i8 WHEATGROWING IN AUSTRALIA. 



capital, but with brains and energy, and many of them are now 

 worth from $50,000.00 to $100,000.00. There were failures in the 

 early days, because there was want of knowledge of the proper 

 methods of working low-rainfall country for growing wheat, and 

 also proper methods and lack of proper implements for that class 

 of country. Suitable implements, especially " stump-jump" imple- 

 ments, have been evolved, and there is a solid guide for the new 

 settlers to follow. One of the leading farmers in the Mallee country 

 in Victoria, Mr. R. Blackwood, at Hopetoun, where the soil is of 

 average quality and the rainfall less than 14 in., started on the share 

 system in 1892. It was seven years before he adopted the " bare 

 fallow" method, an essential in such country, and since doing so 

 he has averaged 16 bushels per acre.. In the record dry year (1902) 

 his crop went 8 bushels to the acre, and paid working expenses. 

 By 1913 he was the owner of 5000 acres. He crops about 650 acres 

 each year, and fallows about the same area, working on a three- 

 year rotation of fallow, wheat, grazing. 



FACTORS GOVERNING WHEATGROWING. 



The principal factors governing wheatgrowing in Australia 

 are: 



Conservation of soil moisture by fallowing the land.. 



Sowing of varieties of wheat most suitable for the different 

 districts. 



Judicious use of fertilisers. 



The settler has not to find these things out for himself. He 

 has the assistance of well-organised and progressive departments 

 of agriculture in the different States to tell him what to do, how 

 and when to do it. The working of his land is a matter upon which 

 he will be fully informed. He will have the scientific experience 

 of the departmental experts, the examples of local experimental 

 plots, and the experience of working farmers to guide him in 

 regard to the best method of working his soil. Methods vary some- 

 what in different soils and districts, as has been previously stated. 



He is informed as to the best varieties to sow in his district 

 and the proper time to sow them. The completeness of that in- 

 formation can be gathered from the following particulars which are 

 supplied by the Department of Agriculture in New South Wales 

 every season. Similar information is furnished in other States. In 

 New South Wales a classification of varieties of wheat is made by 



