. The geography of New Zealand. Historical, physical, political, and commercial . ossible to controlthe destruction to pasture caused by the rabbits. Insome cases large areas of country, otherwise wellsuited to pastoral pursuits, in Western Otago havebeen surrendered, and thus the fringe of settlementhas been pushed back. For some time an attempthas been made to export the rabbits as frozen meat,as well as to sell the skins for furs. This practice iscondemned by the stock inspectors, as tending tostimulate the farming of rabbits and thereby toincrease their numbers. In many districts of lateye
. The geography of New Zealand. Historical, physical, political, and commercial . ossible to controlthe destruction to pasture caused by the rabbits. Insome cases large areas of country, otherwise wellsuited to pastoral pursuits, in Western Otago havebeen surrendered, and thus the fringe of settlementhas been pushed back. For some time an attempthas been made to export the rabbits as frozen meat,as well as to sell the skins for furs. This practice iscondemned by the stock inspectors, as tending tostimulate the farming of rabbits and thereby toincrease their numbers. In many districts of lateyears the rabbit pest has decreased. The dairying industry has lately shown a veryremarkable development in bush districts, where therainfall is high and the growth of grass is this the case in the Taranaki andWellington provinces, where much land is occupiedfor dairying that would be far less suitable forordinary pastoral purposes. The expense of bringingbush land into cultivation is quickly recouped bythe produce from a dairy farm. 300 GEOGRAPHY OF NEW ZEALAND. COLONISATION AND SETTLEMENT 301 The progress of settlement has not yet reached itsfinal stage, for much good bush land yet remains tobe cleared and converted into farms. The areaavailable for this purpose is especially large in theNorth Island. Advance in this direction must , for even when the bush has been felled, theformation of roads over the hilly clay lands isexpensive, and proceeds but slowly. In the mean-time, the government has passed legislation enablingthe crown to purchase large estates that do not atpresent support a dense population. These are cutup into small farms, which provide homes for largenumbers of farmers. This enables the occupied landto support more people, but it does not extend thearea of settlement. When New Zealand was first colonized, the surfaceof the land was of course covered everywhere withindigenous vegetation. Those portions of the colonyfavoured with a heavy ra
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