156 
AGRICULTURE IN SOUTH AUSTRALIA. 
In the latter part of 1890 I had occasion to spend three months in 
the Colony of South Australia, and a great part of the time was 
devoted to inspecting arable farms within a radius of fifty miles 
from Adelaide. Most of these farms were brought under cultivation 
within a few years of the foundation of the Colony in 1836, and 
the land was carefully selected for its fertility. In those early days, 
if the land was only tickled with a hoe, it was sure to laugh with a 
crop. Fifteen to forty bushels per acre of wheat were grown with 
no other tillage than a shallow ploughing. The crop was cut with 
the scythe, and threshed upon a level piece of ground by an imple- 
ment like a huge butter- worker, a fluted cone of wood 10 feet long 
tapering from 2 feet 6 inches at one end to 6 inches in diameter at 
the other, fastened at its small end by a ring to a post and drawn 
round by horses attached to the other end. For many years the 
land yielded highly remunerative crops of wheat. Year after year, 
however, the same crop was repeated, the straw was burnt upon the 
ground, and no manure was applied to it : the inevitable result 
followed in a diminution of the yield, clearly perceptible through all 
the fluctuations produced by varying seasons and the occasional visit- 
ations of locusts and red rust. For the last nine-and-twenty years 
continuous wheat growing has been abandoned, and not less than 
one-half of the land has been left each year unploughed. A large 
portion of the wheat grown within easy carting distance of Adelaide 
has been cut green and converted into hay, and the proportion thus 
used has much increased within the last few years. 
Although these changes for the better have delayed, they have 
not been sufficient to arrest, the process of exhaustion. The Govern- 
ment statistics for the whole Colony show that in the nine years, 
1863-1871, the average yield of wheat per acre was 10 bushels 4 lbs. ; 
in the ten years, 1872-1881, it was 8 bushels 23 lbs., and in the ten 
years, 1882-1891, it was 5 bushels 58 lbs. A considerable part of 
this falling-off in the average during the last decade is due to land 
being taken up by farmers in the north, beyond the line where the 
rainfall is reliable and sufficient for wheat growing ; but apart from 
this there is no doubt that in the older settled districts, where the 
rainfall is usually sufficient, the wheat crop has of late years often 
been unprofitable. 
To an English farmer it would appear almost impossible that in 
a country where wages are double what they are in England a crop 
of even ten bushels per acre could be grown and harvested with 
profit, much less one of barely six. It would be impossible if 
harvesting were attempted by any of the appliances used in other 
parts of the world. 
Colonial ingenuity was very early directed to the construction 
of a machine that Avould gather in the harvest with the least 
possible expenditure of hupiaji labour. In the Adelaide Observer 
