Irrigation Farming in Australia. 7 



Australian Governments, and, after constructing initial works, 

 resold farming blocks of virgin country to immigrant settlers, 

 attracted by their advertisements from all over the world, but mainly 

 trom England. 



These two settlements of Mildura and Renmark to-day hold- 

 about 8000 people prosperous fruitgrowers and their families and 

 their vines produce far more raisins and currants than the whole of 

 Australia can consume. The people there lead a healthy and happy 

 life, the freest and, now that they have passed the early years of 

 struggle and development, the most charming and comfortable life 

 imaginable. They have shared early difficulties and discomforts 

 together till they are more like one big family than a community 

 of an ordinary town. The apricot and peach season of December 

 and January, the grape season of February and March, the orange 

 season of June and July, afford happy pictures of an independent 

 country life. Great numbers of University students and others in 

 the cities prefer to spend their holidays at work in the fruit season 

 on the Murray.. 



The example shown by the Charleys at Mildura and Renmark 

 spread slowly at first, but once the practical success of small farm- 

 ing and fruitgrowing by irrigation was revealed, the idea quickly 

 spread. For the last fifteen years the State of Victoria especially 

 has led all the Australian States in this branch of farming, and to 

 Victorian efforts mainly is due the encouragement of irrigation in 

 the other States as well. The chief apostle of the new farming in 

 Victoria is an American, Mr. Elwood Mead, who is chairman of the 

 Victorian State Irrigation Commission, and whose name and work 

 are widely known and respected in Australia. During the last six 

 years he has performed a lasting service to more than his own State 

 in reviving and expanding the whole conception in Australia of 

 closer farming settlement. Mr. Mead has said himself: 



" The original conception was to make irrigation an adjunct 

 of dry farming, in which a little water would be used to grow cheap 

 fodder crops scattered over wide areas. Under the old practice it 

 made little difference whether the irrigated land was poor or good ; 

 but with the changed practice the water and crops are both too 

 valuable to allow of the use of anything but the best types of soil. 

 Furthermore, it is becoming increasingly apparent that the Murray 

 valley is to be one of the chief fruit-producing districts for the 

 Northern Hemisphere, having the great advantage of being able 

 to supply these markets at a season of the year when they would 

 otherwise be empty. We are now shipping apples and pears suc- 

 cessfully to Europe, and there is no doubt that stone fruits can be 

 as successfully shipped to North America.." 



The newer Victorian and New South Wales irrigation settle- 

 ments show improvement, too, in practical engineering on the first 

 efforts. The Chaffeys pumped water direct from the river to their 

 orchards. The new scheme is to dam back tributaries at higher 

 levels, and gravitate the water thus conserved through diversion 

 canals down to the lower plains. 



