Page 5 Advertisements Column 5

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXV, Issue 9241, 19 December 1888, Page 5

At the close of the season of the College of Agriculture at Downton, Professor Wrightson, in his address, referring to the agricultural situation, made the following sensible and seasonable remarks :—" The depression in agriculture was due to artificial and social as well as natural causes. The first set of causes included the spread of civilisation and the reclamation of vast tracts of land previously uncultivated. This would, in time, bring its own cure, in the inevitable increase of the human population, which would overtake the supply, so that countries which were now exporters of food would become either self-supporting only or actual importers of food. The great rapidity with which such changes were brought about was indicated by a late statement of Mr. Coleman's, the High Commissioner of Agriculture for the United States Government. The official stated that before another century had run the population of the United States would, at its present rate of increase, rival that of China. The question as to the production of American beef had already been solved, although a few English experts thought the supply of stall-fed cattle from the States was inexhaustible. It had, however, proved inadequate for the English market, and beef in New York was now as dear as it was in London."