THE WHEAT PRODUCTION OF VICTORIA.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXIX, Issue 4134, 20 June 1874, Page 3

THE WHEAT PRODUCTION OF VICTORIA.

On this subject the Melbourne Argus of May 19 says :—We shall have no wheat of any account for export this year of our own production. On the contrary, wo shall hardly have enough, according to the usual scale of allowance, for our own consumption. Por 700,000 people, at six bushels por head per annum, 4,200,000 bushels of wheat will be required, and for seeding 350,000 acres, at 1 : |- bushels per acre, 437,500 bushels, or a total of 4,637,500 bushels. But our aggregate yield of wheat this year, according to the registrar-general’s returns, just published, was only 4,752,280 bushels,

against 5,391,104 bushels for the previous year, or 114,789 in excess of our present estimated wants for food and seed. At this some surprise will probably be expressed, especially when it is known that we had a greater breadth of land under wheat in 1873-74 than we had in 1872-73. But Victoria has suffered this year, in common with other countries, from a deficiency in the yield of wheat, which in her case is attributable to incidents of the season. She has, however, suffered less in this respect than some others, as null be seen by the following facts and figures. In South Australia there was a decrease of 2,557,096 bushels of wheat this year against our decrease of 638,815 bushels ; and the Californians estimate the decrease on their last harvest at fully 25 per cent. During the hist ten years the highest yield of wheat in Victoria was a fraction of over 22 bushels jjer acre, and the lowest 10 bushels. The former was in 1807 and the latter in 1871. This year our yield was at the rate of 13-6 bushels per acre. These yields of ours, though far below the English average, compare favorably with those of the United States and some other countries, and are much higher than those of Hew South Wales and South Australia. According to the American National Bureau of Agricultural Statistics, the average yield of wheat, spread over a number of years, is 28 bushels in England, 17 in Prussia, 14 in Franco, and 12 in the United States. For a period of six years in New South Wales, the average has been 11J bushels to the acre. In South Australia, the average for the seven years preceding 1873 was 122 bushels per acre, and this year it is only 7i bushels. Why is this ? The farming was not much worse last year than in some former years, and this decrease is not, therefore, attributable to that cause. It simply arose from the season being adverse, probably through nnpropitious winds at the time of the flowering of the wheat.