157 
Agriculture in South Australia. 
of September 23, 1843, a model submitted to the Corn Exchange 
Committee by Mr. J. W. Bull, its inventor, is thus described : “ His 
machine consisted of a long toothed comb fitted to a close-bodied 
cart, the teeth being operated on by four revolving beaters with 
square edges, which would have the effect of taking off the ears 
and depositing them in the body of the cart.” 
Mr. Bull had not capital enough to bring his invention into 
practical working, and several years elapsed before the present 
Ridley’s stripper was brought out by the leading miller of the 
Colony, after whom it was named. It corresponds to the description 
given of Bull’s model, but in action it differs from it in one very 
important respect. In the hot dry climate of Australia it was soon 
discovered that if the wheat is allowed to get dead ripe, the beaters, 
instead of taking off the heads, strip or thresh them, so that the 
grain alone falls into the so-called “ body of the cart.” As soon as 
the headland is reached the corn is shot out, to be at once threshed 
and sacked. In the absence of rats and rain it may remain there 
till it can be sent to market. A stripper worked by one man and 
four horses will clear ten acres a day. In all operations upon the 
farm human labour is economised as much as possible. Ploughing 
is usually done with three-furrow ploughs, one man driving six 
horses, generally yoked three-and-three. 
A strict rotation of crops is nowhere pursued ; the soil and 
climate are said to be too dry for any of our English clovers, but many 
of those who say so have never tried to grow them. During an inspec- 
tion of more than 100 farms, I only remember to have seen one 
patch of red clover. It was growing luxuriantly upon good soil. 
The tenant reported that, once manured, it stands well for four or 
five years, and that he had been in the habit of growing it on his 
farm for fourteen years. Peas are the only leguminous crop com- 
monly grown in rotation. Wherever they had been tried I found 
abundant evidence that a crop of peas was better than a bare fallow 
for the succeeding wheat crop. 
Almost the only green crop commonly grown for horses and 
cows is lucerne, the deep roots of which enable it to stand in time 
of drought. The best farmers are gradually taking up the cultiva- 
tion of other crops for dairy and grazing, such as maize, sorghum, 
holcus, millet, and mangel. These are chiefly grown in the vicinity 
of Adelaide, and in the hills where the rainfall is more abundant 
and where a stimulus has been given to dairying by the establish- 
ment of factories for butter and cheese. Such factories are mostly 
upon co-operative principles, and promise to be of great benefit to 
the country, although none of those that I visited had been esta- 
blished long enough to enable me to speak with certainty of their 
financial success. 
It is in the growth of fruit trees, and especially of the vine, that 
most profit has been in late years made out of the land in South 
Australia. The similarity of the soil and climate to that of the 
south of France induced the colonists in early days to plant the 
vine and the olive, and both grew vigorously. The cultivation of 
