INTRODUCTION ix 
One of the most ultimately profitable steps the central 
or local governments could take is the institution of a 
comprehensive economic survey of the primary indus- 
tries. This should reveal such results as the most suit- 
able districts for each type of farming and the most 
economical size and general lay out of farms for each 
type. The problems of rural credit and finance, of 
transport, of co-operation, of costing and relative prices, 
of marketing, taxation, land-tenure, and land-values 
are questions primarily of economic investigation. At 
the present time the farmer must rest content, for lack 
of expert advice, to do what no other business man does 
in the same degree, produce in partial ignorance of his 
costs and market. prospects. 
Before there can be any really effective teaching of 
the farmer, there must be a great extension of research 
to provide the data. In order to direct research into 
the proper channels and make it adequate in amount 
and effective in quality and results, large funds are 
required to establish and equip lectureships in Rural 
Economics at the University Colleges and to ensure 
prompt publication of the results of research. Between 
the occupants of these posts and the farming community, 
on the one hand, and the Government Departments 
concerned with agriculture, on the other, there should 
be the closest relations so that theory and fact should 
go hand in hand. Such relations would be fostered by 
that frequent interchange between the professorial, 
Government, and business posts which has proved so 
generally beneficial in America both to the Universities 
and to business and farming practice. 
It is hoped shortly to supplement the present work 
by a full enquiry into the history of the wheat and 
flour industry in New Zealand during the war, with 
special reference to the Government Wheat Control. 
J. HIGHT. 
Canterbury University College, 
Christchurch, 
July 29th, 1920. 
