DRAWBACKS 267 



advantage not alone to the toilers in the rural 

 districts but also to the workers in the towns. 



Provided that the deplorable consequences of 

 periodical droughts in Australia can be avoided 

 by an efficient system of irrigation, there would 

 seem to be hardly any limit to the productive- 

 ness of our Australasian colonies, and though 

 agriculture there is only just passing out of what 

 is called the " tentative " stage, it is evident that 

 the foundations have been laid of an organized 

 system from which much can be looked for in the 

 immediate future. There are drawbacks, how- 

 ever, apart from the possibilities of drought. A 

 writer in the Year Book of Australasia for 1903 

 says, in regard to the question of fruit export : — 



The great difficulty consists in the absence of concerted 

 action on the part of the fruit growers generally, and 

 especially in New South Wales. Attempts have been un- 

 successfully made to introduce the co-operative principle, 

 which has effected so much in connection with the dairy 

 farming industry; and until something of the kind be- 

 comes possible the progress of Australian fruit cultivation 

 must remain slow and uncertain. 



Even in the dairy -farming industry itself 

 there is an increasing tendency on the part of 

 the farmers to avoid the daily journey to the 

 central factory with their milk by using hand 

 separators at home, and taking in their cream 



