184 WOOL 



is ploughed up and sown with wheat,- and the sheep have to 

 live on less valuable soils. 



There are many different breeds : on the high mountain 

 pastures and in the drier lands are merinos, while in the 

 moister plains, Lincolns and Romney Marsh thrive best. 



Much land that was at one time covered with forests is 

 being cleared, and sown with grasses for sheep. When this 

 has been done, it is estimated that there will be fourteen 

 million acres in the North Island and thirteen millions acres 

 in the South Island fit for sheep grazing. 



The Union of South Africa. The Cape of Good Hope is 

 more than twice the British Isles in area, the Karroo Plateaux 

 having between them an area of 100,000 square miles. Of 

 these plateaux the largest and most important is the Great 

 Karroo lying between the Nieuwveld Mountains in the north 

 and the Zwarte Bergen in the south. The Great Karroo alone 

 is about half the size of England, and most of it is 3,000 feet 

 above the level of the sea. 



In the hot dry season nothing could be more desolate than 

 these sun-baked plains ; all vegetation is apparently burnt up, 

 and the watercourses are dry. Dotted all over the land is 

 a little insignificant bush, which never grows more than ten 

 inches high, and which in summer looks like a miserable 

 little bunch of dried-up twigs. Yet, like the salt-bush in the 

 Australian plains, this Karroo bush affords sustenance for 

 millions of sheep. Down by the watercourses the mimosas 

 grow, and these are the favourite food of the Angora goats. 



When the rains come, all these brown, dusty plains 

 suddenly burst into life ; the little Karroo bush becomes 

 a pleasant shrub with pale green aromatic leaves, the heaths 

 and mimosas blossom, and all the land is a glorious blaze 

 of colour. 



To the north of the Orange River is British Bechuanaland, 

 the eastern half of which is a high, dry, grassy plateau support- 

 ing large numbers of sheep. 



The Transvaal and Orange Free State. Of these the 



