We have been informed, by the Agent-General for New Zealand,
that the statement quoted in these "Notes" last week, from the Birmingham Daily Post, respecting the loss and suffering caused in the colony by the long-continued drought, is wholly unfounded. Advices received at the New Zealand Office by the mail delivered this week, as well as by the two previous mails of this month, so far from speaking of a drought lasting for the last six months, as alleged by the Pose, on the contrary, state that in the North Island the wheat-crop had somewhat suffered from floods, so that the ordinary yield had been reduced to about thirty bushels to the acre, and that in parts of the Maori territory their potato crop had been washed away ; but in the South Island, all the crops were of unusual excellence and abundance. It is indeed obvious that a drought of the utterly destructive character spoken of by the Post is very nearly a physical impossibility in New Zealand, owing to its vast and diversified means of natural irrigation, there beings "run" or stream of S01118 volume, on an average, on every few miles of its area.
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