During the greater part of the nineteenth century the spectacular aspects of North Auckland's economy were associated with the timber felling and kauri gum digging industries. As in so many other regions of New Zealand, these exploitative industries declined in importance as their resources were used up and as livestock farming replaced them. More so than in any other part of New Zealand, timber felling and gum digging in particular left a burdensome legacy of extensive areas of reverted scrub land and poor pasture. It is difficult to trace the growth of dairy cow numbers in North Auckland before 1920, but since that date the rate of growth in numbers has equalled the rate of growth for the South Auckland Land District. In 1959 the North Auckland Land District (which extends over a somewhat larger area than the region as defined here) contained 22·6 per cent of the nation's dairy cows, compared with 19·1 per cent in 1935, and it therefore ranked as the second most important area for dairying. Very conspicuous, however, is the figure for average butterfat production per cow, 239·1 lb (1959–60) which is the lowest average for the whole country and is 10 per cent below the New Zealand average. It compares poorly with the South Auckland Land District figure of 279·4 lb per cow and draws attention once more to the unused potential of the region. In the post-war period the North Auckland average butterfat production per cow has increased by 55 per cent which markedly exceeds the national rate of increase (39 per cent) but is not much above the South Auckland district increase of 50 per cent. It is significant that in the last decade total dairy cow numbers have declined, following the national trend, thus revealing a greater efficiency per cow, since production has increased. Only Whangarei County has recorded an increase in cows in milk. The importance of dairying to the regional economy is underlined by the high ratio of cows in milk per hundred sheep shorn, a ratio which does not, however, reach the high levels obtained for individual counties in the Waikato-Hauraki and Taranaki regions. A disadvantageous feature of the dairying industry in North Auckland is suggested by the figures for size of herd milked. North Auckland has 3244 per cent of its cows milked in herds of less than 50, compared with 16 per cent in Taranaki and 14 per cent in Waikato-Hauraki, and the percentage of cows milked in herds of more than 100 animals is in North Auckland only half that for the other two regions. A 65·03-per-cent increase in the number of sheep shorn and a 92·20-per-cent increase in the number of lambs shorn (1951–52 to 1959–60), both figures being well above the national average, indicate the development which has occurred in this pastoral sector, though on a national basis the importance of North Auckland to the sheep industry does not compare with its importance to the dairying industry. Kerikeri is noted for the production of grapefruit, oranges and lemons, tree tomatoes, and Chinese gooseberries; 479 acres of orchards and market gardens were recorded for the Bay of Islands County in 1959–60 and most of this acreage is located around Kerikeri.