50 AUSTRALIAN AGRICULTURE. 



from his own knowledge, to decide whether an implement 

 offered him is suitable in a practical way for the work to 

 be done ; that he may be able to use his implements to 

 the best advantage, and to make such repairs, alterations, 

 or improvements upon them as may become necessary. 

 It has been a boon to agriculture that implement makers 

 and others have done so much ; it is still better when the 

 agriculturist himself is a skilled mechanic the two 

 divisions are combined in the one man with great 

 advantage. 



The Royal Agricultural Society of England and the 

 Highland Society of Scotland have done much for the 

 development of agricultural mechanics and engineering. 

 Those societies offered prizes not only for such machines 

 as were coming into use, but gave special prizes for doing 

 special work, and by this means many very desirable 

 improvements have been introduced. Other societies, in 

 Australia as well as in other places, have followed in the 

 wake of the great institutions of the mother land ; but the 

 latter have always been prominent, a circumstance due 

 largely to the exceptional ability of the men the Royal 

 and Highland Societies were able to secure as experts and 

 judges. The most notable case of this kind in Australia, as 

 yet, was the veiy handsome offer of the Government of 

 South Australia for the invention of a harvesting machine 

 that would reap the grain, thresh, winnow, and bag it, all 

 in the field. The author had the privilege of seeing that 

 trial, and, although none of the machines submitted came 

 up to the requirements of the case, he was much taken 

 with the very great skill and enterprise made manifest by 

 the competition. South Australia is peculiarly adapted for 

 wheat farming on an immense scale, and upon a system in 

 which mechanical engineering is all important. The only 

 parallel to South Australia is seen in parts of California 

 and in Colorado. The South Australian wheat soils, with 

 but rare exceptions, are veiy light. The soil is loose in 

 nature, and very rich in lime. It overlies immense beds of 

 limestone. By the aid of gang ploughs a series of two or 

 more light plough bodies in a frame the soil is turned 

 over four or five inches deep, each furrow being from Sin. 



