THE AORIGVLTUBAL JOURNAL. 



743 



Farming in iite Transvaal m 



A CORRESPONDENT kindly sends the 

 enclosed for publication ; it is ex- 

 tracted from a Johannesburg letter to the 

 "Daily Telegraph," and appeared in 

 August, 1899 : - 



The position here is that of England 

 reversed. You see it in the scenery. 

 At home we have too little sun, but the 

 moisture-fed grass or tree, moss or lichen, 

 creeps up to the very summit of the hills; 

 here dark, treeless, verdureless rocks 

 stand out against the unpitying back- 

 ground of a blazing firmament. In the 

 British Islands one looks too often on a 

 dull, heavy sky, with the unpleasant re- 

 flection that the sunshine which the land 

 wants is shedding fantastic beauty and 

 glory on the upper side of the canopy of 

 cloud. It may be the task of science to 

 show us some day how to rend that veil. 

 Possibly a ballon in electrical communi- 

 cation with the earth might open a way 

 through the clouds, which are often 

 charged like so many Leydon jars, and 

 let down light and heat. Arago used such 

 an instrument, the paragrele, in France to 

 prevent hailstorms. Here the task is to 

 get the rain, and having got it to keep it. 

 Miss Frances Macnab, who has written so 

 learnedly on African agriculture, tells a 

 story of a Scotch parson who was ap- 

 proached by his Presbyterian congregation 

 with a request that, in view of impending 

 drought, he would address the Lord on 

 the subject of rainfall. " No," replied the 

 sturdy Scot, " I will not insult the Al- 

 mighty by asking such a favour of Him 

 after the way in which you have let His 

 past mercies run away from you." That 

 was sound theology and exactly suitable 

 to the South African. When water fails 

 he prays and proclaims a fast day, forget- 

 ting that his indolence has allowed hun- 

 dreds of millions of tons to run to waste, 

 carrying with them to the ocean 

 the finest elements of his soil. The 

 poor kafir resorts to incantations, the Boer 

 to prayers. How much more rational is 

 the Reformed Dutch parson than the rain 

 doctor ? If, instead of spending a million 

 pounds on forts at Pretoria and Johannes- 



burg to keep out the English and mayhap 

 to overa\\ e them, the Government of this 

 Republic had devoted the money to wide- 

 reaching works of irrigation, thus allotting 

 the temporary revenues drawn from the 

 goldfields to measures of permanent value, 

 they might have helped the " arme Boer " 

 in the fearful crisis through which he is 

 passing ; but that is a policy yet to begin. 



Where Nature has provided storage or 

 permanent supplies, there and there only 

 they exist. Now and again in travelling 

 through the country you will see a dam 

 across some small valley, holding back 

 enough water to serve through the period 

 of drought ; if the wet season fails farmer 

 and cattle suffer. One may be permitted 

 to doubt whether stagnant and polluted 

 pools, exposed to an African sun for 

 several months, provide quite the right 

 fluid for even cattle to drink, and whether 

 this may not be one of the sources of the 

 many diseases to which all kinds of stock 

 are subject in this country. In presence 

 of man's perverse negligence Nature has 

 made an immense amount of underground 

 reservoir provision in these lands. In 

 the first place, the limestone rocks, with 

 their stalactite caverns, are natural cisterns 

 that never fail. Between here and Pre- 

 toria are great layers of dolomite, or mag- 

 nesian limestone, from which, at a height 

 of over 4,000 ft., issue perennial streams 

 that supply the capital and might irrigate 

 many square miles. Needless to say, 

 most of it runs wholly to waste. Close to 

 Pretoria the hills enclose a deep valley 

 that could easily be made into a lake, if 

 one had fancy enough to imagine aai in- 

 telligent Government in that capital. 

 Such a lake would be a thing of beauty, 

 as well as a grand reservoir. Moreover, 

 the soil of this sun-dried, flood-wasted, 

 and frequently sandstone surface is ex- 

 tremely porous, and you can hardly sink a 

 drill anywhere without finding water. 

 At Elandsfontein, on a hill-side, is a small 

 windmill, pumping up hundreds of tons 

 of water, and serving the adjoining town- 

 ship and hospital. It never fails, yet it is 

 difficult to see where the supply comes 



