AGRICULTURAL, COMMERCIAL, AND MARITIME REPORT.

Maori Messenger : Te Karere Maori, Volume VI, Issue 3, 15 February 1859, Page 6

AGRICULTURAL, COMMERCIAL, AND MARITIME REPORT.

From the Ist to the 15th February. By the last advices from Sydney, which date to the sth of February, there was little Commercial activity in any of the Australian Markets. Flour had fallen tweniy shillings per ton, and sales were slack at the prices quoted, namely, d9J. for fine, 47/. for seconds. The new wheat was beginning to arrive in Sydney, and was selling at from 6s. to 7s. per bushel. At Melbourne, the price of flour was from Ml. 40s. to 481. New wheat had not got to market; old was quoted from 7s. 9d. to 7s. 40d. At Adelaide, flour was from 1 hi. to 4U. 40s. Wheat 6s. 4d., and the crops have been much more abundant than it was at one time supposed they were likely to be. "We regret to have to notice a further importation of foreign wheat and flour, in consequence of the inability or unwillingness of

our New Zealand growers to provide the Millers with the requisite supplies; this is a most disastrous state of affairs not only for New Zealand Agriculturists but for every New Zealand settler; for the country that cannot provide its own food or produce any sufficient export to pay for its importation must needs remain a poor and struggling one. There is more of this wheat and flour, we learn, to follow; and the only gain to be derived from its importation,—of which we trust our farmers will take prompt advantage—is lo secure a change of seed, the wheat being of the finest quality to be had in the Adelaide market. Our own wheal is now coming rapidly into market, the operation of cleaning and dressing being much facilitated and greatlv improved by employment of Messrs. Greeiiacre and Slater's steam Thrashing Machine, which performs the work in an admirable manner, thrashing and riddling the grain at the rate of a bushel a minute. As the crops must soon be garnered we heartily hope that the farmers will be on the alert, and by extra culture of their lands not only make amends for the deficient supplies of 1838, but insure a super-abundant provision for the increasing population, as well as for a means of export for 1859. The vessels arrived have been the schooner Osprey, 47 tons, Captain Butt, from New Plymouth, with 165 sheep, 140 feel boards; the steam ship White Swan, 530 tons, Captain McLean, from the South, with 400 sheep, 39 kegs butler, 8 bags grass seed from New Plymouth, and 32 passengers; the barque Breadalbane, 224 tons, Captain P. Jones, from Sydney, with a general cargo, 458 bags wheat, 20 bags flour, <l2 passengers , the barque William Watson, 480 tons, Captain Macfarlane, from London, with a cargo of merchandise, and 147 passengers ; the schooner Ann, 57 tons, Captain Wallace, from Lyttelton, with . 1540 bushels barley, ,40 bushels wheat; H. M. Ship Iris, 26 guns, Gaptain Loring, C.8., from Hobart lown and the Bay of Islands, on a cruise.

The departures were the Ketch Pegasus, 45 tons, Captain Brier, for Napier, with 2000 palings, 2000 shingles, 300 posts and rails, 2 tons flour, 43 bags bread, and sundries; the ship Evening Star, 812 tons^Captain for Mon eton Bay, for a cargo of sheep; the steam ship White Swan, 330 tons, Captain McLean, for the Southern ports, with sundry neis; thjj ship Kingston, 843 Captain "Weeks, for Shanghai, in ballast. There arrived coastwise, 57 vessels of 4519 tons, with 180 passengers, 2085 bushels wheat. 650 bushels maize, 21 & bushels apples and pears, 293 bushels peaches, 7 tons potatoes, 24 cwt. onions, 2 cwt. pumpkins, 7 bushels bay seed, 19 cwt. salt pork, 4 cwt. butter, 274 sheep, 7 horses, 3 head cattle, 3 fowls, 3000 staves, 15,000 laths, 421,000 shingles, 33,000 feet sawn limber, 4670 posts and rails, 136 totara piles, 96 kauri logs, 4 bides, copper ore, 22 tons kauri gum, 70 cwt. flax, 6 tuns sperm oil, tons black oil, 4320 bushels shells, 4 boat, 2570 lbs. wool, 579 tons firewood, cwt. bacon, 4 cwt. dried eels, 45 tons towai bark, 800 palings. The departures were 46 vessels of 1152 tons, with 418 passengers, and the customary trading cargoes. The subjoined are the Market Prices Current corrected to date. Bread Stuffs. Flour, fme, 20*. per ton. Flour, second quality, . . 16*. per ton. Flour, of native manufacture, from 42i to 16 Biscuit at from . . 245. to 28s. per cwt. Bread per loaf of 21bs 6d. Bran ...... Is 3d. per bl. j Groceries. j Tea .... to 9,405. per,chest i Sugar . . . . sd. to 7d. per lb. Coffee . . . . 40d. per lb. Rice . . . . 2d. to 2i per lb. Soap «... 355. per cwt. Candles . . . . lod. per lb. Tobacco . , 2s. 6d. to 3s. per lb.