AGRICULTURAL JOTTIINGS.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 6134, 22 March 1898, Page 4

AGRICULTURAL JOTTIINGS.

[" Canterbury Times."] . can the Empire feed itself? In answering this question in the' 'a&raiatiire, a writer in th e «Mark! Lane Express Almanac" reviews the 1 agricultural areas and capabilities : ot the British possessions -on which reliance has to be placed for supplies, viz. : —Canada, India, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Egypt, the West Indies and British Guiana. From these colonies thei c are required 24,OO0;OG0 'quarters of wheat, f>,Ofia,ooo quarters each -of oats and barley, mid 8,000,000 quarters of mnize, and the article concludes .:— lf a statute were proposed which prohibited food imports from foreign countries after Jan. . 1,., 1900', there is not the least reason for supposing that we should feel the slightest want. Canada, Australia, and New Zealand would find the necessary wheat, the fcarley required would come from New Zealand, Egypt and Canada. Oats from Canada would replace the Russian and American, from New Zealand the Swedish and Finnish. Maize in ample supply would pour in from South Africa, Queensland and Egypt, while dari, dholl, millet and peas would come from India, Guiana and the West Indies, beans from Egypt, oilseeds from India, Guiana and Egypt. The average wheat price needed to make the aupplies pay the producers would not be higher than 45s per quarter, that of maize higher than 30s per quarter, that of baa-ley higher than 25s per quarter, or that of oats higher than about _0s per quarter. Wheat was last at 45s per quarter as a yearly average in . 1882, maize at 30s per quarter in 1891, barley at 2.5s per quarter m 1893, and oats at 20s per quarter in 1891. These are not distant dates, neither are they dates of the protection epoch, nor in any associated with "famine prices." Nobody from 1882 to 1893 called these' prices unreasonable, yet no more exacting terms does the solution require of those who would give to the British Empire the enormous advantage and incomparable protection of being selfsupporting. .

THE FOOD OF THE UNITED KINGDOM.

The Journal of the British Board of Agriculture for December shows that important changes have of late years been taking place in the food of the United Kingdom. The increase in the consumption of meat from 1121 bto 1221 b per head in twenty years is, perhaps, not very striking, considering the greatly reduced cost of meat in the country. But the consumption of wheat has risen in the same period from five and a half to six bushels per head, while that of potatoes in twelve years has dropped from 3471 b to 3051 b. This in part is accounted for by the exodus from Ireland, and in part by the smaller consumption of oatmeal in Scotland, where wheat is gradually taking its place. The consumption of sugar has largely increased, and now reaches 851 b per head; while rice in twenty years as an article of food has fallen from lilb per head to 71b. The consumption of milk and milk foods (butter and cheese) is estimated to have risen in eighteen years from 65 milk gallons to 75 milk gallons per head, There is also a substantial addition to the consumption of eggs, and of fish in nine years the average has risen from 351 b per head to ■411 b... That of tea in twenty years has increased from 4-Alb to s Jib. Certainly the consumption' of meat, milk foods and fish have i increased greatly, but vegetable ' foods do not, as a -whole, 'appear -to have increased in proportion. STOCK IN NEW SOUTH WALES. The stock returns for New South Wales which have just been published are not without interest*to New Zealand farmers. It is usual to blame the drought for having reduced the number of sheep iv Australia, but a comparison of the present with previous returns shows that since 1891 there has been a steady decrease, arrested only in . 1894, in the number of sheep in New South "Wales. The total on Dec. 31. 1897, was 43,665,860, which is 4,652,930 below that of a year previously, and more than eighteen millions below the record of 1891. The contraction during the last year is, of course, partly attributable to drought, but the causes which have led to the steady decline in sheep-breeding are the alienation of the land, which reduced the area of the runs, while the occupiers of the smaller holdings did not stock up with sheep. It is declared that unless pastures are greatly improved no material recovery in the number of sheep is likely to take place — in other words, farming must be brought to the assistance of grazing. The small lambing last year leaves the flocks unreplenished by young stock, and it is certain that if the break-up of the drought is real, every effort will be made to breed lambs, and already the meat works are finding a falling off in their supplies of sheep. Wethers are reported to have been almost cleared off a great part of the country, and the supply of freezers will also be deficient, W<J jn&y therefore see some improvement in the ?l?ice of tallow, and have to suffer less competition fi?«U the inferior Australian frozen mutton duri.iif the current year, but Australia is such a recuperative country that with a good season fat stock will soon become abundant again; and exports be resumed on as large a scale as ever. In any case, Argentina ia ft more dangerous rival than Australia to New Zealand mutton and lamb.. Cattle and horses in New South Wales also show a decrease, but these come still less than sheep into competition with New Zealand stock. OUR COMPETITORS. What the Argentine is doing in the improvement of its herds is shown by a return of the stock which has been sent to Australia, New Zealand, Canada, United States of America and the Argentine Republic during the past twenty-six years, given in an appendix to the report of the Committee on the Agricultural Produce (Marks) Bill. From and including 1871 to 1896 the countries named purchased 25,776 head of cattle in England, and the declared value amounted to .£1,306,804, the average price per head being .£SO 14s. This average is sufficient to show the quality of the stock. Out of the 25,776, Australia took 740 at an average of .£140 ; New Zealand, 234 at .£127 ; Canada, 8582 at .£36 ; the United States, 8652 at .£4l ; and the Argentine Republic, 7568 at ,£66. While Australia and New Zealand imported nearly two-thirds of the total in the first eleven years of the period, Canada, the United States and the Argentine Republic have taken by far the greatest numbers in the fifteen years to 1896, that is, that the three countries which are now pouring beef into Britain most freely have taken the greatest number of her breeding stock. That these cattle and sheep are fed on similar pasture to that in Britain is proved by the fact that out of 396,000cwt of clover and grass seed imported by England in 1896 as much as 134,000cwt came from the United States, 25,000 cwt from New Zealand, and 370Ocwt from Canada. With these facts on record it cannot be contended that the beef of North and South America is inferior to the Home-fed, or, still less, below the quality of the Australasian m-oduct, and were the figures and facts relating to sheep similarly compared there would be equally little reason for New Zealand to flatter itself upon the security of its position. The moral is to take the advice given to English farmers, that "if we would hold our own it is necessary that we should breed the best stock, and put that X-ok upon the market in pm»e condition, Sr otherwise our second-grade meat will inevitably find no outlet. t