New Zealand News, New Zealand Weather and Links

quickfound.net 


  Load above: RSS - US radar - Asteroids
 
The New York Times, April 28, 1889, p. 20:

FARMING IN NEW-ZEALAND

THE BEEF AND MUTTON AND THE GRAIN AND POTOTOES.

SUCCESS THUS FAR OBTAINED--MUTTON OF SURPASSING SWEETNESS--POTATOES IN GREAT PLENTY.

    CHRISTCHURCH, New-Zealand, March 10.--The present season, which answers to the 1st of September in the latitude of New-York, being the harvest time for New-Zealand, I have thought that some account of observations which I have recently made in the provinces of Otago and Canterbury might be of interest to American readers.
    These two districts comprise the greater part of the best grazing and agricultural lands of the south island, and a visit to them shows unmistakably that this country has enormous resources, which its inhabitants themselves have only just begun to appreciate. These two provinces are as unlike as possible in physical characteristics and in the quality of the people.

    Otago, the more southerly of the two, is varied and broken in surface, and in its western portion, where the beautiful chain of lakes, comprising Wakatipu, Te Anan, Manipori, Wanaka, and Hawen, nestle among mountains from 5,000 to 9.000 feet high, strongly reminds one, both in scenery and climate, of the Scottish highlands. The appearance of the country on the southward-stretching plains, broken with hills and well watered by shallow rivers, suggests Southern Colorado--a resemblence further assisted by the immense flocks of sheep and herds of cattle which find pasturage upon the nutritious grasses of the district.
    As a rich and picturesque bit of pastoral country, I have seen nothing in the world to surpass the province of Otago, which is rapidly coming forward as the chief source of meat supply for Australasia, and already furnishes most of the provision which is sold in England under the guise of New-Zealand frozen mutton. Everything is extremely favorable for the production of mutton, beef, and wool.

    The climate, although cool all the year round, is never cold enough to make the housing of stock necessary, and although in Winter the sheep must be driven down from the mountains to the lower levels, the temperature upon the plains rarely falls below the freezing point. Upon the hills the snowfall is heavy, and the sides of the mountains show patches of white throughout the year; but the only effect of the Winter's rigor on the heights is to make the Summers salubrious, and afford a never-failing supply of water for the streams.
    New-Zealand, indeed, thanks to the snow-covered peaks and glacier-seamed side of the southern Alps (as Capt. Cook named the chain of mountains running through the country on the west,) is "a land of streams." The present season is the driest ever known, no rain having fallen, except in the mountains, since Christmas; yet the rivers and creeks are generally full, and although the residents of Otago and Canterbury express regret that the visitor should find the country so parched, it appears like the Garden of Eden to one who has recently left the sun-browed plains, dotted with bony and haggard sheep, of Australia.
    It is impossible that New-Zealand should ever suffer seriously from drought--a fact that is of immense importance to her over the other colonies--and may in itself settle the question that is now pregnant as to which colony is to be the permanent source of food supply for Australia.

    The present year is a phenomenal one both in respect to Australia's famine and New-Zealand's plenty, and it is not unreasonable to suppose that similar conditions will often occur simultaneously, but that they occur at all in such a marked degree is significant, and the fact is likely to direct new attention to this country as a place both for settlement and investment.
    A recently-published official statement shows that the yield of wheat in New South Wales this year is 15.1 bushels to the acre; that of New-Zealand is nearly 30 bushels. The total yield of New South Wales is about a million and a half bushels, a deficiency of some three and three-quarter million bushels on the average of the last twenty-seven years. As the requirements of the colony are over eight million bushels, and as Victoria, South Australia, and Queensland cannot more than supply their own needs--and probably not that--the immense deficit of New South Wales mus be made up by New Zealand. This the colony can easily do, and when to this item of wheat are added the accompanying supplies of oats, potatoes, beans, turnips, &c., which drought-stricken Australia demands, some idea may be gained of the important position which New-Zealand at present occupies.

    This colony has been seriously handicapped of late by several bad seasons, and is still under a considerable burden by reason of a debt of some £30,000,000, which has been forced upon her by a too-sanguine Government in the way of railways, harbor improvements, and the like; but this seemingly extravagant policy will accrue to her advantage in assisting prompt and secure exportation of supplies if, as is to be hoped, the prosperity of the present year continues, and draws the attention of capitalists and settlers to the advantages which the country offers.

    Although, as I have said, the district of Otago is chiefly remarkable for its flocks and herds, its wool product and its enterprise in the frozen-meat trade, its grain-producing capacity is not inconsiderable. The chief district for wheat raising is toward the north, where the province meets that of Canterbury, but in the matter of oats, barley, and other more hardy cereals the country bordering the mountains has few rivals in productiveness.
    I have recently spent a week on two of the principal stations of Otago--the Five Rivers estate, owned by the Ellis Brothers, and Castle Rock, owned by the Hon. Matthew Holmes, the senior member of the upper house of the New-Zealand Parliament, and one of the oldest residents of the colony--where I rode through miles of oats which reached to my waist as I sat on my horse, and would thrash out, in their best portions, ninety bushels to the acre.
    It is in the matter of stock, however, that these stations are most remarkable; and as they are representative of scores of others in the province, some figures regarding them may be of interest.

    The Five Rivers estate, of which Mr. P. A. Vyner is manager, comprises 40,000 acres of freehold land, valued at over a million dollars, and 80,000 acres leased from the Government. There are 40,000 sheep upon it, from which 130,000 pounds of scoured wool are annually clipped; 2,000 cattle, and 1,000 pigs.
    Castle Rock station comprises 45,000 acres of land, all freehold, upon which there are 50,000 sheep, 2,000 cattle, and 100 horses, of which the most valuable stock are the Clydesdale draught horses. A specialty of this station is its herd of "polled Angus cattle," black and without horns, which are such favorites with Scotch breeders. There is a stud herd of 50 of these which are kept distinct and pure, and are undoubtedly the finest selection of cattle to be found in the colony, nearly all being prize winners at the various New-Zealand fairs. It may be of interest to American stock raisers, who, I believe, have paid from two to five hundred pounds for these pure-bred Angus cattle in Scotland, to know that in New-Zealand they can now be bought for £40.

    I may remark, en passant, as an interesting fact not connected with the purpose of this letter, that at Castle Rock Station the rabbits, which are such a serious pest in many districts, are almost wholly destroyed. To accomplish this result a ferret-breeding estabishment is maintained on the estate, which will let loose this year 800 ferrets; $10,000 annually was spent for many years on poison, ammunition, &c.; 400,000 skins a year were sent to market from the station, and, although the rabbits are now pretty well under control, over $3,000 a year is still expended in keeping them so. It may be imagined with what affectionate regard the station owners mention the misguided individuals who imported these animals into the colony.

    The chief breeds of sheep which are raised upon the two stations are the Southdown and Hampshiredown, merinos, Cheviots, (these at Castle Rock, where a flock of 500 pure-bred sheep of this stock is kept up,) Leicester, and Romney Marshes, of which the last two mentioned produce, in order, the heaviest fleeces.
    The average weight of fleece on these two stations is six pounds. The Leicesters and Romney Marshes average nearly ten pounds, and clips fo from twenty to twenty-five pounds are not uncommon. The scoured fleeces show a loss of from 25 to 30 per cent. on these figures.
    The merinos on these stations are chiefly from the studs of Tasmania, where rams of this breed have fetched from 400 to 600 guineas in exceptional cases. There are no American merinos among the New-Zealand flocks, or, at any rate, only a very few--this not because of prejudice against them, but because sheep raisers know little about them, and are quite satisfied with what they have.

    As is natural in a district where the grasses are rich and abundant, and mountain streams of pure, cold water run through all the region, Otago is noted for the delicacy of flavor in its mutton. Never have I tasted meat of equal sweetness and richness; in the matter of beef, however, Otago and New-Zealand generally can not compare with the United States.
    The milk and butter produced in Southern New-Zealand are, however, very fine, and the rapid springing up of daries and cheese factories is likely to make the southern provinces famous as providers of butter and cheese, and important factors in the world's trade in these articles.

    The population of Otago is of a predominant Scotch character. The first immigrants were all communicants of the Free Church of Scotland, and impressed the province which they settled with a quality which is maintained to the present day.
    Dunedin, the capital of Otago, is a handsome, well-built city, picturesquely situated on a series of hills which rise above the harbor, and very strongly suggesting bits of Edinburgh in its architecture and arrangement. It is the pleasantest of all colonial towns, by reason of the openness of the streets and squares, the commanding views which it affords, and the homely kindliness and hospitality of its inhabitants. Its population numbers between forty and fifty thousand, and it is the headquarters of a large and growing colonial and foreign trade.

    In it is esatablished the main office of the Union Steamship Company, whose splendid fleet of forty steamers commands a monopoly of the carrying trade between New-Zealand ports and Australia, and undoubtedly shows the most complete local service in the world.
    Travel by the best of these boats is as luxurious as by those of the Cunard or Inman Lines, and their appointments greatly surprise the stranger, who has naturally prepared himself for a certain degree of roughness in his experience of colonial voyaging.

    Another remarkable commercial enterprise of Otago is the Mosgiel Woolen Company, whose manufactory is just outside Dunedin. It was founded by the son of Dr. Burns, pastor of the first Prebyterian Church established in the colony, who was himself the nephew of Robert Burns, and who gave the name to the town where the factory was built after the poet's "Mosgiel" farm in Scotland.
 See also: Australia News - New Caledonia
    Indonesia - Papua-New Guinea

All of New Zealand is one time zone at GMT+12, with DST from Oct-Mar.

Radio New Zealand listen live (not 24 hrs): Real

  Top World & New Zealand News


click for more New Zealand maps

    New Zealand occupies two primary and several smaller islands in the south Pacific Ocean about 1000 miles southeast of Australia. The capital is Wellington. The area of New Zealand is approximately 100,000 square miles (268,000 square kilometers), slightly larger than the United Kingdom. The estimated population of New Zealand in July, 2004 was 3,993,817.

    The Polynesian Maori reached New Zealand in about A.D. 800. In 1840, their chieftains entered into a compact with Britain, the Treaty of Waitangi, in which they ceded sovereignty to Queen Victoria while retaining territorial rights. In that same year, the British began the first organized colonial settlement.
    A series of land wars between 1843 and 1872 ended with the defeat of the native peoples. The British colony of New Zealand became an independent dominion in 1907 and supported the UK militarily in both World Wars.
    New Zealand's full participation in a number of defense alliances lapsed by the 1980s. In recent years, the government has sought to address longstanding Maori grievances.
    CIA World Factbook: New Zealand

New Zealand flag, from the CIA World Factbook

Accuweather World Forecast Search:

enter city, nation:

temp:

New Zealand Rainfall
Wellington Weather Forecast:


New Zealand Weather: Current Conditions


New Zealand Weather Reports

Amundsen-Scott - ice crystl, -27F° / -33C°
AucklndInt - partly cloudy, 68F° / 20C°
ChristChch - fair, 59F° / 15C°
Pegasus Field - mostly cloudy, 16F° / -9C°
Wellington - partly cloudy, 63F° / 17C°

Current Time

Time accurate within a minute when page is first loaded. For fresh time, click: update.




Powered by Timeandweather.com © 2010
oysxseriesxa


  New Zealand Reference Articles and Links

Wikipedia: New Zealand
    History of New Zealand
The Economist: New Zealand Country Briefing
BBC Country Profile: New Zealand
UK Foreign Office: New Zealand Profile
US State Department: New Zealand Profile
MSN Encarta: New Zealand

New Zealand Government
Governor-General
Parliament
Governments on the WWW links

New Zealand Embassy, Washington D.C.

WikiTravel: New Zealand
US State Dept New Zealand Travel
New Zealand Tourism Board
New Zealand Guidebook

Maps of New Zealand
Historic Maps of New Zealand

  New Zealand News Websites

New Zealand Herald
Stuff (NZ Online Newspaper)

ABYZ: New Zealand News Links

  New Zealand Internet Directories

Yahoo!: New Zealand directory

  Reservations: Hotels, Airlines, Car Rental

Travelocity - Orbitz - Expedia - Hotwire
Economy Travel - Airline Flight Tracking
    This enterprise has assumed large proportions, turns out woolen fabrics, blankets, yarns, stockings, and underclothing of the highest class, and is obliged to run day and night to fill its orders. Its goods received the highest award over all countries represented in the late Melbourne Exhibition, and it illustrates one of the movements that are being made to bring New-Zealand prominently to the front as a manufacturing as well as an agricultural country.
    Several other woolen companies have their headquarters in Dunedin, which is also the seat of large establishments where sheep are slaughtered and their carcasses frozen for shipment to London.

    It may be of interest to American readers to know the prices that prevail for fresh mutton and lamb in Dunedin and generally in New-Zealand. Roasting pieces, legs, or chops are 4 and 5 cents a pound, and when the market is overstocked, as often happens, half a sheep can be bought for from 37½ cents to 50 cents.

    Canterbury is as typically English as Otago is Scotch. One observes this the moment one crosses the Waitaki River, a broad, shallow, and uncertain stream which divides the two provinces.
    Canterbury was first settled by colonists who came out under the auspices of the Church of England, and it has never departed from the character which they gave it. Otago, as far as improvement of natural beauties goes, is to-day pretty much as its settlers found it. Canterbury, however, is marked all over with hedges, long lines of willows, plantations of English, American, and Australian trees. Nor are the mud-walled and thatched cottages, which often from such a picturesque item in the English landscape, wanting in the view. What with the hedges and the hay and grain ricks, the willow-bordered streams, the mills with water wheels and solid styles of architecture, both in town and country, the traveler at times fancies himself in Yorkshire or Devon.

    In the neighborhood of Oamaru, just before the train reaches the Waitaki (and an exasperatingly leisurely train it is, taking twelve hours to cover the distance of two hundred miles between Dunedin and Christchurch, although "express,") the richest agricultural country in the Southern Hemisphere begins. The traveler has intimation of its appearance long before he reaches it in scattered farms, which grow more and more neighborly, and finally run together to make the whole country a broad, golden carpet dotted with white houses and ricks of ripened grain.
    Here and about Omaru are also seen great fields of potatoes, some of which cover a thousand acres each, and, with this year's enormous yield and the great demand from Australia, are likely to bring to their fortunate owners from $125,000 to $175,000. These figures seem enormous, but are quite within bounds. Expert opinion sets the average New-Zealand potato crop this year at ten tons to the acre, and the price at present is $20 (£4) a ton. With the average price, therefore, at $200 an acre, potato growers are congratulating themselves on large returns.

    From Oamaru to Christchurch, as distance of 150 miles, the train runs through an almost unbroken grain field. As far as the eye can reach over the fertile Canterbury Plains it rests upong unbroken expanses of yellow stubble, in which the sheaves still stand in thick clusters, or are fashioned into symmetrical stacks like huge beehives to await the coming of the thrashers.
    All the reaping in New-Zealand is done with American reapers and binders, of which as many as forty may be seen at work in a field at once, and the thrashing is also accomplished by machinery, which is not generally owned by the farmers, but is taken from one station to another by a company which owns them and thrashes out the grain by contract.
    The amount and the strength of the straw which is grown on these Canterbury acres are prodigious. Horses, reapers, and men are alike completely hidden behind wheat which often reaches a height of seven or eight feet, while in many places it is found impossible to use machines at all, since the grain grows so luxuriantly that when one parts it in the field it is impossible to see the ground for the thickness of the interlacing stalks.

    Among the many matters of official record concerning New-Zealand wheat crops the following may be of interest: At Waikato [on the north island] last year a certain field containing three and a half acres showed straw averaging eight feet in height. Machines could make no impression upon it, and two men were set to work to cut it with scythes. It took them four days to finish, and the yield of grain from the entire field averaged 90 bushels to the acre.
    In and about Waikato this year 32,000 acres of wheat will be harvested. A few miles north of this city is a farm whose wheat yield has averaged forty bushels to the acre for thirty years, and in only two years of the whole period has it been allowed to rest and lie in grass. This year a section of eight acres in this farm seemed to show an unusually heavy growth. It was reaped separately, and the amount of grain thrashed out was 823 bushels for the eight acres!
    The largest yield of wheat to the acre on record in New-Zealand is 120 bushels, which was produced in a small field near Lake Wakatipu, and a field of oats at Kaiapoi, a few miles north of this city, has yielded this year 140 bushels to the acre. These figures might well be regarded as furniture for "traveler's tales," but they are all taken either from official records or from the reports of reputable grain agencies. Nor do they appear incredible in view of published Government statistics, which show that the average yield throughout the colony for twenty years is of wheat twenty-six bushels to the acre and of oats over forty bushels. This year's average of thirty bushels of wheat makes a striking contrast to the yield of South Australia, where the best Australian wheat is grown, which will not exceed four bushels to the acre.

    A mere glance at the Canterbury Plains north of Timaru is enough to convince anyone of the extraordinary agricultural resources of the country. The wheat sheaves stand about the fields twice as thickly as on the most productive farms of California, and during a stop at one station I counted no less than forty-six huge stacks within sight on one side of the line alone. The country in which the crops seem most luxuriant resembles that of the famous wheat-growing belt in the plains of Tulare and the valleys of the Sacramento and San Joaquin Rivers, and shows wide stretches of level flats, rising into undulating hills, while snow-capped mountains in the distant background complete the view. Plain and hill alike are cultivated, nor can a more beautiful picture of smiling plenty be imagined than that of the newly-reaped miles, dotted with wheat stacks, and showing here and there the ascending smoke of the busy thrashing machines.

    Profuse as the present harvest is, there is still an opportunity for California wheat growers (if their stock is not now depleted) to find a profitable market in Australia, even with New-Zealand for a competitor. The fields of this colony, although they produce so enormously, do not yield a grain so valuable as that of South Australia, New South Wales, or California. At the present rate of sailing freights, insurance, commission, &c., California wheat can be profitably landed in Sydney at 4s, 6d. a bushel--say $1.12. Whether California is in position to take advantage of this fact or not I do not know, but with the tendency of farmers here to hold for higher prices, and by storing their grain to force the market, a few shipments of American wheat at the present time might prove profitable.

The New York Times, November 3, 1884:

NEW-ZEALAND.

THE KING COUNTRY: OR, EXPLORATIONS IN NEW-ZEALAND.
A Narrative of 600 Miles of Travel Through Maoriland.
By J.H. Kerry-Nicholls. New-York; Scribner & Welford.

    The North Island of New-Zealand has an area of some 10,000 square miles, and for physical beauties can hardly be surpassed. Its political state forms an interesting chapter in the history of New-Zealand. One portion of this North Island goes under the name of King country.
    Prior to 1840, and for some time after, no obstacles were offered by the natives to European travelers. But when, in the course of years, it became evident to the Maoris in the North Island that the whites were the coming power in the land, "suspicion and distrust were excited, and at last the tocsin was sounded." As the lands were taken, naturally the mana or authority of the chiefs diminished. One chief, Matene Te Whiwi, determined to bring about a new order of things, and agitation commenced.
    Councils were held, native assemblies met, and it was determined that the Maoris should hold the land. A sacred mountain, Tongariro, it was declared, should be the centre of a Maori kingdom, that no European should construct roads within the area, and that a King should be selected. Te Wherowhero was the first elected King, and his royal standard was flung to the breeze in 1858.

    The events of the war in New-Zealand need not be repeated. In 1864 and 1864 Gen. Cameron invaded the Waikato country, a part of the King country, and later Taranaki was overrun. Still the King country held together, and became more and more exclusive. The active volcano of Tongarin was made tapu or sacred, and attempts to reach it were thwarted by the natives. Mr. Kerry-Nicholls states that "it is from these causes that the vast and important area embraced by the King country remained closed to Europeans, and, all things considered, it is a fact which must ever remain one of the most singular anomalies of British colonization that, after a nominal sovereignty of 40 years over New-Zealand, this portion of the colony should have remained a terra incognita up to the present day by reason of the hostility and isolation of the native race."
    After the war of 1865 the natives isolated themselves, and resisted all approaches, diplomatic or otherwise. Of course, it is only a question of time how long such a condition of affairs can last. The Maori race, Mr. Kerry-Nicholls shows, is rapidly decreasing. In Cook's time the native population was estimated at 100,000. In 1859 it was 56,000. In 1881 the number had decreased to 44,099, of which 19,729 were females...
    At present Tawhiao is King, and from one end of the country to the other his subjects seemed to entertain an almost fanatical faith in his power...

    There were a good many apparent difficulties in the way of exploration, but the author faced them all bravely, and by a little mediation managed to see the country, leaving Auckland en route for Tauranga in 1883. Mr. Kerry-Nicholls has been a traveler, having visited most parts of the globe...
    The author's first visit was to the King himself, who lived in state at Wahtiwhatihoo. "In the centre of a spacious hall sat the King, flanked by his four wives, the principal and most attractive of whom was Pare Hauraki, a fine buxom woman with oval features..."
    Tawbiao was dressed in European attire, with patent leather boots. He seemed to be quite a king in manner, and in conversation was cool and composed, showing a great deal of calculating shrewdness. One of his council, Major Te Wheoro, had been on the European side during the war, and when the author was present was one of the Maori members of the House of Representatives...
    In the township of Ohinemutu is Lake Rotorua, which has a circumference of 25 miles. A native settlement, Te Ruapeka, is situated on a narrow peninsula surrounded by the water of the lake, and this strip of land "from one end to the other, is riddled with thermal springs, some of which shoot out of the ground from small apertures, while others assume the form of large steaming pools. They are of all degrees of temperature, form tepid heat to boiling point, and while you may cook your food in one, you may take a delicious bath in another, and get scalded to death in another." The natives use these springs not only to bathe in and for curative purposes, but warm their houses with them, cook their food, and even bury or boil their dead in them.

    The Maroi women, like the Japanese, must be quite oblivious at to modesty, as the traveler tells of a maiden of 17 Summers reclining at full length in a bath, in the simple yet attractive costume of Eve, and with a short black pipe in her mouth. She said: "Tenakoe, pakeha," "I salute you stranger," to the author, and "there was not the slightest tinge of immodesty in her manner. She simply lay shining beneath the sun, with all the grace with which nature had endowed her, looking like a beautiful bronze statue incased in a block of crystal..."

    From time to time, in English magazines, sparse descriptions of this wonderful New-Zealand region have been published, but "The King Country" gives a thorough resumé of this volcanic region. Mr. Kerry-Nicholls writes plainly and clearly of what he sees, gives a very interesting account of the Maori, his habits and customs, and the volume under notice may be cited as one of the best works of travel of the year. A vocabulary of Maori words, with a scientific list of the fauna of the islands, give completeness to the volume.



This page's URL is: http://news.quickfound.net/intl/new_zealand_news.html

Australian Open - Contemporary Furniture - Designer Handbags
Credit Counseling - Credit Consolidation - Debt Consolidation - Phoenix Landscaping

about quickfound • mouseover privacy note • ad cookie info • copyright © 2000-2010 by Jeff Quitney • contact: webdev@quickfound.net

recent updates: Beauty Pageants • WTA Australian Open • 2010 Olympics • F1 • Liberia • Guinea • Mali • Mauritania • Senegal • The Gambia

Free Browser Downloads:             Internet Explorer 8             Firefox             Opera             Google Chrome             Safari