14t> SOUTH AFRICAN AGRICULTURE: AN ANALYSIS. 



and the expenditure of time in disposing of products or purchas- 

 ing suppHes ; the cost of building and of education; the dearth 

 of opportunity; the tendency to become self-centred, and, there- 

 fore, the distrust of advice and teaching. Is it a matter for 

 surprise that our agricultural advanc-ement ha« been slow? For 

 two and a half centuries the tendency of the agricultural popu- 

 lation was centrifugal. We have only begun to realise that it 

 is our duty, our necessity, to become centripetal. We have 

 reached the turning in the lane. 



I must now introduce more specific details and touch upon 

 various agricultural industries which we have established, indicat- 

 ing how the vie\vs I have ventured to advance seem to be borne 

 out by statistics. 



Of our agricultural and pastoral industries, tlic breeding of 

 wooled sheep is the oldest and the most important. Wooled 

 sheep were first introduced by the Dutch East India Conii)any in 

 1654. or two years after the occupation by that Company of the 

 Cape of (iood Hope. 



Tn 1680 the next im])ortation took place, also bv th4> Com- 

 l)any. but this time from Spain. In 1790, Colonel (lordon, an 

 ofificer in the Company's service, introduced a number of fine 

 merino sheep of the Escurial breed. Other importations took 

 place at about this time, since when the breeding of sheep for 

 their wool began to be regarded seriously. The next introduc- 

 tions were made by the British settlers of 1820, being sheep of 

 the English breeds. Subsequent purchases were made in Saxony, 

 and, still later, in France. 



Latterlv, fairlv large im])nrtations have taken place, princi- 

 pally from Australia. 



We exported from the Cape of Good Hope in 



1714 650 lb. of wool. 



1835 215,868 „ 



1855 12,016,415 „ 



1875 40,339,674 „ 



1895 65,632,613 „ 



1909 (the last year before 



Union).. '. 101,007,893 „ 



Similar comparative figures for the other Provinces are 

 not available, but note, from the exportations in the following 

 years, the stagnation from 1890 to 1899, due probably to crippled 

 earnings of farmers on account of locusts, disease, and drought : 



1885 34,432,562 lb. 



1890 65,655,917 <' 



1895 65,632,613 „ 



1899 69,289,606 „ 



On the other hand, note the progress in the Union since 1905 : 



1905 77,187,226 lb. 



1909 130,981,518 „ 



1911 132,207,029 „ 



1913 176,971,865 „ 



