40 THE WORLDS MEAT FUTURE 



Climatic Control of Production 



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

 monwealth .Meteorological Bureau), recently issued a pamphlet 

 under tiie 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. 



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 

 growing, 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, for the reason that 

 decent labour which Mill give a fair day's work for a fair day's 

 wage is unprocurable. It was Charles Dickens who once 

 remarked at an agricultural dinner that " the field which paid 

 ohe 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 the producer in Australia and the consumer in 

 the centres of population in Europe closer together, and the 

 refrigerating chamber is opening up almost unlimited oppor- 

 tunities for the expansion of trade. The remarkable success 

 which attended experiments made in New Zealand in the 

 eighties in the shipment to England of frozen meat compelled 

 Australian breeders to look askance at the " boiling-down " 

 works which were employed for the purpose of dealing with 



