FARMING IN NEW ZEALAND

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume XXXXI, Issue 70453, 2 October 1900, Page 4

FARMING IN NEW ZEALAND

Mr. W. P. Reeves, Agent-General for New Zealand, noticed this paragraph in the London Standard :—": — " A moderate degree of agricultural revival appears to have come to New Zealand, mainly from the comparatively good prices for New Zealand mutton for a year or more." In reply, Mr Reeves took occasion to give the colony an excellent advertisement. He wrote: — "I am happy to say that the revival of prosperity amongst New Zealand farmers is not i moderate merely, but may be described as remarkable. Moreover, it is not a matter of the last twelve months, but of something like the last five years. It is certainly not due solely or mainly to the comparatively good prices paid for frozen meat this year, though, no doubt, the average wholesale prices for our meat for the last twelve months have been somewhat higher than during the proceeding twelve. They have, however, fluctuated very greatly. The other day prices were extraordinarily high. Five months before that they were very low indeed. The bettered condition of farmers in the colony has a much wider foundation, I am' happy to say. We can point to the remarkable growth in the export of dairy produce. Last year 298,901 boxes of butter were exported from New Zealand to this country, as against 171,507 the year before, and 59,658 cases of cheese, as against 25,532 cases in the previous year. Fortunately, too, not only has the rise in price coincided with the increase in export, but in cheese the rise has been as much as 10s per cwt. The wool-clip for the last year has been heavy, and the prices better than for years previous. Grain crops were good, and the price of oats rose to 2s a bushel, mainly owing to the demand for shipment to South Africa. Since the outbreak of the Spanish-American war, too, the export of New Zealand hemp has grown, and better prices have been secured for it. Though gold, coal, and kauri gum do not come under the head of i agriculture, still the increased output of these, and the good prices obtained for the kauri gum, have directly been of benefit to our farmers, to whom their own New Zealand market is now of I much greater moment than used to be the case. Coupled with all these causes has been the marked fall in the rates of interest. Altogether, it is within the mark to say that the farmers, as a class, in New Zealand have had better times during the last five years than during 1 the preceding sixteen,"