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The Pamphlet Collection of Sir Robert Stout: Volume 66

Average Yield of Crops

page 20

Average Yield of Crops.

The extent of land under wheat in the early part of 1882 was 365,715 acres, an increase on the area in wheat in 1881 of 40,766 acres. In February and March this area had decreased to 270,043 acres, doubtless owing to the low price of wheat in Europe. The aggregate produce of the wheat crop was estimated at 8,297,890 bushels in 1881, and at 6,886,777 bushels in 1885, the 1884 crop having been as high as 9,827,130 bushels. The estimated produce averaged 25-43 bushels in 1885 against 26.02 bushels per acre in 1884. The total area in oats in the whole colony, both for green food and for grain, was 426,028 acres in 1885, an increase of 80,054 as compared with the previous year. The crop amounted to 12,360,449 bushels in 1885, an average of 34.84 bushels to the acre, the figures for the previous year being 9,231,339 and 34.11. The area under barley increased from 32,907 acres in 1884 to 39,703 acres in 1885, and the crop from 964,456 to 1,205,906 bushels, the average being 30.37 in the latter and 29.31 in the former year. The land under hay fell off in 1884 and 1885 from 73,997 to 56,670 acres, and the produce from 102,649 tons to 79,868 tons, while the average per acre increased slightly, from 1.39 tons to 1.41. The cultivation of potatoes varied but little in these two years; the area increased from 21,104 to 21,348 acres, the crop from 113,198 to 123,504 tons, and the average yield per acre from 5.36 to 5.79 tons.

The total number of acres under crop, exclusive of land under grasses throughout the colony, was in 1885 1,335,130, a slight increase on that of the year before—namely, 1,322,246. Of this total only 106,661 acres (or not quite 8 per cent, of the whole) are in the North Island as against 1,223,469 acres in the South Island. The two Provincial Districts of Otago and Canterbury alone contain 1,188,259 acres, or 89 per cent of the total for the colony.

The number of acres under grasses, including grass-sown land not previously ploughed, amounted to 5,315,504 in 1885, which shows an advance compared with the returns of 1884 of 506,861. Of the total 2,781,893 acres are in the North and 2,533,611 in the South Island, each island in this case containing nearly the same share.