2S2 NEW SOUTH WALES. 



extends through a fertile but very dry district to a distance of 

 considerably over a hundred miles in a direct line from its head on the 

 River Lachlan, its importance for water supply purposes is obvious. 



A weir on the Macquarie River, near Warren, with objects similar 

 to those of the Willandra weir, is now almost complete, and another 

 weir on the Macquarie, and a second on the Lachlan, are about to be 

 commenced. In all these cases, the effluent creeks, which constitute 

 ready-made distributaries for the water available from the rivers, are 

 to be utilised to the fullest extent practicable. The weirs which are 

 being constructed differ in design according to the circumstances of 

 each case. That at Warren, which is shown in the accompanying 

 view, is constructed entirely of timber, while the weir about to be 

 commenced at a point about 30 miles further up the Macquarie will be 

 of concrete. 



A comparatively small and inexpensive, but nevertheless important 

 work for water conservation, constructed by the Government, is a self- 

 acting floodgate, which retains water in Lake Cudgellico. This lake, 

 which is over 4,000 acres in extent, is filled in times of flood by the 

 overflow from the River Lachlan ; but under natural conditions nearly 

 all the water would flow back to the river as the floods subsided. The 

 erection of the floodgate has made the supply in the lake permanent. 



The outline given of the means by which water has been, and is 

 being conserved for stock and domestic purposes throughout the 

 country west of the Dividing Range shows that both the landholders 

 and the Government are fully alive to the importance of the question. 

 The arrangements for water supply are, in fact, so far advanced that 

 in times of drought the stock suffer much more through want of food 

 than want of water. The time is therefore ripe for considering what 

 is best to be done to supplement the food supply for stock, to com- 

 pensate in some degree for the inequality of the seasons, and to lessen 

 the liability to losses through droughts. 



The same class of enterprise which the early settlers showed in 

 adopting means for utilising the pasturage in the dry districts, has 

 already been shown by some of the present landholders in increasing 

 the food supplies for stock by irrigation. An interesting experiment 

 bearing on this subject was made some years ago on the Lower Darling, 

 in a district so dry that it was not considered safe to estimate that the 

 land could sustain more than one sheep to 10 acres on an average. 

 The object of the experiment was to determine how many sheep could 

 be kept in good condition by the produce of one acre of irrigated 

 lucerne. The result showed conclusively that over twenty sheep could 

 be so sustained. This was merely an experiment, but its result was 

 highly suggestive. The adoption of irrigation in connection with the 

 pastoral industry has, however, gone beyond the experimental stage. 



On the lower parts of the courses of some of the rivers, the banks 

 are higher than the land adjacent to them. Taking advantage of this, 

 some of the landholders have made cuttings out from the rivers so as 

 to flood the land by gravitation. Wherever this can be done at 

 moderate expense, the result is highly satisfactory, and it has proved 

 remunerative to irrigate even the natural grasses in this way. As 

 an instance of the increase of grass produced by this method of irriga- 

 tion, it may be mentioned that two larger paddocks near the Lower 



