South Australian Live Stock. 



517 



maintain at 2,500,000 francs (;£ 100,000) the annual sum to 

 be devoted in aid of this crop during the six years 

 comjnencing with 1898, while the minimum area giving 

 claim for a share of this money is reduced to five ares (one- 

 eighth of an acre). The law is applicable to Algeria. The 

 bonus is only to be accorded to cultivators, whether in France 

 or Algeria, upon the condition that the flax and hemp is sown 

 with the object of producing fibre, and not for the seed. 



A volume which the South Australian Government has 

 recently published gives the result of the 

 South Australian |^g^ enumeration of farm animals in the 

 Live Stock. 



colony, made m 1896, and. compares the 

 figures with the corresponding census which took place 

 three years previously. It is mentioned that during the 

 interval the colony suffered greatly through a variety of 

 untoward causes — viz., low prices of wool and stock, a 

 succession of poor lambings, consequent upon dry seasons, 

 and a drought unprecedented in extent and in duration. 



Horses were returned as numbering 180,211, compared 

 with 186,726 in 1893, a decrease of 6,515, or 3-49 per cent. 

 Horned cattle up to the year 1893 showed a fair annual 

 increase, especially in the far northern pastoral districts, 

 where the increase had been as much as 50 per cent, in two 

 years. At that date there were 411,793 head in the colony. 

 The number now returned is 337,225, or a decrease of i8°i2 

 per cent, in three years. The number of milch cows was 

 84,265. 



The number of sheep was 6,323,993, showing a diminution 

 in the flocks during the four years of no less than 828,054 head, 

 •or 11.58 per cent., this being attributed to the low prices of 

 wool and mutton, due to successive bad seasons and the 

 unprecedented drought, and to the consequent loss of lambs, 

 and increase of vermin. South Australian wool to the 

 amount of 47,042,861 lbs., valued at i^i, 228,991, was exported 

 in 1896. In 1887, the number of sheep was 6,500,000, and the 

 export of wool 42,602, 579 lbs. 



