220 On the Manuring of Grass Land. 



breadth of land which does little more than just pay out-of-pocket 

 expenses ; and it is especially bad for the country at large, who 

 are obliged to expend enormous sums of money with the foreigner 

 for meat and wool, which, under a better system, might be spent 

 upon their neighbours at home, and thus find its way ultimately 

 back to the pockets of those who first laid it out. 1 shall be 

 pardoned for asking earnest consideration of the following figures, 

 and the exportation of money which they denote, and then in- 

 quiring whether half the land of the country should be left as it 

 is almost to nature. 



In 1855-6 we imported for food the following enormous quan- 

 tities of animal produce : — 



1855. 1856. 



Oxen and bulls .. .. 63,687 .. .. 52,019 



Cows 10,063 .. .. 9,843 



Calves 23,777 .. .. 21,444 



Sheep 156,646 .. .. 135,588 



Lambs 5,996 .. .. 9,471 



Pigs 12,171 .- .. 9,916 



Total animals 272,340 .. .. 238,281 



In addition to these quantities of food we imported wool for 

 our clothing : — 



1855. 1856. 



Wool, Sheep and Lambs'. lbs. lbs. 



British Colonies .. ..74,613,223 .. .. 81,893,148 



Foreign 23,240,516 .. .. 31,343,751 



97,853,739 .. .. 113,236,890 



Hides and several other things might have been added ; but I d» 

 not wish to overlay the argument with details. I wish it to be 

 seen that our production of articles of food and clothing derived 

 from grass is very far below the demand, that the grass is capable 



