662 



Journal of Agriculture, Victoria. [11 Xov., 1918. 



Sugar beet was introduced by tbe Mormons, who transported all the 

 material of tbeir sugar factories on ox waggons, over 1,000 miles, from 

 St. Louis, some 70 years ago, to Salt Lake City. In the State of Utali 

 they say three things conquered the desert — Brigham Young, irrigated 

 sugar beet, and lucerne. America was neither a one-crop country 

 nor a one-stock country, because the Americans had developed 

 all types of stock, and now own 60,000,000 head of cattle, 

 68,000,000 pigs, and 45,000,000 sheep. It has extensive irrigation 

 schemes that has made the desert bloom like the rose. There are over 

 4,500,000 acres under irrigation. A word or two about the live-stock 



G-eneseo Belle Polkadot. 



A Holstein giving 20,816 lbs. of milk, and 732.9 lbs. butter fat; half-sister 

 to the world's record milk cow, Tilly Alcarta. (State Agricultural College, 

 Iowa. ) 



industry. Wherever you get a country where most of the feed is rough- 

 age grass or hay you find sheep predominant and grazing cattle. The 

 United States produce far more grain in proportion to roughage than 

 Australia; therefore pigs and dairy cattle predominate. Barley is the 

 crop that struck him as being able to stand in the same relation to the 

 stock industry as maize in America. They have a curious system of 

 selling stock by live weight. They have commission agents represent- 

 ing farmers and buyers representing the big packing plants. As soon as 

 a sale is made the stock are run over a weighbridge and sold on live 

 weight. The advantage is that the farmer knows exactly how much 

 maize and how much lucerne hay or other foodstuffs is necessary 

 to produce a pound of pork or beef, and he further knows 

 by the price of maize whether it will pay him to sell his 

 maize as maize or feed it to pigs and sell it as pork. There 

 are no local slaughter-houses, all the stock being slaughtered at 



