Information exchange and the making of the colonial farm: Agricultural periodicals in late nineteenth-century New Zealand

Agricultural History

Volumn 82, Issue 3, 2008, Pages 337-365

  Wood, Vaughan ^a   Pawson, Eric ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF CANTERBURY   (New Zealand)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

AGRICULTURAL DEVELOPMENT; AGRICULTURAL HISTORY; AGRICULTURAL PRACTICE; AGRICULTURAL RESEARCH; NINETEENTH CENTURY; TRADITIONAL AGRICULTURE;

AUSTRALASIA; NEW ZEALAND;

EID: 35448945080     PISSN: 00021482     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.3098/ah.2008.82.3.337     Document Type: Article

References (134)

1. Nicholas Goddard, "The Development and Influence of Agricultural Periodicals and Newspapers, 1780-1880," Agricultural History Review 31:2 (1983): 118-19. There may have been earlier publications designed for a farming readership, such as the Hawke's Bay Monthly Manual, but no copies of such publications survive.
2. Nicholas Goddard, "Agricultural Institutions: Societies, Associations and the Press," in The Agrarian History of England and Wales, Vol. 7 (1850-1914), ed.
3. E. J. T. Collins (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), 682-83;
4. New Zealand Farmer 103:15 (Aug. 1982): 15;
5. Eric Pawson and Tom Brooking, eds., Environmental Histories of New Zealand (Melbourne: Oxford University Press, 2002), 4.
6. The "New Zealand Practical Handbooks" series, which included titles such as Frederick W. Hilgendorf's Pasture Plants and Pastures of New Zealand and Leonard J. Wild's Soils and Manures in New Zealand, was initiated by Whitcombe and Tombs Ltd. in 1919.
7. Pasture Plants and Pastures of New Zealand was in its seventh edition by 1957.
8. Albert L. Demaree, The American Agricultural Press, 1819-1860 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1941);
9. James F. Evans and Rodolfo N. Salcedo, Communications in Agriculture: The American Farm Press (Ames: Iowa State University Press, 1974);
10. Donald B. Marti, To Improve the Soil and the Mind: Agricultural Societies, Journals, and Schools in the Northeastern States, 1791-1865 (Ann Arbor: Agricultural History Society, 1979);
11. Richard T. Farrell, "Advice to Farmers: The Content of Agricultural Newspapers, 1860-1910," Agricultural History 51 (Jan. 1977): 209-17;
12. Sally McMurry, "Who Read the Agricultural Journals? Evidence from Chenango County, New York, 1839-1865," Agri- cultural History 63 (Fall 1989): 1-18;
13. John J. Fry, '"Good Farming - Clear Thinking - Right Living': Midwestern Farm Newspapers, Social Reform, and Rural Readers in the Early Twentieth Century," Agricultural History 78 (Winter 2004): 34-49;
14. Goddard, "Agricultural Institutions," 672-83;
15. Nicholas Goddard, "Agricultural Literature and Societies," in The Agrarian History of England and Wales, Vol. 6 (1750-1850), ed. G. E. Mingay (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989), 361-79;
16. Goddard, "The Development and Influence of Agricultural Periodicals and Newspapers," 116-31;
17. Nicholas Goddard, "Information and Innovation in Early-Victorian Farming Systems," in Land, Labour and Agriculture, 1700-1920: Essays for Gordon Mingay, ed. B. A. Holderness and Michael E. Turner (London: Hambledon Press, 1991), 165-90;
18. Nicholas Goddard, '"Not a Reading Class': The Development of the Victorian Agricultural Textbook," Paradigm: Journal of the Textbook Colloquium no. 23 (July 1997): 12-21.
19. Two examples of New Zealand research that can be found are Peter Holland and Ray Hargreaves, "Rural Society: People and Services in the 1880s and 1890s," in New Zealand Historical Atlas, ed. Malcolm McKinnon (Auckland: David Bateman, 1997), Plate 54;
20. Robert Peden, "Sheep Farming Practice in Colonial Canterbury, 1843 to 1882: The Origin and Diffusion of Ideas, Skills, Techniques and Technology in the Creation of the Pastoral System" (MA thesis, University of Canterbury, 2002), 145-46.
21. Sarah Wilmot, "The Business of Improvement": Agriculture and Scientific Culture in Britain, c.1770-c.1870 (Bristol: Historical Geography Research Group, 1990), 8-11;
22. Goddard, "The Development and Influence of Agricultural Periodicals," 117, 120;
23. Donald B. Marti, "Agricultural Journalism and the Diffusion of Knowledge: The First Half Century in America," Agricultural History 54 (Jan. 1980): 28-31;
24. Goddard, "Agricultural Literature and Societies," 366-67, 370;
25. Hazel Dicken-Garcia, Journalistic Standards in Nineteenth-Century America (Madison: Wisconsin University Press, 1989), 40-41, 44-46.
26. Peter G. Holland, "The Biosphere and the Role of Vegetation," in The Physical Environment: A New Zealand Perspective, ed. Andrew P. Sturman and Rachel A. Spronken-Smith (Melbourne: Oxford University Press, 2001), 392-96.
27. Ray Hargreaves and Peter Holland, "On the Sheep's Back: The Heyday of Pastoralism," and Graeme Wynn, "The Wheat Boom: Grain on the Canterbury Plains, 1860s to 1910s," in New Zealand Historical Atlas, Plates 43 and 46;
28. Alan H. Grey, Aotearoa and New Zealand: A Historical Geography (Christchurch: Canterbury University Press, 1994), 344-48.
29. For a micro-study of the North Island dairying transition, see, Rollo Arnold, Settler Kaponga, 1881-1914: A Frontier Fragment of the Western World (Wellington: Victoria University Press, 1997).
30. Jane Stafford, "Creating an Interest in Print Culture," and R. Harvey, "Newspapers," in Book and Print in New Zealand: A Guide to Print Culture in Aotearoa, ed. Penelope Griffith, D. R. Harvey, and K. I. D. Maslen (Wellington: Victoria University Press, 1997), 128, 221;
31. Gerald T. Bloomfield, New Zealand: A Handbook of Historical Statistics (Boston: G. K. Hall and Co., 1984), 111.
32. In 1904 it was reported that New Zealanders sent five telegrams per person per year, which was double the rate in Australia and five times that in the United States. Keith Sinclair, A Destiny Apart: New Zealand's Search for National Identity (Wellington: Allen and Unwin/ Port Nicholson Press, 1986), 63.
33. See, also, A. C. Wilson, Wire and Wireless: A History of Telecommunications in New Zealand, 1890-1897 (Palmerston North: Dunmore Press, 1994), 20-25, 57;
34. Eric Pawson and N. C. Quigley, "The Circulation of Information and Frontier Development: Canterbury 1850-1890," New Zealand Geographer 38 (Oct. 1982): 65-76.
35. This information storage problem was far from unique to farmers, with many nineteenth-century scientists, for example, often keeping numerous clippings among their personal papers. We are grateful to F. L. Reid for access to his manuscript "Newspapers as Objects of Natural History?" Keeping clippings was not a failsafe method either, as one query to the Country Journal demonstrates; the submitter was looking for assistance, having lost their copy of an effective remedy for ringworm that had been published a year earlier in the Farmer's Gazette. Country Journal 9 (May 1885): 240.
36. One trade where market reports were frequently debated was the trade in cocksfoot seed from Banks Peninsula in Canterbury to the United Kingdom. See, for example, correspondence by A. Moritzson, "Common Sense," E. W. Davidson, and C. Lees in Akaroa Mail, Feb. 10, Feb. 13, Feb. 17, and Feb. 20, 1891, 2-3.
37. Auckland Weekly News, July 30, 1864, 7;
38. Goddard, "'Not a Reading Class,'" 12-21;
39. George Gray, "Agricultural Education," in Report of the Conference of Delegates from Agricultural Societies throughout New Zealand (Christchurch: Canterbury Agricultural and Pastoral Association, 1898), Appendix, 6-7.
40. Speed the Plough (Auckland: William Atkin, 1863) was an anonymous work, although A. G. Bagnall, ed., New Zealand National Bibliography to the Year 1960 (Wellington: Government Printer, 1980), 1:676, ascribes its authorship to Charles Morey.
41. Apart from Speed the Plough, the only general works written specifically for New Zealand farmers in the early decades of settlement seem to have been: George T. Chapman, Chapman's Hand Book to the Farm and Garden (Auckland: George T. Chapman, 1862);
42. Joseph May, May's Guide to Farming in New Zealand (Auckland: George T. Chapman, 1869);
43. Conrad Hoos, The New Zealand Practical Agriculturist (Dunedin: Mills, Dick and Co., 1882);
44. and Thomson W. Leys, ed., Brett's Colonists' Guide and Cyclopaedia of Useful Knowledge (Auckland: Henry Brett, 1883).
45. For contradictory reviews of May's Guide to Farming, see, Otago Daily Times, July 26, 1869, 3;
46. Weekly Press (Auckland), July 17, 1869, 8.
47. Ian D. Blair, The Seed They Sowed: Centennial Story of Lincoln College (Lincoln: Lincoln College, 1978), 13, 15, 30, 35;
48. Tony Nightingale, White Collars and Gumboots: A History of the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries, 1892-1992 (Palmerston North: Dunmore Press, 1992), 20-21, 32, 37-39;
49. Tom Brooking, Lands for the People? The Highland Clearances and the Colonisation of New Zealand: A Biography of John McKenzie (Dunedin: Otago University Press, 1996), 164-69.
50. Cited in New Zealand Farmer 103 (Aug. 1982): 16;
51. Press (Christchurch), Nov. 27, 1914, 10.
52. In the 1890 competition, the sponsorship and judging panel was provided by the Canterbury Agricultural and Pastoral Association. Country Journal 14 (July 1890): 321-40.
53. Michael King, The Penguin History of New Zealand (Auckland: Penguin Books, 2003), 228-31;
54. Lyttelton Times, Mar. 30, 1875, 2;
55. Country Journal 1 (Apr. 1877): 72.
56. C. G. F. Simkin, The Instability of a Dependent Economy: Economic Fluctuations in New Zealand, 1840-1914 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1951), 160-65.
57. Country Journal 1 (Jan. 1877): 1. In 1878 non-Maori outnumbered Maori on the South Island by more than 110 to 1, whereas on the North Island the ratio was only 4 to 1.
58. Bloomfield, New Zealand: A Handbook of Historical Statistics, 54, 86.
59. Leonard J. Wild, "Agricultural Societies: Agricultural and Pastoral Associations," in An Encyclopaedia of New Zealand, Vol. 1, ed. A. H. McClintock (Wellington: Government Printer, 1966), 1:16-17;
60. Benjamin L. Evans, New Zealand Department of Statistics, Agricultural and Pastoral Statistics of New Zealand, 1861-1954 (Wellington: Government Printer, 1956), A11;
61. Bloomfield, New Zealand: A Handbook of Historical Statistics, 54;
62. M. Holmes, "Colonial or National Agricultural Association," North Otago Times, Apr. 24, 1878, 2. The principal function of agricultural and pastoral associations was holding shows. Several histories have been compiled of individual associations, but a history of the organizations as a whole has yet to be attempted.
63. Otago Agricultural and Pastoral Association Journal 1 (1896) and 2 (1897-1898);
64. Otago Witness, July 11, 1895, 15;
65. Country Journal 14 (Mar. 1890): xiii;
66. Country Journal 10 (May 1886): 252-53;
67. Waikato Times, Mar. 6, 1879, 2.
68. Library access to the Country Journal could be obtained, for example, from the reference section of the Canterbury College Public Library. Canterbury College Public Library, Catalogue of Books in the Circulating Department (Christchurch: A. Lawrence & Sons, 1895), 150.
69. Amongst the items reprinted from the Country Journal were T. H. Anson's paper, "A Better Style of Farming" and the article "On the Theory and Management of Our Light Soils," which appeared in the North Otago Times, Jan. 3, 1879, 2 and Oct. 14, 1879, 6.
70. Country Journal 3 (Jan. 1897): 2;
71. Wild, "Agricultural Societies: Agricultural and Pastoral Associations," 17.
72. Otago Witness, Aug. 30, 1879, 3;
73. Kenneth C. McDonald, History of North Otago (Oamaru: Oamaru Mail Co., 1940), 113;
74. "A Constant Reader," Country Journal 3 (May 1879): 232.
75. There is a reference to the New Zealand Industrial Gazette, Pastoral and Agricultural News in the Otago Witness, Mar. 7, 1885, 6, although the only surviving copy of this publication seems to be an 1882 issue held by the Hocken Library, Dunedin.
76. Similarly, one copy of its predecessor, the New Zealand Pastoral and Agricultural News, and Investor's Guide, seems to have survived, with this 1880 copy held by the Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington. New Zealand Pastoral and Agricultural News, and Investor's Guide 1 (Oct. 1880).
77. Grigg's paper, reprinted in the 1880 issue, was a response to widespread concerns at the time that farming was no longer viable. See, in relation to the December 1882 items, New Zealand Industrial Gazette, Pastoral and Agricultural News 2 (Dec. 1882): 1-3, 5, 25.
78. New Zealand Farmer 103 (Aug. 1982): 10;
79. North New Zealand Settler 1 (Aug. 1882): 3;
80. North New Zealand Settler 2 (Jan. 1883): 3.
81. New Zealand Fanner 103 (Aug. 1982): 10, 15, 23;
82. New Zealand Farmer 4/5 (Jan. 1885): 1;
83. Holland and Hargreaves, "Rural Society," Plate 54. Brett's publishing activities are described in the Cyclopedia of New Zealand, Vol. 2 (Wellington: Cyclopedia Co., 1902), 2:271.
84. The greater national coverage of the New Zealand Farmer is exemplified by the fourteen district reports in the Sept. 1891 issue, five of which were from the South Island. New Zealand Farmer 11 (Sept. 1891): 377-83.
85. With respect to its political commentary, see its items on "village settlement" from 1887 and the Land Act Amendment bill of 1888, reprinted in New Zealand Farmer 103 (Aug. 1982): 28-29.
86. Goddard, "Information and Innovation," 169-71 (figures extracted from graph);
87. Farrell, "Advice to Farmers," 215-16. The comparison with the JRASE is complicated by its greater emphasis on presenting new research, which meant that it had little space for farmer feedback or market reports.
88. Eric J. Godley, "A Century of Botany in Canterbury," Transactions of the Royal Society of New Zealand - General 1:22 (1967): 249;
89. W. Carter, "The Opening Furrow: A Centennial History of the Canterbury Agricultural and Pastoral Association," unpublished MS, ca. 1963, 52;
90. Graeme Wynn and Garth Cant, "The Bonanza Wheat Boom," in Rural Canterbury: Celebrating its History, ed. Garth Cant and Russell Kirkpatrick (Wellington: Daphne Brassell Associates, Ltd. and Lincoln University Press, 2001), 67-71, 77-78;
91. Sally Davey, "The Introduction of Scientific Agricultural Education in New Zealand before 1900," History Now: Te Pae Tawhito o te Wā 2 (Oct. 1996): 17-18.
92. For a background to the ryegrass controversy, see, A. Lazenby, "British Grasslands; Past, Present and Future," Grass and Forage Science 36 (1981): 247.
93. M. H. Sutton, "The Selection of Grasses and Clovers," Country Journal 11 (May 1887): 201-203;
94. William Ivey, "A Short Contribution to the Ryegrass Controversy";
95. "Ovis," "Permanent Pasture and Alternative Farming," Country Journal 13 (July 1889): 298-302, 451-56.
96. The rabbit problem is discussed in Nightingale, White Collars and Gumboots, 22-26.
97. Benjamin L. Evans, A History of Agricultural Production and Marketing in New Zealand (Palmerston North: Keeling and Mundy, 1969), 147-50;
98. Nightingale, White Collars and Gumboots, 62.
99. See, for contemporary comment on alfalfa use in New Zealand, Robert Wallace, The Rural Economy and Agriculture of Australia and New Zealand (London: Sampson Low, Marston and Co., 1891), 287-89.
100. Goddard, "'Not a Reading Class,'" 12-21.
101. The report in question was James Long, Reports on the Relation of Dairy-Produce of New Zealand to the English Market, Together with Practical Hints on Cheese-Making (Wellington: Government Printer, 1889).
102. J. Robertson, "The Profitable Cow," Country Journal 17 (Mar. 1893): 135-37;
103. Press, Nov. 27, 1914, 10;
104. Stewart Richards, "'Masters of Arts and Bachelors of Barley': The Struggle for Agricultural Education in Mid-Nineteenth Century Britain," History of Education 12:3 (1983): 173.
105. Evershed was a regular contributor to the JRASE, including essays on farming in Warwickshire and Staffordshire, Goddard, "Information and Innovation," 170;
106. Walton, "The Midlands," in Agrarian History of England and Wales, 7:395n, 398-399n, while Long was a lecturer at the Royal Agricultural College, Cirencester, Long, Reports on the Relation of Dairy-Produce, 3. Out of the more than 3,100 articles that appeared between 1877 and 1898, 146 articles were reprinted from the (Irish) Farmers' Gazette, 40 from the JRASE, and 28 from the Livestock Journal.
107. Of the Farmers' Gazette articles, 67 related to livestock. The new Australian publications from which items were reprinted in later years included the Journal of the Bureau of Agriculture (of South Australia), 1889-1976 and the Agricultural Gazette of New South Wales, 1890-1990.
108. Nona Morris, ed., The Journal of William Morgan: Pioneer Settler and Maori War Correspondent (Auckland: Auckland City Council, 1963), 145-46;
109. New Zealand Farmer 103 (Aug. 1982): 146.
110. Goddard, "Agricultural Institutions," 658n.
111. Blair, The Seed They Sowed, 303;
112. "J. L. W.," "The History of the Canterbury A. & P. Association: Early Records," 1910, Canterbury Agricultural and Pastoral Association archives, Christchurch, New Zealand. It was typical for American agricultural colleges to publish their own research bulletins, as publicizing their results was a legal requirement - Evans and Salcedo, Communications in Agriculture, 15-although an examination of Frederick A. Buttress, Agricultural Periodicals of the British Isles, 1681-1900, and their Location (Cambridge: University of Cambridge, School of Agriculture, 1950) indicates it was less common for British colleges to do so.
113. In relation to George Gray's influence, see, Carter, "The Opening Furrow," 12, 52.
114. Country Journal 5 (Jan. 1881): 48.
115. The identification of the cause of ryegrass staggers is related in P. D. Kemp, C. Matthew, and R. J. Lucas, "Pasture Species and Cultivars," in New Zealand Pasture and Crop Science, ed. James White and John Hodgson (Auckland: Oxford University Press, 1999), 88-89;
116. W. F. Hunt and H. S. Easton, "Fifty Years of Ryegrass Research in New Zealand," Proceedings of the New Zealand Grassland Association Conference 50 (1989): 16-17.
117. Country Journal 1 (July 1877): 181-82;
118. R. Foster, "Fluke," Country Journal 5 (Mar. 1881): 110.
119. "Crossbred," Country Journal 1 (Oct. 1877): 274-75;
120. "T. T.," Country Journal 4 (Jan. 1880): 74. That farmers could not identify grasses that were springing up in their paddocks is indicative both of the spread of adventitious grasses by livestock and machinery and the high levels of impurity in seed mixtures. The latter situation led to growing calls for seed cleaning and testing in the 1880s and 1890s, which culminated in a New Zealand testing service being established in 1895 and the sale of uncleaned seed being made illegal in 1900.
121. For examples of contemporary comment about seed quality, see, Weekly Press, Aug. 12, 1887, 22
122. and Otago Witness, Sept. 8, 1898, 6.
123. See, also, D. W. Johnson, "A History of Official Seed Testing in New Zealand," in Seed Testing in New Zealand, 1895-1985, ed. Ruth Morrison, Diana Johnson, and John Hampton (Palmerston North: MAF Advisory Services, 1985), 2;
124. Noxious Weeds Act, 1900, The Statutes of New Zealand. 1900 (Wellington: Government Printer, 1900), 22.
125. By way of example, the Jan. 1877 issue reproduced an article from the Agricultural Gazette of Sept. 25, 1876 and a letter by "Northern Farmer" in the Apr. 1877 issue quoted the Mark-Lane Express from Dec. 18, 1876, see, Country Journal 1 (Jan. 1877): 45 and 1 (Apr. 1877): 108.
126. Specialist scientist contributions to the JRASE, for example, rose from about 15 percent of total contributions in the 1840-1849 decade to about 44 percent in 1860-1869. Wilmot, "The Business of Improvement," 19.
127. Morgan's response to Murphy's forwarded query was W. Morgan, "Grasses for Permanent Pasture," Country Journal 7 (Mar. 1881): 125.
128. Press, May 6, 1898, 3;
129. H. G. Philpott, A History of the New Zealand Dairy Industry, 1840-1935 (Wellington: Government Printer, 1937), 100-101;
130. Nightingale, White Collars and Gumboots, 61;
131. Blair, The Seed They Sowed, 34.
132. Nightingale, White Collars and Gumboots, 62-64;
133. T. K. Dow, "Notes on Farming in Australia and New Zealand," Country Journal 5 (May 1881): 171.
134. See, also, in relation to the objects of the New Zealand Journal of Agriculture, T. McKenzie, "Introduction," New Zealand Journal of Agriculture 1 (July 1910): 1-2.