70 Journal of Agriculture, Victoria. [11 Feb., 1918. 



Imperial, &c., showing that care and attention to seed was not being 

 neglected. 



The rotation — fallow, wheat, oats and grass for j:iheep — appears to be 

 genei-al, and where it has been faithfully carried out, the take-all disease 

 hag been suppressed. The only places where take-all was noticed this 

 year were on very large farms on which land had been sown out to grass 

 for a number of years, and no oat crop grown l>etween the successive 

 wheat crops, even though several years had elapsed between the two crops. 



Owing to the slowness with which grasses tend to establish themselves 

 on the stubbles in the Wimmera, the wild oat, which does so readily, finds 

 many advocates, but all admit that it causes serious loss to the succeed- 

 ing wheat crop and would welcome a substitute. In this connexion the 

 attention of Nhill farmers ie, directed to a series of permanent rotation 

 plots which were established last year at Longerenong College. They 

 comprise tests between ten different systems of farming, including the 



A Group of Working Draught Horses at Nhill in splendid condition. 



Wimmera rotation and rotations in which pear, rape or barley figure. 

 These experiments will be continued from year to year, and the recults 

 over a series of years should throw considerable light on the question as 

 to whether forage crops for sheep can be successfully and profitably 

 grown in the Wimmera. 



Many other instances might be given to illustrate the spirit of progress 

 in the Nhill district. Perhaps the best is that shown in the following 

 table prepared from the estimated yield^i in the competition " Best Half 

 of Farmers' Wheat Crop (not less than 75 acres)," submitted by the 

 various judges. The figures, which I give with some diffidence, as they 

 are merely the judge's estimates, and it may be argued that they repre- 

 sent the increasing optimism of the later-day judges, show a steady 

 increase in yield over the whole period. 



The average estimated yield for the five years 1903-7 was 18 bushels, 

 while the average estimated yield for the five years 1912-17, not includ- 

 ing the drought year (1914), was 28 bushekt, which is double the district 



