74 GEOGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION 
that under maize ; but the yield per acre of maize is as large again 
as that of wheat. In Victoria and South Australia also, wheat is 
the leading crop, oats and barley coming next at a great distance ; 
maize, sorghum and rye very small crops. The yield per acre of 
wheat in Victoria is 14 bushels, in South Australia only 7-8 
bushels. In Western Australia (south of the 29th parallel) wheat 
predominates, barley, oats, and maize coming a long way behind ; 
average yield of wheat, 11 bushels. In Tasmania wheat is the 
leading crop, then oats; barley insignificant ; the average yield 
per acre is variable, but normally nearly as high as in New 
Zealand. In the latter colony the proportions (but not the acre- 
age) of land under these three cereals were until recently about 
the same as in Tasmania, oats following close upon wheat ; but 
now there is more land under oats than under wheat ; the yield 
per acre is, wheat, 20 bushels, oats, 30, barley, 25; rye is cultivated 
in some parts. The cultivation of maize in New Zealand is con- 
fined to the North Island, the mean annual temperature of which 
is 57° F.; wheat, oats, and barley are grown principally in the 
South Island, which has a mean annual temperature of 52°—only 1° 
above that of London and New York. The long periods of 
drought, to which the Australian colonies are subject, are unknown 
in Tasmania and New Zealand. It will be noticed that the oat 
is as important a cereal in these two colonies as in the cold tem- 
perate regions of the northern hemisphere. The Australasian 
wheat crop is about 40,000,000 bushels. 
The world’s wheat crop is estimated to be 2,400,000,000 bushels. 
