CHAPTER XII 



FARM AND FACTORY 



THE selector, with his six hundred and forty 

 acres or more of virgin land, is common to 

 the whole of Australia. Year by year, he adds a 

 little more to the area of land under cultivation, 

 eking out his existence in the meantime by a 

 little stock-raising, dairying, poultry-farming, 

 and the like. The uses to which the cleared 

 land is put vary according to the locality and the 

 nature of the soil, for in a country with so re- 

 markable a range of climate as Australia pos- 

 sesses, possibilities of all kinds exist. Between 

 the Tasmauian gardener who grows apples for 

 the lyondon markets, small fruits for jam-making, 

 and root vegetables for the warmer states on the 

 mainland and the Queensland planter who ex- 

 periments with cotton, coffee, tobacco, arrowroot, 

 bananas, and other tropical products there is 

 little that the soil cannot be made to produce. 

 The limited nature of the local market and the 

 position of Australia, precluding until recently the 

 possibility of exporting produce of a perishable 



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