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 
1898. 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 
‘“‘eighties’? 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 defined 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. 8. Jevons on ‘‘Unemployment’’ in the Contem- 
porary Review,’’ August, 1909. 
The late Professor W. 8. 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 
