HISTORY OF WHEAT PRODUCTION IN NEW ZEALAND 115 



becoming characteristic of successful wheat production. 

 The degree of success of this change is sufficiently well 

 demonstrated by the graphs showing the yield per acre 

 of wheat in Canterbury and Otago, both of which record 

 a rise of as much as 10 bushels in the decade following 

 1893. In Chapter VIII we return to a discussion of the 

 organisation of wheat production since 1895, when fur- 

 ther consideration will be given to the system of mixed 

 farming. It is now established that the factor of prim- 

 ary consideration responsible for the low yield of the 

 1 'eighties' 7 was extensive farming with its predatory 

 methods of cultivation. 



6. Cyclical Changes in Production. 



The evidence of a cycle of production of wheat in New 

 Zealand is more marked in the early periods of the 

 industry than in the later. Commencing with the year 

 1869 there are four well denned cycles over a period of 

 34 years. These cycles are as follows: 



1. 1869-1876. An eight-year period in which area 

 under wheat and total crop gradually rise to a culmin- 

 ating point in 1873-4 and then fall away. No doubt 

 the fact that there was a rush to wheat production after 

 the stimulus given by rising prices, and other conditions 

 already noticed, was responsible, in a large measure, for 

 a rapid increase in production and a consequent falling 

 off after the first rush had worked into normal conditions 

 again. 



2. 1877-1886. This period of ten years shows a 

 typical Jevonian cycle* in wheat production in New 



*See H. S. Jevons on "Unemployment" in the Contem- 

 porary Keview," August, 1909. 



The late Professor W. S. Jevons endeavoured to explain the 

 regularly recurring fluctuation of industry over periods of ten 

 to eleven years by connecting it with the size of the yearly 

 harvests, and this in turn with the well-known variations over 



