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remain that the millions in the British Isles have to be fed, and must rely largely on other countries for meat supply. New Zealand in climate and soil has advantages for the production of animal food which no other country can outrival. The refrigerating process enables that to be placed on the market in carcase, the most acceptable form to the consumer. Therefore the colony may look forward with confidence to this outlet for that class of produce. The agricultural branch of the department can hardly hope to further this industry, for it is already in the hands of several well-organized companies, which arc on the alert ready to adopt any improvement which experience or invention may suggest. With the dairy industry it is different, for, necessarily, it is a manual industry, engaged in by settlers who farm their eighty or two hundred acres, and who, comparatively speaking, have in many cases very little chance of knowing what improvements are being made in other places. Many of these, in their out-turn of butter and cheese, do credit to their training in the Mother-country; but a great number, from no training, or bad training, or want of appliances, produce an inferior article, which may be bartered in the district, but never could be marketed elsewhere. Now, between the inferior and the prime article there are very many gradations, and this uncertainty of brand has hitherto very much marred the efforts to establish an export trade in dairy produce. Until the factory system was established the export of cheese was insignificant; now it is rapidly growing, owing to the dependence which can be placed on uniformity of quality. The butter export, as yet, is almost entirely the produce of private dairies. The consequence is that, in the foreign market, the bad degrades the price of even the good to a low average. Were the factory system more extended the uniformity of quality thereby obtained would raise the price of the whole. In Sydney—which received last year nine-tenths of the butter exported from New Zealand —factory butter made in New South Wales fetches several pence per pound more than the produce of the best private dairies. It is therefore of the greatest importance that information should be diffused among the smaller settlers, both as to the management of private dairies and the advantages of the factory system. There is literally an inexhaustible mine of wealth for the colony in the improvement and extension of dairy-farming. The Agricultural Branch may hope to further this desirable object by convening meetings of settlers in districts, and explaining the principles and processes of cheese- and butter-making. There is no doubt whatever that Mr. Bowron, while travelling about three years ago employed in this manner, did a good deal to advance the industry. His report on Dairy Factories —H.-9, Sess. 11., 1884 —is well worthy of perusal. The great, body of settlers will have, in future, to rely more on dairy produce, for, with the apparently inexhaustible supplies of wheat poured into the London market from America and India, there is not much encouragement to the New Zealand farmer to rely on grain as an export. Again, the wool and mutton that a settler of one hundred or two hundred acres can produce is not sufficient to pay. But, taking fair average land, with present prices, the dairy farmer's gross receipts will be about three times what they would be on the same land under sheep. Of course there is more labour in the one than the other, but it is labour which the members of a family can well undertake. Special attention should therefore be given by the Agricultural Branch to further the knowledge of dairy management and the factory system among the smaller class of settlers. And also to the question of finding out new markets. Departmental. The Land Act of 1885, by increasing the modes and facilities of acquiring land on settle-ment-conditions, has correspondingly increased office-work, both in the district and head oflices. The amount of correspondence and bookkeeping is very large, having regard to the comparatively small areas and revenue dealt with. There are ten Principal Land Offices in the colony, corresponding to the ten land districts, besides a number of local district land offices. The expense of establishment could be considerably reduced were the number of these offices curtailed : the railway and telegraph systems should aid in this direction. But, the convenience of a land office, with its equipment of maps, having once been experienced in a district, it is a very difficult matter to close an office, even although doing so would place the district in no worse position than other districts which never have had that convenience. The tendency is to increase the number of offices, and attendant expenses. The department, while endeavouring rather to limit than extend the number of permanent offices, recognizes the expediency of sending an officer into a district to assist intending settlers through the formalities of application-forms whenever it seems necessary to do so. In this and other ways the land office is brought very much to every man's doorway.