30 Irrigation Farming in Australia. 



not care if it never rains at all, or if all the natural grass dies. His 

 water is always assured from the channels, and his lucerne, once 

 started, grows itself. He can work the land to any limits if he 

 manures it from time to time. 



SHEEP GRAZING ON LUCERNE. 



Some farmers who weary of the eternal milking of cows have 

 tried fattening sheep instead in their lucerne paddocks. They buy 

 store sheep, and sell them fat six weeks later.. I have seen several 

 men making a handsome profit in this way buying sheep for $1.08 

 to $1.44, and selling them fat for $1.92 to $2.40. But this would not 

 pay so well if everyone went in for it, and, anyway, the success 

 depends on getting the market right at each end of the transaction, 

 which in turn means acquaintance with the farmer's own district 

 and surrounding districts as well. 



There are two ways of feeding lucerne to stock as cut dried 

 hay, and by turning the animals loose on to newly-growing stubble. 

 The settler should not turn stock on to the ground until the lucerne 

 roots and plants are well established and a year old, and then, too, 

 it will mean his subdividing his lucerne ground into small paddocks. 

 He will probably do this, anyway, in course of time as his farm 

 grows. 



Pig-raising on lucerne and as an adjunct to dairying is a most 

 profitable industry in the irrigation areas. The officer-in-charge at 

 Rochester has stated that farmers will frequently say, as they come 

 in to pay their rent cheque : " I paid for this out of my last four 

 pigs, Roy." One irrigation farmer interviewed said he had bought 

 a breeding sow, and in fourteen months had made $219.00 out of 

 the progeny of this one animal. The pork export trade of the 

 United States so large has American home consumption grown 



