NORTH AND SOUTH.

Auckland Star, Volume LIII, Issue 248, 19 October 1922, Page 4

NORTH AND SOUTH.

From a blue book with the rather forbidding title of "Statistical Report on the Agricultural and Pastoral Production Of the Dominion of Xew Zealand" some instructive information can be extracted showing the differences between the primary products of the North and South Islands. Most people know that the principal wealth of the South Island lies in sheep, and that the development of dairying has been far greater in the Xorth Island. Statistics show, however, that the North Island has well over two million more sheep than the South Island. For this excess Hawke's Bay is responsible. That land district, with 5,203,000 sheep, lead? the Dominion. The two Auckland land districts have less than a million and a-half between them.

Dairying is our long suit. There are 2,834,000 cattle in the Xorth Island, 862,000 of which are dairy cattle, against 689,000 and 274,000 in the South Island. The blue book contains a map showing the distribution of cattle. In the. Xonh Island the distinguishing red dots are ■fairly thick in Xorth Auckland. Hawke's Bay and Poverty Bay, and very thick in the Waikato, the Thames Valley. Ta-ra-naki and parts of the Wellington province. In the South Island there is only a light sprinkling of dots. There are fewpr cattle in Westland county, which stretches from Kumara right clown to the Sounds region, than in the small Hauraki Plains county. There are hanV.y any cattle in Central Otago. where the Government hopes to stimulate dairying by irrigation. The fertile and old-established Ashburton county has fewer cattle than Whakatane. There is a different story to tell when on" turns to the crop returns. Of grain and pulse crops the Xort-h Island had only 107.0(10 acres last season, while the, South Island had 846,000 acres. The South is- the granary of Xew Zealand. These figures show that the development of the two islands has rieen substantially different. The Xorth is wealthier and is moving along lines that encourage closer settlement. There might be much more closer settlement, in the South, but Xature limits its extension there more than she does in the Xorth. The South, on the other hand, as we ehowed some time ago, has not been affected by the land boom to anything like the same extent as the Xorth, and therefore has less to regret in these times of depression.