THE PRICE OF WHEAT 173 
obtained for exporting, obviously the tendency to export 
could be stopped only by offering a high price after 
the harvest of 1877. Thus, the price was kept at a high 
figure until English wheat fell. A further cause of the 
high price is found in the increased gold production 
of New Zealand during 1871, Dr. Mellraith’s index 
number of gold production rising from 123 to 144, 
while his index number of general prices shows a some- 
what smaller rise. The increase in gold production was 
due to the discovery of a rich goldfield on the West 
Coast of the South Island. As this area lacks both 
extensive areas of fertile land and those climatic 
conditions which are necessary for the suecessful 
development of agricultural industries, the discovery, 
in addition to causing an efflux of the agricultural 
labouring population, created an extensive demand for 
food stuffs from the neighbouring farming provinces, 
which aggravated the already strong tendency for these 
to rise in price. 
The high price of 1877 was not maintained, for in the 
two following years a rapid fall brought the index 
number from 177 to 116. Encouraged by the high price 
of 1877 farmers extended their areas, and in both the 
following years production exceeded 6 million bushels. 
A further rapid development of agriculture kept price 
at an abnormally low figure, and the absence of dis- 
turbing influences brought about a few years of price 
stability in the early ‘‘eighties.’’ 
After 1884, however, the characteristic feature of 
the graph of New Zealand wheat prices is again in 
evidence, price falling rapidly and rising again with 
equal rapidity four times in a decade, the ‘‘troughs”’ 
in the curve being recorded in 1885, 1888, 1890, and 
1893-4. Loeal harvests are in some degree responsible 
for these fluctuations; for the years 1884, 1888, 1890, 
and 1892, were years of prolific yields, and it is no mere 
