244: QUEENSLAND AGRICULTURAL JOURNAL. {1 Apri, 1902. 
due to the shortfall of production in the natural wheat regions of the colony 
and neighbouring States. One or two good seasons would again see wheat at 
such prices as can only mean loss or, at best, very little profit to the Karroo 
grower of irrigated wheat; for the increased demand due to short- 
fall will create a stimulated production from the natural wheat regions 
referred to. For the various reasons we have just reviewed, and 
because Nature can never be coerced, cereal-growing in the Karroo, 
even in favourable years, will néver be more than an uncertain “head T win, 
and tail you lose” sort of undertaking. It follows that all large Government 
irrigation schemes in the Karroo, based upon the growing of grain, and 
especially wheat, are more or less foredoomed to failure. Van Wyk’s Vlei 
scheme has already proved to be a failure for wheat-growing, for which it was 
mainly undertaken. The Steynsburg (Thebus) scheme, if undertaken, will 
probably be the next failure as regards wheat-growing. As a wheat-growing 
scheme, the Douglas irrigation scheme is foredoomed to failure at the prices 
paid to acquire plots of ground upon the site of the scheme, and the water rate 
imposed. It will require some far more profitable crop than grain growing to 
enable the Douglas scheme plotholders to work at a fair profit. The only 
consolation left to the taxpayer is that lucerne-growing or fruit-growing will 
most probably ere long supersede wheat growing upon the sites of these 
Government irrigation schemes, and thus eventually become a source of real 
profit and benefit to the country. With regard to the Slagter’s Nek scheme 
upon the the Fish River, mooted from time to time these twenty years, we do 
not suppose that any sane Government Commission would ever seriously 
recommend it after a careful inspection of the nature of the bulk of 
the ground lying below the proposed site. There are dozens of far more 
promising sites and soils for large irrigation schemes within this colony than 
the Slagter’s Nek site. To proceed with one subject, we assume that it will be 
readily granted that, to grow cereals in the Karroo generally, irrigation has 
to be resorted to. Since lucerne is well known to flourish better under irriga- 
tion than cereals do, clearly lucerne answers better to the peculiar conditions 
existing in the Karroo than do cereals. Lucerne appears to bea plant “ manu- 
factured to order” for the Karroo and arid countries like it. All those 
countries of the world where lucerne has become to be regarded as “the king 
of fodder plants” are arid countries like the Karroo, principally devoted to 
stock-farming on a large scale, and subject, like the Karroo, to protracted 
periodical droughts. ‘Lucerne is in its glory in just such countries when it is 
periodically flooded and then grazed or cut with the mower. The rainfall of 
the Karroo, or at any rate the bulk of it, is sufficient to give it this periodical 
flooding by taking the water from rivers, or conserving it in large dams filled 
from the rivers during the rainy season. 
Prorrr anp Loss—Crrears v. Lucerns—Costr or Ratstna WHEAq. 
We now propose to compare the profit of cereal-growing under irrigation 
with that of lucerne-growing under irrigation in the Karroo. We believe we 
are making a liberal estimate when we fix the average yield of wheat under irri- 
gation in the Karroo at about five bags of 225 Ib. each per acre per annum, 
taking a series of years of failures and successes. Mr. John Eaton, of 
“ Droogvlei,” in the Malmesbury district (about the best wheat district in the 
natural wheat region of the Western Province), a good farmer of long 
experience, writing to the Cape Times in 1886, estimated the previous five 
years’ average yield of wheat per acre at 73 bushels, equal to about two bags 
of 225 Ib. each per acre. Again, from tabulated reports of wheat yields from 
several coast districts of this colony, the average yield was only 6 to 8 bushels 
per acre, equal to about one and a-half to two bags of 225 Ib. each per acre: 
The general average yield of wheat even in the United Kingdom, under 
scientific and heavy manuring, sure rainfall, no locusts, comparatively little 
rust, is only 29 to 30 bushels, or about seven to eight bags of 225 Ib. each per 
annum. So that our estimated Karroo average (taking the good years with 
