Other formats

    Adobe Portable Document Format file (facsimile images)   TEI XML file   ePub eBook file  

Connect

    mail icontwitter iconBlogspot iconrss icon

The Pamphlet Collection of Sir Robert Stout: Volume 14

The Following Extract from a Letter was Quoted in a Paper on New Zealand, read by Sir Julius Vogel, at the Colonial Institute, on the March 19th, 1878

page 23

The Following Extract from a Letter was Quoted in a Paper on New Zealand, read by Sir Julius Vogel, at the Colonial Institute, on the March 19th, 1878.

"Mr. Ford's estimate of the value of Acton at £7, as corroborative of our own, is satisfactory. My own conviction is that a much greater rise in the value of good freehold land in New Zealand is certain to to take place, and this at a much earlier period than you in the Colony or the public generally have any conception of. In looking into the agricultural returns of Great Britain, with abstract returns for the United Kingdom, British possessions, and foreign countries, for 1876,1 find that the average yield of wheat per acre in New Zealand, out of the 90,804 acres under this crop for 1875-6, was 31.5 bushels,-while in Victoria, with its 321,401 acres, the average yield for the same year was only 15.5 bushels per acre; New South Wales, with 133,610 acres, was 14.7; South Australia, with 898,820 acres, was 11.8; Tasmania, with 42,745 acres, 16.4; Natal, with 1,740 acres, was 12.6; and Cape of Good Hope with 188,000 acres, was 8.9. Dominion of Canada, for 1871, the latest date given, the average of the Lake Ontario district is 6.4; Quebec, 8.5; New Brunswick, 10.8; Nova Scotia, 11.8. Then, if we turn to the United States, the great competitor, so to speak, for the population of Europe, the average yield of wheat for 1874 (the latest date given) is 12.3 bushels per acre; and the United Kingdom, in which the best of the land only is cultivated for wheat, and this highly cultivated and manured, only yields an average of 27½ bushels per acre. I give you herewith in a tabulated form the returns of cereal crops, so far as given in the Blue-books, not only of the above, but also of the several countries in Europe.

"From the tabulated statement (page 27) you will easily see that when it comes to be generally known and understood in the United Kingdom and Europe, as well as in Australia and page 24 America, that the returns to an agriculturist are so superior in New Zealand to those in other countries, and this with a climate relatively superior, their attention will naturally and, as a matter of course, be concentrated upon New Zealand. If you only put down the cost of ploughing, seed-harrowing, reaping, thrashing, and carting to port, all of which may be said to be nearly the same in the several countries (reaping and thrashing alone excepted in Australia and California, where, I understand, it is done by a special method, with the straw left standing on the field), and deduct these charges from the returns the grain would yield, say, 5s. per bushel all round at shipping port, you will find the immense advantage in the shape of returns to the agriculturist in New Zealand from any of the Australian Colonies, the Cape, or America. In this I do not deal with Europe, as in the countries where the yield is great the land is not only highly cultivated but heavily manured. Then, when you come to take into consideration the fact that in all Australia the land may be said, after being cropped, to be left in an unproductive form, and allowed to revert to its natural state, no permanent pasture of an artificial character (viz. English grass) is given for Adelaide in 1876, and only 19,260 acres for 1875; for New South Wales none stated; for Victoria, out of 1,126,000 as under crops and grass, only 293,000 acres is given as under artificial grass; for Western Australia and Queensland none given; and for Tasmania (the most favoured for this of all the Australian Colonies), out of 332,000 acres, only 102,000 is given, or under one-third of the whole: whereas in New Zealand, out of 2,377,000 acres, not less than 1,770,000 acres is given as sown out in permanent artificial grass. For Natal and the Cape, none. For Canada none stated, but I have no doubt, both in it and the United States—viz. the Atlantic—a relative proportion to New Zealand will also be sown out in English grass; but, on the other hand, they have a six months' winter, when the ground is wholly covered with snow, and when there may be said to be no outside feed for cattle and sheep. So far as I can make out, all that can be said of small agriculturalists in Canada, the States, or in any of the Australian page 25 Colonies, the yield of wheat per acre, or the returns therefrom, will only pay the farmer fair wages for his own labour, or in some cases yield him probably 10s. to 20s. per acre beyond this; whereas in New Zealand, with the climate much more pleasant to work in than any of the others, the farmer, after allowing himself wages at the same rate as in the other Colonies for self, family and horses—viz. manual and horse labour—would have from £4 to £4. 15s. per acre net returns, instead of 10s. to 20s., as in the others. Then, after the land is cropped and sown out in English grass, the yield in feed for sheep is four to five times (viz., equal to 20s. per acre of yearly wool return) what it was previous to being broken up and laid down in English grass, instead of (in Australia at least) yielding less returns in pasturage than it did in its natural state.

"You will thus easily see how much better it will be for a man to pay £10 per acre—aye, even £20 per acre—for good land in New Zealand than £1 to £2 per acre for fair land in Australia. The cultivation of 20 acres of good land in Australia (I mean the labour, and ploughing, sowing, harrowing, and reaping, thrashing, carting to port, &c.) cannot be put down with safety at under close upon £3 per acre, basing my estimate upon the current rate of manual and horse labour in the several Colonies. The returns from the wheat crop in these Colonies will not yield 5s. per acre over this sum one year with another, whereas the returns from New Zealand will yield £4 in excess of this. As before stated, I am taking the wheat all round at 5s. per bushel at the shipping port in the several Colonies in this statement. From the foregoing it will be seen that the net returns from wheat to the landowner, after paying £3 per acre for the manual and horse labour, is fifteen times more in New Zealand than Australia and for the United States; and for years after the land has been cropped in Australia it will yield next to nothing, until the natural grass again springs up and gets a sole, when two or three acres must go for each sheep: whereas in New Zealand one acre of good English grass will keep four or five merino sheep, and for three cross breeds, over the year. I daresay, when you have all the foregoing weighed over and thought out, you will conclude with me that at no distant date page 26 good agricultural land will be selling at £10 to £15 per acre in New Zealand, according to quality and locality, and A 1 agricultural land at from £20 to £25 per acre.

"In the returns on profit of one acre in New Zealand of wheat against 15 to 20 acres, as the case may be, in Australia or America—viz., the net returns after payment or allowance for labour, seed, &c.—I omitted one very important item of outlay, viz., the fencing of one acre, say in New Zealand, as against from 15 to 20 acres, and the maintaining of said fences. I doubt not you will concur with me in the rapid and permanent increase in value that must necessarily take place on agricultural land in New Zealand, when once the facts as already stated are known and generally recognized."

page 27

Countries. Year. Acres under crops and grass. Average Yield per Acre of Yield of Cotton. Sugar. Vineyards Bare Fallow. Grass for Hay. Permanent artificial Grass. Tobacco.