AUSTRALIA 3.^ 



toral Australia will never again be capable of carrying the same 

 quantity of stock. There is much of Australia "that can be 

 settled and developed, but legislation must restore confidence, 

 which has been so sadly shaken that I question whether we will 

 ever again see private enterprise as enthusiastic as in the past. 

 Certainly not till railways are extended, with branch feeders,. 

 will the out-back country be taken up and settled. The stud- 

 breeder in the inside country and the pastoralist out-back can 

 successfully fight and withstand droughts and keep vermin 

 within bounds, but the legislator can kill the freeholder and the 

 Crown lessee by a stroke of the legislative pen. And he is doing 

 it, and that spells national disaster." 



Climatic Control of Production. 



Mr. Griffith Taylor, B.Sc, B.E. (Physiographer to the Com^ 

 mon wealth Meteorological Bureau), recently issued a pamphlet 

 under the title "The Climatic Control of Australian Produc- 

 tion." He has made "an attempt to gauge the potential wealth 

 of the Commonwealth," and certainly that is one of the first 

 steps to take to promote rural expansion. (Here Mr. Gordon 

 gives some summarised extracts from Mr. Taylor's deductions, 

 and goes on to say) : — 



It would appear from Mr. Taylor's scientific deductions that 

 something more than natural climatic conditions is required to 

 enable the Commonwealth to carry with safety an increasing 

 number of cattle and sheep. The locking of the rivers, the 

 extension of irrigation, a greater use of artesian water supplies, 

 the cultivation of grasses and fodder crops will in time increase 

 the carrying capacity of the country. In this connection it is 

 worthy of note that during the period that New Zealand was 

 developing its meat export trade, and the population was grow- 

 ing, live stock steadily increased in numbers. Up to the present 

 time Australian live stock owners have given little attention to 

 the growing of feed supplies, while stall feeding in shelter sheds, 

 though shown by experiments to be profitable, is not practised 

 to any appreciable extent. It was Charles Dickens who once 

 remarked at an agricultural dinner that "the field which paid 

 the farmer best to cultivate was the one within the ring fence 

 of his own skull." That statement contains a more important 

 truth to-day than it did in the time of the great novelist. Science 

 is conspicuously aiding the tiller of the soil who places himself 

 in a position to be assisted. Improved ocean transit has brought 



