Diag. 1 shows the year-by-year changes in net migration (i.e., arrivals less departures) and natural increase (excess of births over deaths) from 1840 to 1963. The principal movements were as follows:

1. From 1840 to 1860 natural increase was small and immigration the principal means of population increase. New Zealand's first recession in the middle forties temporarily reduced the intake. (Statistical evidence in the earlier years is incomplete, but there is sufficient information to estimate the figures in missing years fairly satisfactorily. From 1855 a continuous statistical series is available.)

2. The discovery of gold at Otago in 1861 brought a large number of new settlers. The sixties saw 204,786 arrivals, the peak year being 1863 with 45,730 – a figure not reached again until 1949. Most of these immigrants went to the South Island, principally Otago. As was inevitable, many found neither Utopia nor El Dorado and left New Zealand in disillusionment. The boom was shortlived and by the end of the decade the country was in a depression.

3. The high peak in the seventies resulted largely from the excessively vigorous scheme of assisted immigration launched by the Vogel administration as part of its expansionist policies. The result was an increase in European population of a magnitude not exceeded till after the Second World War. The year 1874 was noteworthy for the arrival of 43,965 immigrants, of whom 32,118 were Government assisted. The net migration gain for the year of 38,106 is the highest New Zealand has experienced and was followed by 25,270 the next year.

4. The main stimulus to immigration from the early eighties was the development of refrigerated shipping which enabled New Zealand to expand greatly the marketing of its farm products overseas, thus creating a demand for farmers and farm labourers. The late eighties and early nineties, however, were affected by a serious trade recession, the result of which is shown in table 1 as a net outflow. In the five years to 1891, 11,900 more persons departed than arrived to take up residence.

5. Except for a net intake of 10,412 in 1893, of which 8,074 came from Australia, the nineties saw little growth from immigration. This was due principally to the 194,004 arrivals being well balanced by a high level of departures in this decade.

6. A new wave of immigration, which was fairly well sustained, occurred from 1901 to 1914. A sharp trade recession in Australia between 1900 and 1905 was an important influence, and this was followed by the reintroduction of Government-sponsored immigration. The First World War brought immigration almost to a standstill.

7. Renewed interest by the Government after the war fostered immigration from 1919 to 1926, although the recession of 1922 to 1923 caused a temporary drop. In the later years of the twenties, immigration tailed-off as Government schemes were cut back.

8. The depression of the thirties caused departures to exceed arrivals by 9,918 from 1931 to 1935. Little was done in the recovery period to encourage immigration, but each year the net migration gain increased: from 1936 to 1940 it totalled more than 12,000. In the Second World War it became a trickle apart from the arrival in 1940–41 of 566 evacuees from Britain, and in 1944 of 837 Polish refugees. For nearly 20 years prior to the end of the war, immigration was at a low level.

9. The pent-up demand for capital and consumer goods and the need to catch up on delayed national development resulted in acute labour shortages after the war, and in an effort to meet these needs the Government introduced new immigration schemes designed to select and assist immigrants to New Zealand. The demand for labour here coincided with the desire of many people to emigrate from Britain and Europe, and as a result the Government schemes and independent immigration together provided a net migration increase of 185,127 from 1946 to 1963.

This short historical survey is summarised as follows:

*Excess of Departures. Note: The figures here (and elsewhere in this article) are exclusive of crews, through passengers, tourists on cruising liners, and of movements of the armed forces, 1914–19 and 1939–63. In the earlier years most arrivals were settlers. In more recent years the figures for arrivals are heavily influenced by visitors and other people taking up temporary residence. However, the difference between arrivals and departures so calculated gives in the final column a reliable statement throughout the period of the net results of migration movements. (Statistical Report on Population and Buildings for the Year 1935–36 and subsequent reports.)

Several commercial companies to foster immigration from Britain were founded in the 1820s and 1830s, but their attempts to establish settlements in New Zealand failed until the New Zealand Company landed its first immigrants at Port Nicholson (Wellington) in January 1840. Within two years, further settlements were established under the company's auspices at Nelson and Wanganui, while further north the Plymouth Company of New Zealand – formed mainly of Devonshire people – purchased land from the New Zealand Company and began the settlement of New Plymouth. In the years 1840 to 1850 the New Zealand Company made a vital contribution to the early settlement of the country by bringing out some 12,000 settlers. It also inspired the founding of two other settlement associations, the Otago Association which commenced a Scottish settlement at Dunedin in 1848, and the Canterbury Association which sponsored an English settlement in Christchurch in 1850. In the meantime, the Government of the colony was active in encouraging immigrants to settle in Auckland which had been chosen by Governor Hobson as the seat of administration.

It has been estimated that by 1841 the European population was 5,000, doubling again within 12 months, and rising to 22,000 in 1850. The first census of the European population in 1851 gave the population as 26,707, and in the next seven years to the second census the population rose steeply to 59,413, the rate of increase averaging 12.7 per cent a year. This high rate of population expansion was exceeded in the next two intercensal periods, being 18.3 per cent a year between 1858 and 1861 and reaching the phenomenal rate of 20.7 per cent a year between 1861 and 1864. As a result, the European population rose to 97,904 in December 1861 and 171,009 in December 1864. The large part that immigration played in these increases can be clearly seen in diagram 1.

Some 20 to 25 years after the rediscovery of New Zealand by Captain Cook in 1769, unorganised settlement of the country gradually began. The first European settlers to come to New Zealand were mainly whale and seal fishermen, shipwrecked sailors, and escaped convicts from Australia. These were followed by traders, principally in timber and flax, and missionaries. It has been estimated that the population of Europeans in 1800 was about 50 persons, rising to some 200 by 1815, and at least to 1,000 by 1839. Settlement at first was slow because of the hostility of the Maoris, the opposition of the influential Church Missionary Society, and the reluctance of the British Government to establish sovereignty over New Zealand.

(1884– ).

Company director and art collector.

John Ilott was born at Te Aroha on 12 August 1884 and educated at Wellington College and Victoria University of Wellington. Since 1903 he has been employed by J. Ilott Ltd., of which he is now chairman of directors. In addition he holds similar positions in National Mutual Life Association (Australasia) Ltd., Golden Bay Cement Co., Ltd., Tarakohe Shipping Co. Ltd., Alex. Cowan and Sons (New Zealand) Ltd., J. Ilott (Australia) Proprietary Ltd., A. S. Paterson and Co. Ltd., and McKenzie's (New Zealand) Ltd. He is a director of many other companies. Throughout his life John Ilott has played an active part in many local, cultural, and charitable organisations and has held various offices in many organisations, such as Heritage, the Boy Scouts Association, New Zealand Crippled Children's Society, and Friends of Turnbull Library. He was knighted in 1954.

In 1952 Sir John Ilott presented his collection of etchings and engravings by old and modern masters to the National Art Gallery. Each year since then Sir John has made further gifts of etchings to enhance the collection which now numbers nearly 400 prints. There are 29 etchings by Rembrandt, 12 engravings by Durer, 12 by Whistler, and prints by Hollar, Teniers, Goya, Meryon, Forain, Daumier, John, Bone, Brockhurst, Sickert, Renoir, Pisarro, Vlaminck, Matisse, and many others. Sir Lionel Lindsay is represented by 24 etchings and drypoints. In 1962 Sir John was appointed to the Board of Trustees of the National Art Gallery and Dominion Museum.

Fungi are perhaps better known for the damage they do, rather than for their usefulness. They are responsible for the deterioration of textiles and food substances stored under damp conditions, as well as for the rot of harvested fruit and vegetables, sap stain in milled timber, and decay of timber in damp situations. Parasitic fungi are one of the principal agents of diseases in plants. In New Zealand in some seasons considerable losses are caused by diseases such as blight on potatoes and tomatoes, brown rot on stone fruit, and bitter rot on apples; rust and smut of grass and cereal crops are also common. Thus rigid spray programmes must be maintained to prevent serious crop losses, and resistant plant varieties be developed. Mushroom poisoning is not unknown in New Zealand, but in no case has the guilty species been identified. As little is known about mushrooms and toadstools common in our native forests, it is dangerous to eat fungi other than those known to be edible in European countries. The lethal Amanita phalloides has been collected in an Auckland park. Elsdon Best, in Forest lore of the Maori, notes that the Maori did eat some fungi, probably about 12 species, but only in times when food was scarce. They recognised that some species were poisonous. The common Jew's-ear fungus (Auricularia polytricha), which was at one time exported in quantity to the east, was eaten but not really liked, and was usually cooked with a green vegetable.

A cattle disease known as “staggers”, due to ergot poisoning, is not uncommon in North Auckland and is caused by seed heads of the grass Paspalum becoming heavily infected with the ergot fungus Claviceps paspali. “Facial eczema” in sheep and cattle has been shown to be due to a toxin in a mould Pithomyces chartarum, which grows on debris in pasture during humid conditions.

Studies in geographic distribution of fungi show that many species, especially among saprophytes, are common throughout the world. Fungal spores are so small that they are easily distributed by wind and in rain droplets. Natural transport, such as prevailing air currents, play an important part in spreading some crop disease epidemics. The most important factors are temperature and a suitable substrate. Pithomyces chartarum, the black mould fungus responsible for “facial eczema” in Australia, occurs in most warm temperate countries and only in the north of New Zealand. In this case temperature limits its distribution. Many species which parasitise leaves of seed plants are specific to a single host species, so that distribution is limited by the spread of the host. For example, 77 per cent of the rust fungi are found only in New Zealand. Cordyceps robertsii, the vegetable caterpillar parasitising a moth larva belonging to Oxycanus, occurs only in Australia and New Zealand. High mountain ranges and oceans also makes natural barriers to distribution, and even among saprophytic species there are in New Zealand a number which are endemic, e.g., the small spiney puff ball, Lycoperdon compactum, occurs only in forests in New Zealand. Similarly, the purple Secotium porphyreum occurs only in New Zealand Nothofagus forests.

Since the publication of a list of fungi in Hooker'sFlora novae-zealandiae (1855) and Hooker's Handbook (1867), where some 200 species were described, no catalogue of New Zealand fungi has been made. In Cooke's Australian fungi (1892) New Zealand species are referred to only when they occur in both countries. Records and observations on New Zealand fungi have, however, been published in periodicals, both in New Zealand and overseas, and the number of fungi reported to be present must now be well over 1,200 species belonging to approximately 240 genera. As fungi play an important role in the diseases of plants, studies have been directed into these groups and some 700 pathogenic species have been described. Few have been listed among the saprophytic species, and in large groups, such as mushrooms and toadstools, few species have been described, while for most groups of smaller fungi there are, as yet, no records.

by Joan Marjorie Dingley, M.SC., Plant Diseases Division, Department of Scientific and Industrial Research, Auckland.

• The Biology of Fungi, Ingold, C. T. (1961)
• D.S.I.R. Plant Diseases Division Bulletin, No. 72–82 (1947–49), “The Polyporaceae of New Zealand”, Cunningham, G. H.
• Rust Fungi of New Zealand, Cunningham, G. H. (1931)
• Gasteromycetes of Australia and New Zealand, Cunningham, G. H. (1942)
• D.S.I.R. Bulletin, No. 145 (1963), “The Theliphoraceae of Australia and New Zealand”, Cunningham, G. H.
• Forest Fungi, Lancaster, M. E. (1955).

In nature, fungi play an important part in the decomposition of organic debris. Dead wood is quickly invaded by fungi and its hard texture is soon destroyed. Throughout the world there are fungi which live as saprophytes on organic matter in the soil and a more or less universal range of fungus species is always present. Not only do these fungi break down the organic material but they also help to maintain a soil texture. A special environment exists on or very near the surface of roots and the fungal flora of this “rhizosphere” differs from that in the rest of the soil. Specific fungi also grow in the association with specific plants of higher groups and often enter into the tissues of the living root without any noticeable pathogenic effects. The physiology of such a “mycorrhizal” relationship is not really clearly understood, but it is generally thought that under favourable conditions the other plant gains through the relationship with the fungus. In New Zealand only a few cases of mycorrhiza in our endemic plants have been investigated, but casual observations suggest that it is of common occurrence, especially in the Ericaceae plants (e.g., Pernettya and Gaultheria). In our exotic pine plantations fructifications of fungi associated with conifers of North America and Europe are extremely common, e.g., Amanita miscaria and Boletus granulatus, and it is apparent that these fungi have a mycorrhizal relationship with the pines.

Yeasts are probably the oldest group of fungi to be domesticated because of the part they play in breadmaking and in brewing of alcoholic beverages. The common field mushroom has been cultivated for many years in Europe, and it is stated that an account of mushroom growing appeared in a French gardening book published in the mid-seventeenth century. Milk curd is inoculated with different species of Penicillium to give cheese characteristic flavours, e.g., Penicillium roqueforti is used to inoculate blue vein cheese. Within the last 20 years the cultivation of many mould species has become extremely important in the production of antibiotics, enzymes, and vitamins.

Fungi are organisms such as yeasts, moulds, mildews and rusts, smuts or sooty moulds, puff balls, mushrooms, and bracket fungi. They may be microscopic in size or up to more than a foot in diameter. Unlike other plants, fungi possess none of the green pigment chlorophyll, necessary for the utilisation of CO2 from the air to form carbohydrates. Instead, they are dependent upon the substrate on which they grow to provide those food substances so essential for their growth and development. They live either saprophytically on dead organic material or as parasites on living organisms belonging to the plant or animal kingdom. Unlike flowering plants they reproduce themselves by spores, not seeds. These spores are minute, often under a hundredth of a millimetre in diameter, and are borne on elaborate fruiting bodies or sporophores. It is the fruiting body which is usually the most conspicuous part of the fungus plant. It varies in size from something less than a millimetre in diameter to more than 20 cm; it may be an elaborate structure, varying from a more or less undifferentiated mass of mycelium to a small, black, globose body, or a mass of brightly coloured fleshy discs, a puff ball or a mushroom. Identification of fungi is based on the microscopic structure of these fruiting bodies, since the vegetative mycelium (hyphae) which ramifies throughout the growth medium is of a more uniform character. It must be remembered that there are as many, if not more, species of fungi than there are seed plants and that the humid mild climate experienced in New Zealand is ideal for fungal growth.

There are three main groups of fungi:

1. Phycomycetes (literally algal fungi) which include filamentous fungi resembling colourless algae. They are chiefly aquatic and contain many soil and water moulds, as well as downy mildews of plants and the common bread mould, Rhizopus.

2. Ascomycetes or sac fungi, where typically eight spores are borne within a saclike hypha called an ascus. Such structures are formed either singly (in a yeast) or are united on an elaborate fruiting body which may be an apothecia (a disc-like fruiting body in which the fertile part is exposed) (2) or a perithecia (a flask-shaped body in which the fertile region is covered, opening to the exterior by a pore) (1)

3. Basidiomycetes, in which four spores are borne superficially on a structure known as a basidia. They may be formed singly as in rusts (5) or united on a large elaborate fruiting body, such as a mushroom (9) or a polypore (11), a bracket fungus (10), or a puff ball (7).

There is a subsidiary group, known as the fungi imperfecti, which includes forms with asexual spores. In some genera within this group a complete life cycle is unknown or may not exist. It includes many important plant pathogens which are responsible for fruit rots as well as leaf spots, stem or root rots of plants, and includes the common moulds, Aspergillus and Penicillium (4).

(1875–1952).

Theatre owner, impressario and entrepreneur, philanthropist.

Sir Benjamin Fuller, the best-known member of the theatre family, was born in London on 20 March 1875, the eldest son of John and Harriet Fuller. He was educated at Board School and Birkbeck College. Fuller started his stage career at the age of nine as a member of a troupe of nigger minstrels and, later, as a young man, sang in the chorus of grand opera at Covent Garden. In 1895 he worked his passage to Australia, where he joined his father's touring variety show. The show afterwards toured New Zealand, where the Fuller family settled, and John Fuller senior began in business himself by organising popular concerts in Auckland. This in time led to the formation of a small family concert and drama company which toured New Zealand in the nineties and the early twentieth century with such success that the firm of John Fuller and Sons established permanent vaudeville theatres in all four centres. Thus was established the Fuller circuit which, expanding as New Zealand's cities grew, eventually spread to Australia. At one stage Dowling Street, Dunedin, where the “firm” had two theatres running simultaneously, was jestingly known as “Fuller's earth”. Sir Benjamin succeeded his father as governing director in 1911, and thereafter guided the firm to new and greater successes. Besides vaudeville, he presented revues, drama, pantomimes, and even ventured into the domain of grand opera, although this latter (1934) cost the firm £30,000.

By 1927, he and his brother John controlled 13 theatres in Australia, in addition to their New Zealand holdings. With the advent of “Talkies”, the firm, in association with Henry Hayward of Auckland, went over to pictures, and these interests were maintained until the complete Fuller holdings in New Zealand, 64 theatres, were sold to Kerridge-Odeon in 1946. The firm, however, is still active in Australia.

Sir Benjamin made large donations to many Australian educational institutions, and in 1921 he was knighted for his gifts to the University of Sydney to help young doctors. He interested himself in many public and private institutions, and at the close of his life was president or patron of the Australian Branch of the International Migration Service, the Australian Art and Educational Guild (Melbourne), and the Arts Council of Australia (New South Wales division).

In 1900 Sir Benjamin married Elizabeth Mary, daughter of Henry Thomson of Auckland, and by her had one son and two daughters. He died suddenly on 10 March 1952, in a London tube train.

A musician himself and interested in the theatre, Sir Benjamin controlled an organisation which for many years in Australia and New Zealand dominated the world of entertainment. Much of this success was undoubtedly attributable to Sir Benjamin's uncanny knack of knowing what the public wanted. In his considerable philanthrophies, Sir Benjamin especially favoured education institutions, a fact for which many students owe him deep gratitude.

by Bernard John Foster, M.A., Research Officer, Department of Internal Affairs, Wellington.

• Melbourne Herald, Sydney Morning Herald, 11 Mar 1952 (Obits)
• Dominion, 13 Mar 1952 (Obit).

(Fuchsia excorticata). Fuchsia, a genus of about 100 species, is almost confined to the west Americas from Mexico to Fuegia. The only other species are four occurring in New Zealand, and one in Tahiti which is closely related to F. excorticata. Of the New Zealand species, three are small – one is a liane. The fourth, F. excorticata, is a small forest tree which grows to about 30 ft high. It occurs throughout all three islands and Auckland Island. It is common in lowland to lower montane forest, especially along margins and in damp valleys. Groves of fuchsia in the dark, wet valleys are a typical feature of steep mountain forest.

Bark is light brown, thin and flaking, and readily peels off revealing a smooth, greenish stem beneath. Leaves are lighter in colour than those of most New Zealand forest trees, and grow up to 4 in. long on slender petioles. They are broadly lanceolate in shape. The flowers are solitary and pendulous and are of different forms depending on the relative lengths of the stamens and style. The flower structure is of considerable interest. The fruit is an eggshaped, blackish-brown or black berry about an inch long, relished by the Maoris and known as konini. The timber is strong and tough and has a high tannin content, but is scarcely ever used. It is very difficult to burn even when dry.

by Alec Lindsay Poole, M.SC., B.FOR.SC., F.R.S.N.Z., Director-General of Forests, Wellington.