Of the superficial area of New Zealand, which, if we include Stewart's and Chatham Islands, may be estimated at 75,000,000 acres, one-third consists of forest and bush capable of being reclaimed for agricultural purposes, one-third of meadow, grass-pasture, and valley, well adapted for cultivation, and the remaining one-third of barren rock, or sandy desert, besides lakes and rivers.
The amount of land, in various holdings, reclaimed and made fruitful throughout New Zealand for the year 1857 was 190,000 acres, of which 121,648 were arable land, sown with esculents (chiefly wheat, oats, potatoes, and grass for fodder) and fruit. Of late years the annual increase of land reclaimed has been 40 per cent. It is calculated that each new arrival from Europe is equivalent to the cultivation of four acres of land, and the breeding of 30 cattle. The cost of clearing amounts in New Zealand to from £2 to £5 per acre.
Hence it is that the Colonial Government are straining every nerve, by holding out certain material advantages and inducements, to attract land-purchasers and handicraftsmen to a country, which, inhabited at present by not more than 130,000 human beings, is quite capable of supporting 30,000,000. The "Auckland Waste Land Act," besides giving every necessary information as to the unreclaimed districts
(where land is sold at ten shillings per acre), also contains certain arrangements, by virtue of which intending emigrants of the labouring classes, who shall come out at their own expense, receive some assistance to enable them to settle on certain proportions of the land which the Government presents to them by way of indemnification for the expenses of their voyage, in the proportion of 40 acres to each person above 40 years of age, and 20 acres to all between 5 and 17 years.[48] The sole condition attached by the Government to this land-indemnity is that the emigrant bind himself to remain five years in the province; which period once elapsed, he may dispose of the land at his pleasure. In order to encourage persons accustomed to tuition to settle in Auckland, all persons who are fitted to instruct children in elementary knowledge and English grammar, on their having discharged such duties for five years to the satisfaction of Government, are entitled to a grant of 80 acres of land.
The most important products and articles grown for export are, all sorts of cereals, wool, and ship-timber. A marked increase has taken place in potato cultivation, of which in 1857 there were exported 4430 tons, value £23,328, and in 1858, 6116 tons, value £33,056. Of building timber of all sorts there were exported in 1857 £12,205, and in 1859 £34,376 in value.
One of the most valuable trees of the New Zealand forests is the Kauri pine (Dammara Australis). This elegant tree, 80 to 120 feet in height, furnishes the English ship-building yards with a large number annually of rounded logs, 74 to 84 feet in length, of better quality as well as more lasting than those of the Norwegian or American pines.[49] The Kauri or yellow pine also produces the kind of rosin so well known as Dammara rosin, of which this valuable tree produces such quantities, that in those districts where the Kauri tree has long since yielded to the axe of civilization, it has been found in immense masses on the soil, in a high-dried state. The Kauri rosin of commerce is not therefore procured, as with us, by making an incision in the tree, but is actually dug out of the earth, into which to the despair of the farmer it has often percolated for several feet, rendering the soil barren. During our excursions we came repeatedly upon whole tracts of rosin-fields, which were covered several feet thick with this substance. The Dammara pine only grows on the northernmost island, and chiefly in the northern parts.
In Auckland we saw several pieces of Kauri rosin weighing 100 lbs. In 1857, 2521 tons, worth £35,250, of this substance were exported, chiefly for its valuable properties as a varnish, and for "fixing" certain colours used in the calico manufacture. It has also of late been extensively used in the manufacture of candles.
The cultivation of the Harakeke, or indigenous flax (Phormium tenax), might be made to conduce greatly to the wealth of the country, if some mechanical process could be invented which should without too much expense liberate the fibres from their hard envelope, which is the only obstacle in the way of its competing successfully with Russian flax. Impressed with the importance of developing the cultivation of Phormium tenax, the Colonial Government has offered a reward of £1500 for the invention of such a machine as shall bark the native flax, and prepare it for and make it saleable in the European market. At present no more than 50 or 60 cwt. of the flax, worth about £800, is exported from Auckland. The New Zealand flax surpasses almost every known plant in the strength and toughness of its fibres, its ratio as compared with the fibres of European plants of the same species standing as high as 27:7. For Great Britain the cultivation of this flax is not alone of great interest in an economic point of view, but is even politically of importance, as the amount of flax annually imported from Russia for her industrial energies averages £3,000,000.