130 Journal of Agriculture, Victoria. [10 March, 1919. 



Methods of Increasing Carrying Capacity Specially Important 



AT Present. 



Amon^ the economic changes caused by the war, none has given the 

 primary producer more concern than those adjustments necessary in 

 the regular farming systems as a result of the relatively greater increase 

 in the value of sheep products as compared with those of the cereals. 

 Professor Perkins, writing in the Journal of Agriculture of South Aus- 

 tralia recently, showed that while wheat has increased 25 per cent iii 

 price and costs 9d. per bushel extra to produce now, as compared with 

 a ten year pre-war period, wool has increased 61 per cent, in value, 

 without a correspondiHg increase in the cost of production. The popular 

 adjustment is to reduce the area cultivated; but many farmers, in order to 

 utilize their horses, which are not saleable at present, except at a heavy 

 loss, have been obliged to continue their usual cropping. It is certain 

 that while the present conditions continue, methods of increasing the 

 carrying capacity of a farm are of more than passing interest to primary 

 producers, especially those who are forced by existing circumstances to 

 maintain their holdings under cultivation. 



As a result of my recent and previous visits to the Wimmera, I am 

 strongly imbued with the idea that this improvement is feasible, and 

 may be effected by putting to better use that part of the farm now 

 allowed to take care of itself. Two ways suggest themselves — one is 

 the improvement of the present pasture by the sowing of a temporary 

 pasture suited to the conditions brought about by the preceding cereal 

 crop; the other is that greater use might be made of oats, barley, or 

 another plant as a catch crop for early feed. 



If there is another impression, it comes from viewing the successful 

 efforts of several advanced agriculturists in what are usually termed 

 the side-lines. The methods and results of these men prove at fault the 

 general conception of the Wimmera as a one-erop, one-stock country. 



The District. 



For the information of those outside the district, who may be 

 unfamiliar with the Wimmera, undoubtedly one of the most fertile 

 wheat provinces in Australia, it should be stated that Nhill is situated 

 at a distance of about 30 miles from the Soutli Australian border, on 

 the main railway line connecting Melbourne with Adelaide. From the 

 most northerly part of those broad fertile black plains, which stretol) 

 easterly from Murtoa, Horsham, Natimuk, Dimboola, in the general 

 direction of Rupanyup, Minyip, and Warracknabeal, a narrow irregular 

 tongue of the same class of soil, with Nhill at its centre, extends westerly 

 toward the border. To the north and south of this tongue, which is 

 never more than 25 miles wide, and is often but a few miles across, lies 

 a sandy desert area covered with stunted mallee. Between the fertile 

 area and the desert country is what is known as fringe country, where the 

 box and bull-oak trees of the black soils intermingle with the mallee 

 scrub. The light, friable black loams of the fringe gradually change to a 

 red or grey sandy loam wholly covered with mallee. Both these soils 

 grow exc(dlent crops of wheat. 



