AGRICULTURAL STATISTICS.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 5501, 28 February 1896, Page 2

AGRICULTURAL STATISTICS.

It is impossible to compliment the Agricultural Department upon the preparation of the agricultural and pastoral statistics, which are summarised in another part of this issue. When the Agricultural and Pastoral Statistics Act was passed last session we hoped that the authorities ■would at last be able to give effect to the recommendations bearing on this subject which we had from time to time pressed upon their attention. The chief of these recommendations, as many of our readers will probably remember, was that the available information ' concerning the crops of the colony should be published early in the year, so that sellers and buyers alike should be able to form a tolerably accurate estimate both of tho supplies and of the probable course of the markets. This was specially provided for by the Act, which ser out, among other things, that the information collected by the department should be published " not later than the tenth day of February in each year." There should have been no difficulty in giving effect to this provision ; all the information was waiting the collectors two or three months ago; but here we are at the end of February, and the returns are still incomplete. There is, however, a prospect of some improvement upon the old order of things. Under tho method which prevailed until the passage of the measure of last session the statistics were never published until the end of April, when they were of little value to the people who should be guided by their- disclosures ; but this year we shall . probably see the complete return^- by the middle of next month. This is a considerable advance towards the reforms we have, advocated, but the department nmst devise a much simpler and more expeditious method of collection before it can expect the public to be particularly impressed with the value of this part of its labours. At present the schedule distributed to farmers by the Agricultural Department is altogether too cumbersome. The section dealing with stock enters into a mass of details which are of little practical value or interest. A column is reserved, for instance, for stud mules and asses, and separate columns are devoted in the five divisions of horses to " hunter and hackney," " carriage and I trotting " and v light ordinary," It will i be easily understood that a conscientious collector might -waste a good deal of time in determining whether a farmer's general utility horse should be returned as "a hackney/( ''a carriage," or "a light ordinary." Then, in the classes for pigs and cattle there are sixteen and fifty-six divisions respectively, while sheep, which are certainly of equal importance* are. dis- . missed in a single column. These in- ■ numerable divisions and distinctions involve a vast amount of labour, and if they are to be continued the Department must employ a small army of collectors to enable it to publish the information at the time required by the Statistics Act. And .we do not think that the value of ■ the 1 other section of the returns — that dealing with the cultivated hinds of the colony — has been increased by the recent changes in i the method of collection. The columns dealing with the number of holdings and distinguishing between freeholds and I leaseholds have disappeared, and we have instead a return showing the gross acreage . of the occupied land, which conveys no more iaf ormalbion than can I) 6' Obtained from a tolerably good map of the provincial district. The returns of grass hind, • like those of stock, are so elaborately subi divided that their value is lost in a maze ' of figures, and the rearrangement of ' much of the other matter makes it practically useless for the purpose qfi.com- \ parißon» L There are, however, two or three out- ! standing features of the agricultural ' statistica which may be readily tabulated, , and the following .figures, showing the t acreage in Canterbury under various crops ' during recent years, will be of interest :—

There is, it will be noticed, a large increase as compared with last year in the " acreage of wheat, and a trifling in- , crease in the acreage of oats ; but it is doubtful if there will be anything like a ' corresponding increase in the actual yield ■ of grain. The crops suffered very severely ! from unfavourable weather during the first few weeks of the new year, and perhaps the | estimate for the whole of the district, . which puts the yield of wheat at twenty bushels to the^acre, oats at twenty-five bushels, and barley at thirty bushels, may be somewhere near 'the mark. Assuming ' it to be approximately correct, and accept- . ing the farmers' figures for 1894 and 1895 ■ we have the f ollowing results : —

These figures, it must be remembered, deal only with the Canterbury crops, and cannot be taken as an indication of the results of the harvest in other parts of the ; colony. We must obtain the full returns . before we can form any reliable idea of the available supplies. It is interesting, however, to recall that last year of the 3,613,037 bushels of wheat grown in the colony no less than 2,540,936 bushels were produced in Canterbury.

1894. 1895. 1896. Bushels. Bushels. Bushels. 1 Wheat ... 3,407,842 2,540,936 3,419,520 Oats ... 4,172,690 3,327,998 3,233,625 Barley ... 273,965 423,906 367,500

\ 1894. 1895. 1896. Acres. Acres. Acres. Wheat ... 174,252 107,352 170,976 Oats ... 141,211 123,542 129,345 Barley ... 11,365 14,728 12,250 Potatoes... 6.309 7.067 8.466