting 0 12 6 Average cost, 9s. 3Jd. per ton. Per acre £9 15 0 The official report issued by the American Government upon the beet-root sugar industry in 1885, in regard to the yield of roots per acre, states as follows: " The large differences in yield per acre shown in the preceding tables are not as much due to variation in the fertility of the soil as to the methods of cultivation. The experience of six years has shown that the average yield of beets per acre has steadily increased, and this increase has been due to improved agriculture alone. At first the farmers were largely ignorant of the correct method of beet-culture, and. as this inexperience disappears the results are seen in an increase of the' crop. But the farmers of these rich valleys must not be deceived by this prosperity the time will soon come when the best methods of tillage will no longer result in heavier harvests. It is far better and cheaper to maintain the fertility of the soil than to restore it. It is a wise policy to use fertilizers on rich soils : the voluntary use of these soil-foods will prevent the necessity for them which an unwise agriculture always produces." The Waikato Valley and basins are rated amongst the most fertile of lands, but they, nevertheless, require special attention and treatment. The sugar-beet-root culture, although apparently difficult and costly to initiate, will so revolutionize results and returns that when it eventually becomes established no district in the Dominion and no Dominion in the Empire will surpass the Waikato County in agriculture and agricultural achievements, as well as in manufactures, science, and art, based upon co-operation, reciprocity, and fair trade between land, capital, and labour The Waikato Valley and basins are not rich—they are poor —but they are sensitive to liberal treatment and good management. They require capital, time, and hard work to reclaim them from the waste in which they at present are, as the riches of the great Waihi Mine were bidden in the hungry sulphide reefs which were useless to the ordinary miner without capital and science at his back to support him with requirements to enable him to develop the mine of wealth surrounding him. So with our refractory second-class deposits of soil, which constitute the great Waikato middle basin : they require special treatment, and capital, and appliances requisite to enable the agriculturist to recover from the atmosphere, through the medium of the refractory soils of Waikato, that inexhaustible supply of vegetable wealth, sugar, which will more than recover all the costs for labour and manure expended in exploiting them, leaving him in possession of a truly British homestead, which will not be rivalled by any other country under the sun. Surely if this be so, that the sugar-beet industry wherever it has been established has revolutionized agriculture, and elevated it to a high place and standard in the State, then it is the duty of all to assist in establishing this industry in Waikato, which has proved herself so eminently suited for it as a base for her dairying and manufactures to stand upon and overcome all outside competition. This can only be accomplished by co-operation, reciprocity, and fair trade between land, labour, and capital in Waikato.

EXHIBIT 2.—LETTER FROM MR. JOHN ST CLAIR, AUCKLAND Box 275, Auckland, 13th May, 1902 Dear Sir, — Sugar-beet in Waikato and Waipa. On behalf of a powerful syndicate, who have underwritten the necessary capital with which to float a strong company to purchase and erect suitable plant for crushing and refining sugar from sugar-beet roots in Waikato, I am authorized to make the following proposals, with a view to the establishment of this important industry in the Waikato and Waipa districts: 1 The farmers, settlers, and Maoris of the district will be required to enter into a guarantee to grow 5,000 acres of sugar-beet roots, each year for a term of twenty-one'years, with a right of renewal, and sell the same to the company at the rate of £1 per ton, delivered at the crushingfactory The roots to be grown in accordance with the printed instructions issued by the company, and under the supervision of its expert, who will inspect and give advice or instruction to growers free of cost, During the first two years, the payments are to be made for roots by onehalf cash on delivery, and half in fully paid-up shares in the company and during these first two years the company will supply free of cost one-half of the seed and manure required, and

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