.148 



POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



Crossing a Drift. 



luxuriously on Mr. S. Ginsberg's farm as his guests, the camp having 

 been provided by the Eoyal Engineers, and the next morning wandered 

 over the farm inspecting the experimental growing of tobacco and 

 oranges and an irrigation trench, some two and a half miles long, car- 

 ried round the side of a hill. Another night we slept on the open 

 veld wrapped in blankets and rugs. Our experience of the hotels at 

 the three towns mentioned above was a favorable one; they have noth- 

 ing to lose by a comparison with those in places of a similar size in 

 either Europe or America. 



The government is carrying on the work of improving the main 

 roads in farming districts by building bridges over the deeper ' drifts ' 

 (fords where the rivers can be crossed), by metalling the surfaces, 

 and by digging side trenches to carry off the torrential rains during 

 the wet season. This is in line with the policy of developing the agri- 

 cultural possibilities of the Transvaal through an increase in the facili- 

 ties for getting the produce to a market. But the difficulties of rais- 

 ing it are many. The cattle have been nearly exterminated by war and 

 disease; to prevent the spread of the latter in future the farms are 

 being accurately surveyed and surrounded by barbed-wire fences. The 

 raising of crops with any regularity seems to require expensive schemes 

 of irrigation and the construction of dams to store the water, but it is 

 by no means certain that these schemes can be made to pay their cost. 

 Tobacco growing has long been fairly successful in some parts and the 

 leaf finds a ready sale. Some fruits, especially oranges, can be also 



