12 LUCERNE CULTURE. 



irrigation schemes, and thus eventually become a source of real 

 profit and benefit to the country. With regard to the Slagter's 

 ^Nek Scheme upon the Fish River, mooted from, time to time these 

 twenty years, we do not suppose that any sane Government Com- 

 mission would ever seriously recommend it after a careful inspec- 

 tion of the nature of the bulk of the ground lying below the 

 proposed site. There are dozens of far more promising sites and 

 soils for large irrigation schemes within this Colony than the 

 Slagter's Nek site. To proceed with one subject, we assume that 

 it will .be readily granted that, to grow cereals in the Karroo gener- 

 -ally, irrigation has to be resorted to. Since lucerne is well known 

 to flourish better under irrigation than cereals do, clearly lucerne 

 -answers better to the peculiar conditions existing in the Karroo 

 than do cereals. Lucerne appears to te a plant " manufactured to 

 -order " for the Karroo and arid countries like it. All those coun- 

 tries of the world where lucerne has become to be regarded as " the 

 -King of fodder plants " are arid countries like the Karroo, princi- 

 pally devoted to stock farming on a large scale, and subject, like 

 the Karroo, to protracted periodical droughts. Lucerne is in its 

 /.glory in just such countries, when" it is periodically flooded and 

 then grazed or cut with the mower. The rainfall of the Karroo, or 

 .at any rate the bulk of it, is sufficient to give it this periodical 

 flooding by taking the water from rivers, or conserving it in large 

 ^dams filled from the rivers during the rainy season. 



PROFIT AND LOSS CEREALS vs. LUCERNE COST OF 

 RAISING WHEAT. 



We now propose to compare the profit of cereal growing under 

 irrigation with that of lucerne growing under irrigation in the 

 Karroo. We believe we are making a liberal estimate when we i fix 

 the average yield of wheat under irrigation in the Karrco at about 

 five bags of 225 Ibs. each, per acre, per annum, taking a series of 

 years of failures and successes. Mr. John Eaton, of " Droogvlei," 

 in the Malmesbury district (about the best wheat district in the 

 natural wheat region of the Western Province), a good farmer of 

 long experience, writing to the Cape Times iii 1886, estimated the 

 previous five years average yield of wheat per acre at 1\ bushels, 

 .equal to about two bags of 225 Ibs. each per acre. Again, from 

 tabulated reports of wheat yields from several coast districts of this 

 Colony, the average yield was only six to eight bushels per acre, 

 equal to about \\ to two bags<of 225 Ibs. each per acre. The gene- 

 ral average yield of wheat even in the United Kingdom, under 

 scientific and heavy manuring, sure rainfall, no locusts, compara- 

 tively little rust, is only 29 to 30 bushels, or about seven to eight 

 bags of 225 Ibs. each per acre per annum. So that our estimated 

 Karroo average (taking the good years with the bad) of five bags 

 of 225 Ibs. each per acre, per annum, must be admitted, we think, 

 'Ao be a very liberal estimate for a comparison between the profits 



