THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS. WEDNESDAY, MAY 22, 1907. AGRICULTURE IN AUCKLAND.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLIV, Issue 13494, 22 May 1907, Page 6

THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS. WEDNESDAY, MAY 22, 1907. AGRICULTURE IN AUCKLAND.

. — ■ - —«c • — ;"■'•' The First Winter Show of the Auckland Agricultural and Pastoral Association, which is to be opened today by the Minister for Lands, will do a public service if it helps to bring home to our citizens the dependence of commercial and industrial prosperity upon agricultural development! ~, Auckland has always been the largest of the sister provinces. It was the earliest settled \ of all the provinces. Its climate and j jits .soil and its other natural advantages have been much the same as I they are to-day throughout the whole period of our colonial history. But the agricultural development of; j the more easily settled provinces of I the South Island for many years l t gave them a decided lead, and it is only latterly that Auckland has come to the front and. justified the j expectations of its pioneers. The causes that have ; operated against the . agricultural development of Auckland Province are well known; nor can they be regarded as satisfactorily removed until the Native Lands have been i brought into use and transit facilities provided. Yet even as things are, the energy and industry of our settlers and the patient persistence with which they have applied themselves to the surmounting of every difficulty have won for the province a creditable reputation and have drawn towards it an ever-increasing tide of emulative settlement. In every part of the province, where the law allows the settler to enter he is turning the bush into farm and producing the raw material by which our population mainly lives and prospers. We can see around in Auckland City the evidence of this sustained prosperity, and we" shall be shown in,the Winter Show the basis.'upon which it : chiefly rests. For important as are our gold, our timber, and our gum, and much as we owe to them in the past as in the present, they have been surpassed by the products of our. fields and pastures and are being steadily, and surely, left far be-.

hind. And with this tremendous difference that the agricultural use of land, scientifically directed, continually increases the yield and the carrying capacity, ; so that: when wonderful Waihi has been long-exhaust-ed and when the kauri has become only a legend, the pastures of the Waikato and of the Kaipara will be richer than ever and Auckland City flourish commercially on the butter, meat, and wool that pour into it from thousands of fertile farms. ...:■',

We have in Auckland to-day fully 20,000 holdings, 5000 more s than any other province, and the character of the land is proved by the large proportion of small-farms. Our sheepowners consequently own * smaller flocks than are usually found, elsewhere, though 2,000,000 sheep are annually shorn in Auckland, and we depend mainly upon dairying for our agricultural conquest of the country. Of our half-a-million head of cattle, 150,000 are now dairy cows and heifers, considerably more than are kept for dairy use in any- other province, Taranaki not excepted. And we may confidently anticipate that within the next five years, with the opening up of the land, the extension of the railway system and the improvement in roading, which we ought to see, the Province of Auckland alone will be milking a-quarter of a million dairy cattle. For the increase in our dairy herds. is one of the features of our provincial settlement and is reflected by. the ceaselessly recurrent breaking of records in the monthly and annual butter shipment returns. In which connection it is pleasing to point out that our dairymen have not only surpassed all competitors in the number of their stock and the rapid increase of their butter production,. but have beaten all competitors in the quality which secures the highest price and the -surest market. The impartial and official judges who are allotting the Winter Show prizes have given to Auckland producers the. butter championship of the colony and all firsts in . the open classes of butter for export. This is a complete reversion of the time when Auckland was regarded as quite out of the running in such competitions, and marks the leadership which this great province is steadily assuming in all the branches of agriculture that are favoured by her climate. With improving stock, improving methods and the most modern appliances, we may hope that our Auckland butter-makers will some day win from the Danes the blue ribbon of the British import trade. They are on the high road to do so, encouraged by the fact that the best butter is the most profitable butter. and we ' can actively sympathise wit! them owing to : the no less evidenl fact that the prosperity of the dairy men makes for the prosperity of the province as a while. v v

New v Zealand is now exporting butter to the value of £1,500,000 annually ; the wool exports amounted to £7,500,000 for; the year ending'on March 31 last; meat, £3,400,000 cheese, £500,000; tallow, skins, {hides, ......etq v ... £1,500,000. ; Nearly : 600,600 has come into'the colony during the year by the ; sale abroad of our. agricultural produce ; while in addition our farmers have abundantly fed every man, woman, and child of our colonial population. From Auckland alone, not including Poverty Bay, exports ; worth £3,265,000 have been shipped, the major part in the shape of farm pro- | duce. These are large figures, particularly when we compare them with the totals of our struggling years; but they are insignificant if we compare them with what will be when Auckland Province is brought under cultivation as it ought to be. For not only could the agricultural production of the province be easily . quadrupled were every, acre that is worth cultivating taken in hand, but we are still only on the threshold of the possibilities of scientific agriculture. Shows and exhibitions not only help to .convince townspeople that it is to their interest to encourage and not to depress the agricultural industry,, by displaying the chief sources of our ■ prosperity, but they teach farmers how to ■; farm better and serve as popular schools for new and progressive agricultural ideas. .Farming in the past has depended too much upon strenuous labour and too little upon shrewd thinking, yet it is, among all other industries, the one which offers the greatest charm and the greatest reward to the man who works scientifically. The farmer of the future will be the best trained and the most broadly educated of our industrial classes; and the tendency of civilisation in" this direction may bo plainly seen by anybody who studies intelligently the various features of the? Winter Show. M