Extent of North Island.

The colony of New Zealand includes the whole of the islands embraced between the 33 and 53 degrees of south latitude and the 162 to 173 degrees of east longitude. The north island, of which I am particularly to speak in this lecture, contains with its adjacent islets 44,468 square miles, or 28,459,580 acres of land, or not quite so large as England and Wales, but half as large again as either Scotland or Ireland. It has a coast-line of 2,200 miles. The total length from the extreme northerly to the extreme southerly point is 515 statute miles. The Island is as a whole hilly in character, in parts even mountainous, but there are large areas of plain and comparatively level country, available either now or when cleared of forest or indigenous growth, for agricultural purposes. The land available for agricultural purposes is roughly estimated at 13,000,000 acres. Hilly as the land may be, it is eminently suited to the growth of English grasses; and wherever there is any soil, no matter how steep the grade, these will flourish, and thus provide pasturage for cattle and sheep. The area of land available purely for pastoral purposes is estimated at 14,200,000 acres.