234 



president's address — SECTION G (ll.). 



Cultivation of Wheat rsr Millions of Acres. 

 (Averages for past 25 years.) 



HOW TO ADVANCE AGRICULTURE. 



The main points can be only enumerated, without any attempt to 

 go into details. First, there is the paramount question of conserving 

 all our water supply. It should be the aim of Australian statesmen 

 not to allow a single drop of flood water to flow into the sea. Every 

 storage site on the Murray and its tributaries should be utilised one 

 by one, and wherever possible the flood water from the coastal streams 

 should be turned back towards the interior. The immediate objective 

 we should aim at is to grow lucern and maize under irrigation, and to 

 turn them into lamb, butter, and pork. With regard to dry farming, 

 I hold that wheat should be grown even if it yields no profit over and 

 above the cost of production, simply on account of the indirect profit 

 which becomes possible by enabling the farmer to double the numbers 

 of his flocks and herds. The wheat keeps the sheep and the sheep 

 grow the wheat. They make possible the introduction of the green 

 fallow of rape and leguminous crops ; they graze off the young crop, 

 and keep up the supply of phosphoric acid and the moisture-conserving 

 humus of the soil. We have pushed the limit of cultivation, experi- 

 mentally at least, up to the fringe of the arid region, and farmers are 

 tempted to chance a crop of wheat year after year in spite of the proba- 

 bilities of failure, simply because the cost of growing and harvesting 

 the crop is so small that a good year means a handsome profit. The 

 average yield of wheat in Australia is very low ; but it must be re- 

 membered that in no part of the world is the cost of growing it lower 

 per acre, and nowhere is a crop produced on such a low rainfall. Nearly 

 all the wheat grown in Victoria is produced in the driest part of the 

 State, very little of it receives more than 20in. of rain, and there 

 is no doubt that the limit of profitable production throughout Australia 

 will gradually be advanced to the lOin. line of rainfall. Even under 

 these conditions the following results show what can be done towards 

 increasing the yield by selecting the best seed of the best varieties : — 



" Wheat Variety Experiments, Victorian Department of Agriculture. 



"Returns from 22 plots are now to hand, comprising 38 varieties 

 of wheat. Area of each lot is five acres, and the whole was uniformly 

 manured with 561bs. superphosphate per acre. Ten acres out of the 

 whole area of the plots were cut for hay, on account of the wild oats. 



