184 WHEAT PRODUCTION IN NEW ZEALAND 
returns was quickly becoming a matter of no small 
consequence, and it was recognised more and more after 
each harvest that careful tillage was becoming necessary 
for profitable production. The dominance of agriculture, 
so characteristic of rural life on the Plains in the early 
“‘eighties,’’ was rapidly giving way to pastoral interests ; 
for the year 1882 had witnessed the successful ex- 
portation of a shipment of frozen mutton from our 
shores to the United Kingdom. To the farming com- 
munity, indeed, to the whole country, this development 
almost meant salvation from something akin to ruin. 
Almost in desperation, the country now pursued the 
new industry with an energy and perseverance common 
only to those who, after experiencing such gloom as 
our country passed through in the early ‘‘eighties,”’ 
recognise that their last hope lies in their individual 
efforts in some new direction. So great was the expansion 
in this industry, that within a single decade our exports 
of frozen mutton had risen to over one million hundred- 
weight, with a value of considerably more than one 
million pounds sterling. But it was not long before it 
was recognised that pastoral farming, suitable for pro- 
ducing fat stock, required English grasses for fattening 
the sheep in the final stage. The only way to provide 
these was to adopt the practice of mixed farming, and 
the pursuit of this required small holdings. The final 
blow to the large agricultural estate came in the early 
‘‘nineties’’ when the Graduated Land Tax was imposed, 
and proved a great hindrance to the existence of large 
holdings. In 1892 the Government decided, by the Land 
Act of that year, to purchase such estates as were pro- 
curable, and lease them in small holdings on the 999 
years’ lease system. Under the combination of these 
circumstances the large estates which had been the 
dominant feature of agriculture for almost two decades, 
