FARMING IN AUCKLAND.

New Zealander, Volume XVII, Issue 1544, 2 February 1861, Page 7

FARMING IN AUCKLAND.

To the Editor of the New-Zealaj.t>er. y lK) —in the very many letters which have from time to time appeared in your journal for the benefit of new-comers, I have never met with any other than where the advice given related to the operations of settlers whh vary limited means, the reclaiming a few acres for the growth of a sufficiency of food for themselves and families. But this appears to me stopping far short of the required information. True, there arc plenty amongst us who go so far as to say that, under the present price of labor, cultivation, as a business, will not pay. This, however, I altogether deny, as to the assumption itself, and (admitting that there are of course exceptions) as to the qualification with regard to the price of labour. We find the very men who employ no labour at all, but whose work is performed entirely within the circle of their own family, as loud as any in these complaints. Not that I am to bo understood that such complaints are by any means universal, but being often loudly reiterated and ostentatiously paraded, they necessarily form the more prominent objects to arrest our attention than the thousand every-day successes which modestly and unobtrusivelv plod on their way in quiet content. Those very men who arc their own sole laborers are in the actual nature of the case persons of small capital, it is then unreasonable of them to feel disappointed if their own progress seem slow when they look around them and sec the more rapid advance to wealth of their richer neighbours in other lines of business, in which perhaps, large amounts of capital have been invested. Although the amount of their savings may be small, let these reflect also upon the smallness of the capital employed. Their own good sense should tell them that to" look For fortunes is altogether out of reason — ex nihilo nihil Jit. Those who should have commenced business in any of the ordinary channels of shopkeeping with but a few score pounds would consider themselves particularly fortunate if, from the proceeds, they could obtain a comfortable living. How much more fortunate, then, is the small capitalist in jhis case, where not only docs the return for his labor and capital employed provide himself and family with every necessary and many luxuries, but that capital meanwhile, is rapidly and surely increasing. Let him

reflect, too, upon the risk attending tlic investment of capital in any of the ordinary branches of commerce—the e'ils of increasing competition, and compare them with the slower yet comparatively certain success in agvcultoral pursuits. Lest, however, that too much credence he given to tic truth of this allegation, thut the present price of .about- precludes the possibility of farming wth profit, let us sec whether there he not some more probable reason. In a country where the price of agricultural produce is on the average nearly double that of the price of produce at home, where rent and taxes arc unknown, and where, in most eases of bush fanning, there is attached to every farm the very considerable advantage of a run for cattle upon the unenclosed lands of neighbouring proprietors, and the unsold lands of the Crown, it would seem strange, indeed, if our settlers were not able to compete with those whose lauds arc heavily taxed m the shape of rent rates and tithes m the old country. Allowing even the rate of labour to be double" here what it is at home-, I do not believe that this would constitute the difference. For if we double the value of the labour necessary for the cultivation of a hundred-acre farm here over that required upon a farm of a similar size at home, we shall find the extra labor charge on the one a less burden than the rent upon the other. The causes, I believe, to be altogether different than those connected with the price of labour. Firstly, I would suggest the absence of anything like a system of rotation in cropping ; and, secondly, a want of attention to the most ordinary farm operations for the production and economy of manure. Treat farms of an averago quality at home in the same manner as the land here is usually treated —■ neglect the first grand essential, itndcr-drainagc—half tilf it—sow it with crops unsuitcd to the peculiar nature of the soil—and continue a scourging system of cropping without, or nearly without, the application of manure—and then pay your rent if you can ! We must assist the soil. Many as the advantages are in this highly-favoured Province—a magnificent climate caS y water communication from almost all parts to the capital—cheap land—and a never-failing market in the neighbouring Colonies, wo are. always willing to own, and have ever done so, that in natural fertility the soil of the open fern lands is not, during the first year, equal to that of many many"other fields of emigration. Whatever the reason may be. whether through tho constant drain upon it for the production of f-rns and other rubbish, periodically consumed by the bush fires, and the ashes of which are swept awav by the winter's rains, (an exhausting process which has taken all from and returned nothing to the soil) or whether caused by the presence of a natural acidity in the soil, which requires the action of the sun and atmosph re to neutralise—the lands of this Province still possess advantages which more than counterbalance these disqualifications. After the first season they continue steadily improving for years, until they have arrived at full fertility, so unlike the richer soils of America and elsewhere, which a short course of cropping reduces to a stato of downright sterility. And another remarkable feature consists in th" effective results of manure when applied to them, as compared with the effects of similar applications to exhausted soils in England. A much smaller amount of manure here having an equal effect to that produced any where else by a much larger quantity. I am led bv'this to believe (as well as influenced by observations which I shall notice below) that the soil is only exhausted in part, that of the various salts and phosphates required for the production of cereals, some few only have been abstracted from the soil by the vegetation indigenous to it. For instance, I have observed in the case of a piece of newly reclaimed fern land sown with wheat, that although the young plant had exhausted the resources which it drew from the seed, it began to change colour, and remained for weeks in a languishing sickly condition ; still those plants which survived, as soon as they had struggled through the earlier stage and shot into ear, not only formed good grain but were remarkably well headed and filled. The deficiency in the soil here seemed to be only in that form of food necessary for the plant in its earlier stages. Again, on the same land where manure both in the shape of dung and of Peruvian guano was used, the crop continued healthy throughout, and where the guano was used at an expense of 30s. per acre the extra quantity of wheat obtained over tho unmanured part amounted to 12 bushels, which at the price it realised, Bs.' Cd. per bushel, left a clear profit on the outlay of tho guano of £3 12s. per acre. The above theory is worthy the attention of those understanding the subject, and the results mipht be not only interesting but practically useful to the agriculturalist. I find I have already trespassed too far in these desultory remarks to admit of enlarging farther at present upon the two points named, as forming in my opinion the chief bar to successful operations in this Province, to which I trust, however, I may be permitted to return in a futnro communication. I am, A Practical Settler.