98 WHEAT PRODUCTION IN NEW ZEALAND 
cultivation, and suitability for pure agriculture, were 
destined to form the main centres of rural life for 
the next three decades. In 1853 Canterbury (founded 
in 1849 by the Canterbury Association) was made 
a@ province under the new constitution. That Can- 
terbury would soon be the leading agricultural 
community was realised almost immediately, and a 
writer of that time states, ‘‘The pastoral merits of 
Canterbury have somewhat obscured her agricultural 
capabilities. The heaviest crops I have ever seen in 
New Zealand or in any part of the world, I saw on the 
Canterbury Plains, and should wheat ever pay better 
than wool in New Zealand and become the leading 
export no two other Provinces will, I think, produce 
more of such export than Canterbury and Otago.”’ 
At first pastoral pursuits flourished at the expense 
of wheat production, and then came the ‘‘gold rushes’’ 
of the early sixties as counteracting forces. But 
immigration proceeded rapidly and the great influx of 
population during the sixties created something of a 
social revolution in the Colony. In 1861 the total 
estimated population was 89,323, three years later it 
had almost doubled, while in 1870 the numbers had 
reached 248,000. Contemporaneously with this the 
export of food stuffs dwindled, while prices of farm 
products rose considerably, consequent on the in- 
creased demand and the plentiful supply of the cireu- 
lating medium. The allurement of the gold discoveries 
had turned the attention of the colonists from the 
monotonous pursuits of farming to such an extent 
that the area in wheat, estimated at 29,547 acres in 
1861, had decreased to 25,607 acres in 1864. Meanwhile 
prices had been rising steadily, and Dr. Mcllraith’s 
History of Prices in New Zealand shows that the price 
of farm products rose in the period 1862 to 1866, the 
index number being 186 in 1862 and 224 in 1866, where 
