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Excerpt from Agriculture The history of agriculture in New Zealand is a record of great achievement in overcoming many difficulties, for our country, though endowed with a climate very suitable for agriculture, has little naturally fertile soil and much very hilly country. Agriculture in New Zealand was started by the Polynesians, the Maoris and their predecessors, the moa-hunters. After the first white men landed on the shores of New Zealand in 1769 Captain Cook reported the existence of large coastal cropping areas of up to 200 acres in kumara, taro and yam. Considering that the Maoris used only wooden and stone tools this is remark able. Helped by the early missionaries the Maoris were quick to make use of the potato introduced to them first by Captain Cook and later by the whalers. Early in the 19th century the potato had become a major item in their diet and was an article of trade with visiting ships. Maori agriculture continued to develop and reached a high level in the Waikato, Bay of Plenty and Rotorua districts Where, just prior to the Maori Wars (1860 several thousands of acres of native land were in potatoes, wheat, maize and kumaras. European agriculture in New Zealand was started in 1814 by the Rev. Samuel Marsden at his, the first, mission station in New Zealand at the Bay of Islands. Apart from the mission stations, there was no organised agriculture until after the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi in 1840. Organised settlement of Otago took place in 1848 and of Canterbury in 1850. In these provinces the open native tussock grasslands invited grazing and soon pastoral farming on a large scale developed to the Australian pattern. Near the centres of population throughout New Zealand mixed farming developed to supply the needs of the townsfolk. There were, in those days, no special kinds of farming like dairy ing and fruit-growing. Most settlers raised a great variety of crops and livestock, and their wives not only cooked and sewed, but also spun, knitted and churned. Just before the Maori Wars, Auckland, then the largest centre of population, produced more wheat than Canterbury. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

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