101 



and in the neighborhood of every French farm steading we see accumulating 

 huge stacks of straw to meet the supposed requirements of the farm livestock. 

 But the question arises, is it straw that the Arab feeds to his livestock ? 

 Is it not rather mainly the chaff envelopes of the grain, which are admittedly 

 of greater feeding value, mingled with grain that has escaped slovenly win- 

 nowing processes, together with a little crushed and bruised straw ? What- 

 ever may be the case, there is little doubt but that both horses and cattle take 

 more readily to the straw heaps of the Arabs than to the clean straw of the 

 French threshing machines. The French landowner grows wheat more readily 

 than barley, and oats only in favored localities ; and unfortunately the hard 

 stick-like straw of the flinty wheats usually grown, always fed long, is the 

 type of straw least acceptable to livestock. Hence the French landowner 

 finds himself compelled to meet the acknowledged defects of his straw as a 

 foodstuff with abnormally large rations of barley ; all of which, in the long 

 run, has a tendency to shear away what may be left in the way of net profits 



Without hay as a standby, and with perhaps even less natural summer feed 

 than we can boast of in South Australia on an average Lower North farm, it is 

 easy for us to realise the difficulties of the Tunisian farmers who would com- 

 bine livestock operations with the growing of crops. Notwithstanding 

 well-intentioned official advice to the contrary, in actual practice I fancy 

 that the average French colon reduces his livestock to the irreducible mini- 

 mum of unavoidable working horses. Indeed I heard that one farm, at all 

 events, had even gone a step further in a more or less successful attempt 

 entirely to replace working horses by electricity. It is true that one hears that 

 cattle are occasionally found grazing with advantage on some of the favorably 

 situated farms of the northern districts of the Regency. For the most part, 

 however, these represent more or less dubious speculations rather than 

 systematically legitimate associations of livestock and farming. In the main, 

 I think, it may be stated without exaggeration, that for the present the flocks 

 and herds of the Regency continue in the hands of the Arabs. 



I notice that unirrigated crops of maize and sorghum are recommended 

 for summer forage purposes. It appears to me, however, that apart from 

 exceptional seasons, these crops are no more likely to prove advantageous than 

 is generally the case with us in the Lower North. Kale and the forage cab- 

 bages generally appear also to have their special advocates. No doubt, 

 under careful management, these winter crops will afford later grazing than 

 the spontaneous weed growth of a field temporarily out of cultivation ; 

 and to that extent they may prove helpful. They cannot be said, .however, 

 to solve the problem of a suitable supply of summer feed. Vetches, too, 

 appear occasionally to be grown, either alone or in conjunction with oats. 

 It is customary to utilise them in the form of hay, trusting to a good grazing 

 aftermath, in the event of a showery summer. 



