162 SOUTH AFRICA. 



a limited extent, as arable land with water sufficient 

 for necessary irrigation is only to be found in 

 small patches, most of which are already worked 

 assiduously by the owners, although perhaps not 

 in the best possible manner. Every farm 

 almost has a few acres under cultivation limited 

 by the amount of soil and water available, very 

 rarely exceeding ten acres, but generally of less 

 extent possibly on a few farms one hundred acres 

 may be under the plough, and I have once seen 

 seventy-five acres of various crops on one farm in 

 the Zeerust district As farms generally consist 

 of six thousand English acres, and often extend ta 

 twenty or thirty thousand, agriculture cannot be 

 counted as a very prominent industry in a country 

 the whole, or nearly the whole, of which is settled 

 up to the mark of its competency to supply half 

 of a white population of perhaps a little more or 

 less than sixty thousand Boers of all ages and 

 forty-five thousand Europeans, mostly adults, with 

 the staple necessaries of life the rest, together 

 with all luxuries, being imported. It may be that 

 some addition to the home-produced food supply 

 might be obtained by the employment of adequate 

 capital, more skilful methods, and increased 



