no better authority than Mr. George Mair, of Groongal, and that 

 gentleman in a recent letter t© me, stated that during the last 

 severe drought he fed 40,000 sheep for four months on hay alone, 

 the quantity used being equal to about one pound per sheep per 

 day. It is only necessary to add that Mr. Mair was perfectly 

 satisfied with the course he adopted. Such an experiment suc- 

 cessfully carried out by one of the best authorities on practical 

 station management in New Sonth Wales speaks for itself, and 

 requires no comment. In the case here referred to the hay was 

 grown on the station, and was produced by irrigating the land 

 with water pumped from the Murrumbidgee, but Mr. Mair adds 

 that even if it had been necessary to buy the hay he would have 

 had no hesitation in doing so. The latter course was, in fact, 

 adopted on a neighbouring run, where the quantity of hay pro- 

 duced by irrigation proved insufiicient to meet requirements. 

 There are several other pastoral estates on the Murrumbidgee on 

 which irrigation is successfully practised, and a similar remark 

 applies to the Murray, the Lachlan, and the Darling. Irrigatiou 

 Las also been tried with satisfactory results on the Namoi and the 

 Gwydir ; in fact it may be stated generally that irrigation is a 

 proved success on all our Western rivers of any importance. Bear- 

 ing this in mind and taking into account the facts already pointed 

 out as to the small area of cultivated land which will provide for 

 the sheep which the land in its ordinary state will support, it is 

 clear that we have at hand a ready means of enormously reducing 



Utilization of the River Darling. 

 The driest and most unproductive part of the colony is that 

 situated west of the Darling, and next to this the district between 

 that river and the Lachlan. Roughly speaking, it may be stated 

 that below Walgett the Darling occupies the position of niaia 

 artery to a hundred thousand square miles of dry country. It i^ 

 sufficiently near the mark for the present purposes to assume that 

 the number of shotp which tins extent of countiy supports in an 

 average >ear i«, t* n millions The question of whether all the 

 more vdlu.ihle of tliese sheep could not be drafted to the river 



intn«sn!._ and iiiii.n.t Hit one. "if two ''millions of sheep, that is 

 onthttli .r t!„ ^h, 1, .umlxt, weie drafted on to the river fron- 



dunru' t< u! ino.nhs m !unn?g Uwt V^*sLep,'"vould'be 100,000 



Huit> to ord> slightly over 71 tons in every 

 Aould yield it least four crops of a ton each 

 the (juantity of hay re<iuired would involve 



