Abstract:
When the early colonists settled in New Zealand they brought with them, as a matter of course, the grain grown in the countries from which they had come. In the light of later knowledge it is apparent that these grains may have been unsuited to the different environments of these newer lands, and especially might this be true of wheat. Notwithstanding this, the wheats now grown in New zealand are to a large extent the descendants of those planted by the early settlers. In the process of natural selection certain of these varieties have probably entirely disappeared, and the survivors of half a century of cultivation, known here as Hunters, Velvets, Pearls, and the different Tuscans, now present slight but definite differences from European varieties.
The two main islands of New Zealand are both adapted to the growing of wheat, but owing to economic reasons, it is only in the South Island, with its large fertile plains and rolling downs, that grain growing is carried out on any considerable scale. According to B.C.Aston (3), who produces a table showing the available plant food in a large number of samples, the soils of the South Island are very rarely deficient in this respect. Later figures of composite and representative samples soils of the counties of the south Island analysed by the writer, have been compared with some typical soils from the Tchernozen regions of Russia, the United states (15), and some typical wheat-growing soils of Manitoba (29). The samples investigated represented average soils; they were found to compare favourably with the soils of these more famous wheat growing countries. The chief growing areas in New Zealand are Marlborough in the North, Otago in the South, and the Canterbury Plains See Map, Appendix 2. The character of these areas is such that the average yield is about 35 bushels per acre, though 80 to 90 bushels are at times recorded.
