88 Australian Life 



from the lessons of the lean years, the Australian 

 pastoralist has so far profited that considerable 

 attention is being devoted to the spread of this 

 plant and others of a kindred nature. 



Provision for the storage of the water that falls 

 during the rainy season has always been of a 

 primitive nature, for the great evaporation which 

 takes place under the summer sun discouraged 

 any elaborate precautions of this kind. Never- 

 theless, the importance of conserving, as far as 

 possible, the plentiful supplies that invariably run 

 to waste in the rainy season is now more fully 

 recognised than it has ever been. Plans for lock- 

 ing the more important of the rivers and creeks 

 have been from time to time proposed, and prac- 

 tical steps are now being taken to carry into effect 

 the more feasible of these schemes. The con- 

 servation of large supplies of water during good 

 seasons would appear the most obvious precaution 

 against the dry years that must inevitably follow, 

 as experience has shown; but, in the past, a good 

 season has been a sort of fool's paradise, during 

 which the pastoralists have idly watched the valu- 

 able water running away to waste. 



The improvidence of Australians in this respect 

 is made strongly apparent by such a curious spec- 

 tacle as was witnessed in a little town in the 

 western district of New South Wales when the 

 great drought broke up in 1903. For many 

 months, the inhabitants had been supplied with 

 water carted from a distance, although a dry 



