DRY-FARMING CONGRESS, WICHITA, 1914 



189 



his wheat, and with the assistance of one boy takes care of his crop. These 

 stripper harvesters take six horses to draw them. They usually use one set 

 up until noon, and put on fresh horses for the afternoon. This method of 

 taking care of our wheat crop is an important one to us. I do not know 

 whether this machine would suit your conditions here, because to suit this 

 machine we made the machine to suit our conditions down there, and we 

 had to get a wheat that would not shed the grain and yet would beat out 

 quite easily. 



We have been growing grain to suit the different parts of the grain- 

 growing areas for the past 25 or 30 years, so that when a farmer comes 

 into the country, he goes to the Agricultural College to find out what kind 

 of wheat can be grown in the locality in which he is farming, so no ex- 

 perimental work is necessary. The experimental farmers in Australia 

 have done an enormous amount of good. In my state, we have thirteen 

 experimental stations; in some of the other states almost as many. These 

 are not only experimental stations as generally understood, but they are 

 also demonstration farms which in that particular locality demonstrate to 

 all the farmers living in that locality what may be produced in that par- 

 ticular locality to the best advantage. 



I want to allude to how the government assists the farmers. All the 

 railroads are owned by the state. The experience in Australia has proved 

 that this is all right, although you do not think it practical in this country. 

 We have a fixed rate beyond which the railroads cannot charge. Away 

 back in 1901 we proved to the whole of the population of Australia how 

 favorable it was for the people that the state owned the railroads. In 1901 

 we had the greatest drought that ever passed over Australia. Stock died in 

 thousands and millions. My state alone that year lost 9 million head of 

 sheep, but we saved all the breeding cattle and sheep because the govern- 

 ment owned the railroads, as they took them all out for $5 per carload, and 

 brought feed to the weakened stock at $5 per carload. By that method, we 

 saved 32 million sheep and 3 million cattle by this action of the railroads; 

 and the result was that in two years we were back to where we were before 

 the drought. 



In regard to one other thing, the state owns the telephones an (2 tele- 

 graph. I can send a message of 16 words for 24 cents from one end of the 

 country to the other. I have a business office in Sydney, and I pay for 

 my telephone service $40 a year for 2,000 calls. In San Francisco I pay 

 $168 for 2,000 calls, and the state owns the telephones in Australia. The 

 rates are so reasonable that you will find telephones in almost every far- 

 mer's house. Again, every farmer can send his children to a state school, 

 for the state runs the schools. The general taxation keeps the whole school. 

 Wherever there are twelve children in the district, the state will build a 

 schoolhouse. That is how we bring education right to the door of everyone 

 in Australia. These ideas have worked well for the people, especially for 

 the farming community of the country. 



