TO OVERCOME DROUGHTS. 
The man on the land in the Northern Hemisphere, after generations 
of experience, has learned his lesson, and is able to live in harmony 
with his environment. The severity of the annually recurring winters 
compels him to house and feed his stock; therefore, he must grow enough 
fodder to provide for them, and he must cull h‘s flocks and herds, so 
that the demand for fodder shall not exceed the supply. What helps 
him to learn his lesson is, that the recurrence of winter conditions, on 
the whole, is so regular, that he can arrange his programme of work 
by the almanac; and, not less, that he certainly knows that he will be 
ruined if he does not come up to the mark. So, knowing-exactly what 
he has to do, and how to do it, and what will happen if he fails to do 
it, he makes good, and abstains from talking nonsense and heresy 
about his relentless, cruel environment, even when the thermometer goes 
below zero; or about winter being a curse. In a word, he becomes a 
philosopher, in the primary sense of the word; and the idea of a long, 
weary gamble with malignant frost and ice finds no place in his mind. 
The man on the land in Australia, Sub-trop‘cal South America, and 
South Africa, has to carry out his work on a different basis, inasmuch 
as he has to learn how to adapt himself to Nature’s arrangements for 
giving the land its needed rest.and sweetening, not by a regularly, 
annually recurring winter-sleep, but by a periodical but not regularly 
recurring drought-sleep. Nature, in Australia, has provided a genial 
climate, with splendid-natural pasture-grasses and fodder-plants; with 
no hard, annually recurring winter, requiring the man on the land to 
house his stock, and grow crops to feed them under those cireum- 
stances, as well as to cull out all but what he can feed, and, in many 
cases, with procurable water, though it may not always be visible on the 
surface. Nevertheless, he has not yet learned to live in harmony with 
his environment so successfully as his representative in the Northern 
Hem sphere, because, though he knows from experience or from his- 
torical records that droughts are certainly to be looked for from time 
to time, he cannot tell from the almanac exactly when to expect them. 
This recurrence of droughts at uncertain intervals, which he cannot 
calculate—and Science cannot definitely help him in-that. respect at 
present—is a disturbing factor which periodically makes his environ- 
ment erratic, and puts him out of harmony with it. This uncertainty 
introduces the temptation to take chances, which may be disastrous, and 
underlies the idea of the “Gamble out West.” 
What Australia needs to learn, by the guidance and co-operation of 
Science—and there is no better way of doing it—is, how to insure 
against damage by droughts. That is:—(1) How to prevent the pro- 
_ duction of “ necessitous farmers,” requiring State aid, to the amount of 
about £1,000,000, in order to rehabilitate themselves after a visitation 
of drought. The State Treasurer reports that, already, £600,000 has 
been disbursed for this purpose. .Do-hard winters in the Northern 
Hemisphere ever or often produce “ necessitous farmers” requiring to 
be relieved by the State to such an amount? 3 
(2) How to prevent droughts from culling the herds and flocks on 
_ the customary colossal scale; and from obliterating the promise of. 
harvests. , Ras 
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