WHEAT PRODUCE OF THE AUSTRALIAN COLONIES.

Colonist, Volume VIII, Issue 801, 30 June 1865, Page 4

WHEAT PRODUCE OF THE AUSTRALIAN COLONIES.

Me. Bichaed Bennet, the well known New South Wales agriculturist, writes a long and valuable letter to the Australasian, of Melbourne. We extract the following:—

" I have no doubt that the average of the returns given in by the farmers is from twelve and a half to fifteen per cent, short of the actual produce. If so, there would be so much surplus in excess of the consumption, or about one-seventh, or a bushel per head; therefore, so far as the Australasian colonies were concerned (not including New Zealand), there was no real need of importing a single bushel of wheat last year, or even this year, as the withholding of supplies by the South Australians is no proof of an insufficient stock, but, rather, that they are making a rod to whip themselves, by encouraging the Chilians and Californians to extend their production, the former being enabled now to ship flour at £9 a ton and wheat at 2s. 9d. a bushel, which, from their abundant harvest, are expected to fall lower, when sauve qiii petit will be the cry, and the market 'rushed.' It will no longer avail for the speculators to repeat the cry of 'wolf, wolf,' as having somewhat over-acted their parts last season in a great measure accounts for the suspicion and distrust which have since prevailed up to the present hour in the wheat and flour market.

" I must confess that it reflects great discredit both on New South Wales and "Victoria, that they are unable to raise sufficient food for themselves —the averages of the former exceeding by twenty-five per cent., and the latter by sixty-five per cent., the averages of South Australia—and that South Australia, with a population of only 150,000, and of only thirty years' existence, should have 890,700 acres under wheat cultivation, and New South Wales, Victoria, and Tasmania collectively only about 300,000 acres, with a population oj upwards of 1,000,000, and that the former (South Australia) should supply half the food required. California —so recently established as 1848 —in 1863 had a population of 380,000; 283,308 acres under wheat, producing 4,147,629 bushels, averaging fifteen and three-quarter bushels per head, and ten bushels fifty-five pounds per acre, having about one-third available for export, her averages generally being about twenty btu'hoL-j per acre. In the early part of 18G41, it may be remembered that she was exporting wheat to England at the time when the averages there were only ss. a bushel, the price of wheat at San Francisco fit- the close of 1863 being one dollar thirty to forty cents per lOOlbs., equal to 3s. 3d. to 2s. 6d. per bushel, without any orders from these colonies. Chili supplied California in her early times, so that, with the exception of last year, when a drought prevailed in the latter country, Chili has lost her as a customer, which to a great extent accounts for the low prices and heavy stocks which usally prevail in that country, when her exports become limited, at which times 2s. 6d. per bushel for wheat, and £8 per ton for flour, may be considered the average rates, from the cheapness of labor. By the latest accounts the last harvest in Chili is reported as abundant, and prices likely to rule low, and the quality far superior to the imports of last year. The principal portion of former imports having been old and partially damaged, had to be mixed here with colonial flour to render it in any way saleable; but when fresh and in sound condition, Chilian flour is of equal quality to the average of the Australian or Californian flour, though not up to the best South Australian."