AGRICULTURAL, COMMERCIAL, AND MARITIME REPORT.

Maori Messenger : Te Karere Maori, Volume VI, Issue 2, 31 January 1859, Page 6

AGRICULTURAL, COMMERCIAL, AND MARITIME REPORT.

From the 15th to the 31st January. Since we last wrote, the schooner Gazelle has arrived from Sydney, and, as we had for some time predicted, with a quantity of Australian flour and wheat, amounting to 400 bags of the former, and 99! bags of ihe latter. This is not only a great discredit but a sad loss to an Agricultural country of such great capability as the Province of Auckland unquestionably is; but if our own farmers fail to produce a sufficiency of food or decline to part with it at its fair market value, what alternative remains but to go to other countries for our supplies? In the last number of the Messenger, we drew attention to the fact that wheal and maize to the value of 58617. 455. had been, last year, lost to our farmers in consequence of a diminished exportation from the year 4857. Then if we add to this the flour and wheat just received, and calculate it at its present market value—22?. per ton for flour, Bs. 6d. per bushel for wheat, ir will amount to 4715?., or, together. 7576?. 15s. lost to the corn growers of this Province. This is not a loss to be despised. St is a lesson from which our Agriculturists should lake warning; for nothing can be more ruinous than for a country capable of supplying not only its own inhabitants, but those of its neighbours with an abundance .of food, to draw its bread stuCfs from a foreign source. We heartily hope that the redoubled exertions of 4859, will more than compensate for ifee AgvienUural deficiencies of -

There is one thing, however, in the wheat j importations that arc about to lake place by j which our farmers would do well to profit; we mean by procuring a change of good,-! sound, wholesome seed, of which, we have \ reason to believe, some of the best samples j will shortly be in the market. It is imposs- j ibie to pay too much attention-to that. The New Zealand wheat, at present grown, bears the worst possible character in the Sydney ! and Melbourne markets; and as this estimate | is in no way attributable to the climate or the soil, but proceeds entirely from the infe- 1 riority of the seed sown, every pains shouUL, bp taken by purchasing a better stock 10 acquire a belter reputation and thereby command a ready sale and a large .price tn the Australian Markets. Sheep, as our readers may remark, continue 10 be largely imparted into Auckland from New Plymouth and Napier. And the beautiful ship ihe Evening Siar, is about to sail for Morclon Bay to bring hiiher a full cargo of those invaluable animals, which- it is to be hoped may be more and more extensively pastured amongst us. They are the sure and certain means of promoting the gener I prosperity; and when we. look at the amount of wool coming inio Auckland from the Auckland coast during the present month of January—ln,Bso lbs, as specified in our ia-<t, 11, MO lbs as staled in our present number—27,s4o lbs *'n all —we cannot but rejoke in the prospect thus exhibited ol an early, a large and a remunerative source of export. The following are the arrivals since our last; Eiiczer, schooner, 56 tons, Captaiu Koan, from Napier, with 50 sheep ; Gazelle, schooner, 212 tons, Captain Cunningham, from Sydney, with a genera! cargo of merchandise, 100 bags flour, 991 bags wheal, 5 passengers; Mousam, barque, 198 lons, Captain Mac Donald, from Hobart Town, with a cargo of palings, shingles, laths, posts and rails, and sundries, lo passengers; Lord Worslev, steam ship, 422 tons, Captain Johnson, from Sydney via New Plymouth, with sundry goods, 505 sheep, 5 horses, A cattle, 253 bushels grass seeds, 55 passengers; Pegasus, schooner, 43 tons, Captain Erier, from Napier, in ballast, 4 passengers ; Effort, schooner, 32 tons, Captain Frost, from Lyttelton, with 699 bushels wheat. The departures have been, the Zephyr, schooner, 56 tons, Captain Kensett, for Lyttelton, with j 0,000 feel sawn timber, sundry merchandise, 10 passengers; the Acadian, schooner, 43 ions, Captain Forester, for

Napier, with 20,000 feet kauri timber, 5 tons flour, sundries, 4 passengers; the schooner Eliezer, 56 ions, Captain Kean, for Napier, with sundries, 12 passengers; the barque Coustanune, 608 ions, Captain Wrangles, for Hokianga, to load with limber for England ; the stram ship Lord Worslev, 422 tons, Captain Johnson, for New Plymouth and Sydney, with two tons flour, sundries, 25 passengers; the barque Kale, 341; tons, Captain Grange, for Shanghai, with 185,Q00 feel sawn timber, 1 0 tons potatoes, 2240 lbs. cheese, 2 passengers; the schooner Gazelle, 212 lons, Captain Cunningham, for Sydney, with 68 lons kauri gum, 5000 lbs cheese, 7 bundles sheep skins, 11 passengers. There arrived coastwise, 45 vessels of 1 070 tons, with 100 passengers, 2997 bushels wheat, 470bushelsmaize. 210 bushelsapples, 2700 bushels shells, 7 tons potatoes, 2£ cwt onions. -117 kits peaches, 5 cwt honey, 1 cwt lard, 7 cwt bacon and hams, 42 cwt po r k, 86 gallons oil, 5 horses, 76 sheep, 10 fowls, 4 boats, 10 spars, 550 posts and rails, 17,006 feel sawn limber, 112,000 shingles. 55£ ions copper ore, 517 tons firewood, 11,5 l 0 lbs wool, 93£ tons kauri gum. The departures, coastwise, were 42 vessels, of 952 tons, with 87 passengers, and the usual trading cargoes.

The following are the Market Prices Current corrected to date. Bread Stuffs. Flour, fine, 22;. per ton* Flou:', second quality, . . i7f. per ton. Flour, of native manufacture, from 151 to 18 Biscuit at from . . 245. to 28$. per cwl. Bread per loaf of 21bs 6d. Bran r . . . , . Is 3d. per bl. Ghocekies. Tea .... 91. to 9 ,40s. per chest Sugar .... 7d. to Bd. per lb. Coffee . . . . lOd, per lb. Rice .... 2d. to 2£ per lb. Soap .... 555. per cwt. Candles. . . . dOd. perlb. Tobacco . , . . 2s, 6d. to 3s. per lb.