FIRST PRIZE ESSAY. IT 



LUCERNE FOR THE KARROO. 



The growing, of cereals should be left to those parts of this- 

 CoLny and neighbouring States where they can be grown whole- - 

 sale upon the slopes and hill sides for miles and miles at a stretch, 

 without artificial watering, and depending solely upon seasonable- 

 rainfall. Regions blessed with these natural features are naturally^ 

 adapted to cereal growing. These features are possessed by some- 

 of the coast districts of the Western Province Malmesbury 

 and Koeberg districts for instance and some of the coast 

 districts of the Eastern Province, and also the conquered ter- 

 ritory in the Free Sta'e, The arid Karroo does not possess them, 

 and instead of trying to coerce the, Karroo into grain producing, it 

 should be made to carry crops more suitable to its peculiarities of 

 climate, soil and rainfall. . Lucerne is just one of these crops. 

 Where lucerne won't grow in the Karroo, cereals certainly will not. 

 Cereals cannot, generally speaking, be grown in the Karroo with- 

 out irrigation. Irrigation means the construction of weirs, dams 

 and furrows, levelling and grading of lands, and the yearly mainten- 

 ance of all these works.. Wheat can be grown in such quantity,, 

 and so cheaply in the natural wheat regions just referred to, that 

 the wheat grown under irrigation- in the .Karroo cannot profitably 

 compete. We grant that it pays the Karroo grower of irrigated 

 wheat better to grow wheat during a succession of years of drought, 

 than it does during good years, because wheat is then a better price, 

 but this state of affairs at best is. merely temporary, being due to- 

 the shortfall of production in the natural wheat regions of the 

 Colony and neighbouring States. One or two good seasons would 

 again see .wheat at such prices as can only mean loss, or at best, 

 very little profit, to the Karroo grower of irrigated wheat ; for the 

 increased demand, due to shortfall, will create a stimulated produc- 

 tion from the natural wheat regions referred to. For the various 

 reasons we have just, reviewed, and because nature can never be 

 coerced, cereal growing in the Karroo, even in favourable years, 

 will never be more than an uncertain " head I win " and " tail you 

 lose " sort of undertaking. It follows that all large Government 

 irrigation schemes in the Karroo, based upon the growing of grain, 

 and especially wheat, are more or less foredoomed to failure. Van 

 Wyke's Ylei scheme has already proved to be a failure for wheat, 

 growing, for which it was mainly undertaken. The Steynsburg 

 (Thebus) scheme, if undertaken, 'will probably be the next failure 

 as regards wheat growing. As a wheat growing scheme the Dou- 

 glas irrigation scheme is foredoomed to failure at the prices paid to 

 acquire plots of ground upon the site of the scheme, and the water 

 rate imposed. It will require some far more profitable crop than 

 grain growing to enable the Douglas scheme plot holders to work 

 at a fair profit. The only consolation left to the taxpayer is that- 

 lucerne growing, or fruit growing, will most probably, ere long, 

 super-cede wheat growing upon "the sites of these Government 



