AGRICULTURAL PROSPERITY.

Auckland Star, Volume XXIV, Issue 140, 15 June 1893, Page 8

AGRICULTURAL PROSPERITY.

Statistical literature is so proverbially arid in its nature that the Government would hardly be justified in reckoning on a large number of readers for their acnnal agricultural returns, even it these were published in every journal throughout the land. Still smaller must bo the number of those who, will take the trouble to procure the "New Zealand Gazette" for May, in which these carefully prepared tables are to be found. But though most of our readers would eschew such formidable phalanxes of figures as confront them in tho pages of the •' Guzette," tho facts to bo learned from a careful examination of tho returns interest many of us and ought to interest all. New Zealand ia essentially a pastoral and agricultural country. In relation to her, Suily'b aphorism that " tillage and paaburage are the two breasts of the State," might be used without any qualification ; for it is evident that, apart from those national characteristics, without which no people can ever hope to bo illustrious, the foundation of our prosperity and of cur gr6atueHß—if we are to become great —liea in the fertile soil with which Naturo haa so gonerously endowod us. Some clay wo may become a great manufacturing nation, or a. great commercial nation. Probably we have the resources in bhe country, and tho qualifications in ourselves, necessary for the attainment; of success in either manufacture or commerce. We may also confidently anticipate a largo source of wealth ia our minus, but, tor mauy generations to come, the principal direction in which we must look for a substantial and ever increasing prosperity is tho country, with it 3 yellow cornfields and its green pastures, its flocks, and its herds. It is with those cornfields and pastures, these herds and flocks, bnfc chiefly with the former, that tho tables before us deal. 'No doubt, an expert might make deductions from the figures which go to prove the change for tho better that has lately come over the farming industry, in somo parts of tho colony whore such a change v/aa needed ; bat, except in a general way, only au expert could do this. Proofs of this change are, however, abundant outsido of the " Gazette ;" and with all due deference to statistics, it may be truly said that there is no better evidence of this gratifying sbito of affairs than tho wide-spread atmosphero of contentment which pervades the whole farming community. Of course, it cannot/ be denied that equal prosperity hasnob fallen to the lot ( of all branches of agriculture ;or that some classes of the couutry cottiers— such as fhe orchardists, for instance—have not met with disappointment!. But osi a broad view of the rural industries throughout the colony, the feeling all must experience is. one of unqualiiield satisfaction, and even in . the case of such occupations as fruit-growing, there is every reason to believe that the depression consequent on a glutted market will vanish when tho recentlyadopted methods of disposing of tho produce have bean botter organised. At o time wheu agricultural depression prevail to such an alarming extent in England and isoino parts of the Continent of Europe that to copa with" it has becomo one of the most serious problems of statesmanship ;atatime when many of the unfortunate settlers in some parts of Australia are be> ginning to pondor tho advisability of retreating from the burned up plaius, wham their thirsty flocks dwindle under the terribly cloudless sky, and their cattle lio rotting by tho baked water-holes, the graziera and farmery of New Zealand must feel thankful for their dewy pastures and their streams that never cease to flow. How much of the present prosperity of the colouy is due to the present Government, there, is ho denying the fact that the taxation policy of the party in power, if dispassionately examined, is eminently reassuring to the small fanners, and its land policy is calculated to increase very markedly tho number of those desirable settlers. Although we may obtain a clear and corroct impression of the general condition and prospects of agriculturo throughout blio colony at the present moment, without the aid of the agricultural returns for 1893, it is to them wo must look for particulars and minute comparisons, Taking Table 1., which deals with tho number of holdings in the colony in 1893, compared with 1892, the acreage under cultivation or in grass during tho same periods, and the produce of that acreage, wo find that Auckland stands tirst in the total number of holdings. In 1893, the northern province had 10,226 holdings or an increase of 384 over the previous year. Otago comes next with 9,542 holdings for 1893, and 9,250 for 1892. Next follows Canterbury with 8,245, for the present year, and 7,951 for the past one, and then Wellingtonatsomedistance.with 6,421 holdings, or 87 more than she had at the previous collection of returns. After a great gap, comes Taranaki, tho garden, of New Zealand, with 2,928 holdings for this year, as against 2,635 for last. The total number of holdings for the whole colony is set down at 42,768, or 1,544 more than were recorded a year ago. When we pass on to the column indicating the extent of land broken up bub nob under crop, Auckland falls from the proud pre-eminence she enjoyed in the previous column. She has only 29,364 acres, while Canterbury has 50,708, and Otago 46,312 ; but there is one satisfaction in the fact that while these show a falling off of over 1,000 acres Bince 1892, our own province has taken n jump ahead of 10,958 acres. In the matter of acreage cUvoted to wheat, oats, barley, turnips and rape we rnuet hide our diminished heads in comparison with Otago and Canterbury, or even Wellington; when it comes to po«»'

toes however, we lessen the distance that separates us from the two great agricultural provinces and outstrip the Wellipgtonians. Whether it be owing to a larger preponderance of Irish in our midsb or nob, it is a facb thab while the Canterbury people have thirty times the area in wheat that we have and the Obagoans twenty times, they can only boasb of from one to two thousand additional acr^s devoted to the " Murphy." In bay, again, wo tread close on the heels iof the Canterbury reapers, and leave Wellington and Otago far behind. Fourteen thousand one hundred and twenty-nine acres of grass will go down before our sickles or reaping machines next summer, while Cantorbury will reap 17,097 acres. We rise superior to our two neighbours in the South island when we come to J;he column devoted to "grass-sown lands nob previously ploughed," but our triumph is short-lived, fortwocompetitorswehad almost forgotten leap into the first rank. Hawke's Bay, which we had beaten in wheat, oats, potatoes, turnips and hay, and Wellington, which had stood beneath us in oabs, potatoes, turnips and hay, both require seven figures to chronicle the acreage of their surface-sown grass land, while six suffice for us. Wellington heads the list under this division with 1,625,897 acres. Hawke's Bay follows with 1,028,357 acres, and Auckland makes nob a very creditable third wibh 828,305 acres. Canterbury and Otago have 333,013 and 204,746 acres respectively. The totals for the whole colony for 1893 are:—Land broken up, 154,254 acres; increase on last year, 13,800 acres; acres in wheat, 381,245 ; decrease, 21,028 ; acres in oats, 458,671; increase, 16,679; in barley, 24,906 ; increase, 638 ; in potatoes, 18,338, decrease, 8,928; in bay, 61,811, increase, 15,159; in surface sown graßß land, 4,650,652, increase, 574,526.